Caterwauling

Amazing the random series of thoughts that plague you when you’re sitting with a notebook all day, writing them down as they occur to you. …

DOMESTICITY

It is only now that we are being evicted that my neighbors and I talk to each other. And other than the B.O./cologne bandit bunch, I’ve been coexisting with some really good people. Although I am jealous that most of them are buying property to move to. And I also never realized how HOT Eddie in 103 is. *rowr*

I think I might have to hire movers. Because if it’s me and the two who offered to help, I am going to end up throwing away a lot more than I already planned to.

No, I still haven’t found a place. I haven’t even bought any boxes, let alone packed them. I keep hoping for a miracle to fall into my lap and I’ll find my dream place and it’ll be just the right price and I’ll walk out of the house with the clothes on my back and a cat under each arm and start all over from scratch.

I’m looking to move pretty quickly. I need to be out at the end of May but I understand lots of people are away from work that month and I get the idea that it would be appreciated if I did the life-upheaval thing sooner rather than later (read: April). It’s a money issue at this point, although I’d prostitute myself to not have to sit in traffic again anytime soon!

I think my blood pressure will go down quite measurably when my commute evaporates. I mean, that’s two hours a day, on average, that I’m in the car when I’ve got laundry/cleaning/going out/other fun stuff that I could be doing otherwise.

EXISTENTIALISM

I’ve been a big fat ball of suck lately. Stressed out, worried, exhausted, unhappy. Because I am the type of person who pretends everything is shiny and happy and fine until the point comes when I’m ready to erupt (usually over something dumb). I’ve in effect pushed everyone away from me and when I need to process my thoughts aloud the most, I don’t feel right dumping it on anybody. So I don’t.

The thing about that? My theory on friendships is like the bank account — both make deposits, both can withdraw. I’ve been the friend who kept adding to the account while others were only siphoning and there was nothing left for me in the end. And now, I’ve become the one who hasn’t been adding anything and I feel I have no right to even ask for an advance.

You know what worries me more than anything? When my hunches and visions and deja vu dissipate. I fare well when I get a glimpse of the future — even if it’s simply a future that I want (i.e., a daydream) rather than something that might actually be coming (i.e., a premonition).

I had a heart-to-heart talk with myself today, and it came to me that I can see the NEXT part of my life clearly — I just can’t see how I will GET there from here. But identifying the problem is probably half of the solution. I’ve been busy picking at scabs when I should be slathering them with Neosporin.

I have a question to answer for my performance review regarding where I’d like to see my career in 12 months. I am thinking about applying that one to my life (not to turn in to be kept in my personnel file, mind you) — where do I want to be in 12 months? Lately I feel like I’ve been swimming against the current, like I’ve sort of been trying to fight against things that are probably naturally ordained to happen. Let’s chalk this one up to “Needs Improvement” and not ask someone with my (current) self-image to try to rate herself when she’s feeling like a 3 out of 10 in just about every life domain at present.

It’s been a crappy couple of weeks for me. Just a random series of suckitude coupled with feeling like shit on a shoe. There’s a line from one of my favorite songs that says, “How do you dream when you can’t fall asleep?” And I haven’t been sleeping. Nor have I been dreaming. It’s been sort of voluntary, though — like I’ve thrown the wrench into the works in this odd experiment in which I tried to discover if I’d be happier if I didn’t dream at all because you can’t miss what you never wanted.

IN SUM

Believe it or not, I’m in a healthier mindset than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve just been struggling because there are so many things I’ve wanted to do — things I’ve wanted to love and cherish — and I’m just not feeling it. At least, maybe not in their current incarnations. And Miss Passive-Aggressive takes it out on herself for not being able to be Suzy Sunshine even on the small scale — for coming apart at the seams when she tries to stuff her true self away. For searching relentlessly for peace and for seemingly missing it at every turn. For knowing what I want and not going after it, well, just because.

I’m not as perfect as I thought I was 10 years ago. Not even close. But I’m starting to see that instead of getting mad at myself for not being as self-sufficient as I claimed I’d always be, I need to channel that energy into cultivating an environment where someone else might not be afraid to step in and help. Because right now, there’s barbed wire surrounding an electric fence, in which I have ensnared myself. And maybe instead of keeping the doors closed so that no one can see the mess inside, it’ll be a relief to let someone else in long enough for them to say, “It’s not so bad. Really.”

Because I’ll bet it really isn’t. All I need is the fresh perspective — one I will believe in — to see that.

Back in the day, I used to love to blog about “American Idol” and the triumphs and seeming injustices of it all, but the bottom line was that I was in love with the “characters.” From Simon to Randy to all of the contestants, I identified “my” winners early on and cheered them on till the end.

That said, I am lovin’ me some Mandisa this season. Unless she does a horrible performance (and I highly doubt it), she’s got my text-message vote till the end of time.

Simon had been a dick about her after her audition. And when she made it to the finals, she had an opportunity to confront him about it. She did so with grace, poise, dignity and CLASS. I fell more in love with her than ever before.

She rocked SOCKS the other night when she performed. In fact, I only managed to stay awake to watch her and Kellie Pickler, as I was exhausted from travel and actually BORED by everyone else who followed them that night.

I was talking to my best friend about her today. We were raving about her inner calm and her outer showmanship. And we expressed a lot of envy about her confidence. The whole thing about Simon insulting her was based solely on her size, and she doesn’t let that matter to her. She went to him and said she FORGAVE him for what he said. She admitted that she’d felt very hurt by his words but that she could move on from it. And that totally won his respect … and my admiration.

She reminds me very much of me — an earlier version of me, though. She dresses how she wants, she emanates passion and excitement and originality, and she isn’t afraid to be herself. I try to be that way even now, but there’s such a layer of trepidation anymore that I’m having a hard time shaking off.

My friend and I were talking about how we are always overflowing with ideas and motivation and that we want people to sit up and take notice of us — to see us as well as listen to us. But the years have corroded our respective self-images so much that we’ve sort of become afraid of being seen. I think there’ve been so many instances of us being seen and not being taken seriously that we just keep our brilliance and magnitude to ourselves. And maybe no one would expect any just by looking at us. Boy, are they wrong if that’s true.

If you look at ‘Idol’ contestants, you’ve got the butterfaces with good voices, the pretty people with OK voices and then the so-called “underdogs” who don’t supposedly look like traditional pop stars but who can, as an old boss of mine used to say, “SANG!” But really, those in the last category are gorgeous on the inside, and with the right training and encouragement, it comes to the forefront and transforms said budding star into an actual star.

It’s always been my belief that there is beauty in everyone and everything. Even though I’ve (of late) stopped including myself in that general statement. I’ve sort of lapsed into an oblivion of feeling small and insignificant and maybe even not worthy of notice, and while I’m not exactly OK with it, it is what it is and I’ve figured it’s just a phase.

The thing is, after you’ve heard enough voices tearing you apart, you learn to anticipate what they’re going to say and you end up with those evil little voices chanting within you — preparing you for the worst. Problem is, you rehearse them so often that they can become all that you hear above the quiet yet strong voice beneath it that would lift you up to where your spirits should be.

But you can’t keep me down for very long. Rather recently, my mind somehow rewired itself and made me really, truly want — I don’t know — *something.* And maybe what’s popped into my head is what I want and maybe it’s what I’ll get, but god, just to have some kind of dream to hold on to, however unrealistic and/or unattainable it might be right now — it’s like my psyche threw me a life preserver.

Sometimes I get scared to dream. Like, what if I get my hopes up? Can I stand to be shattered again? Should I just lapse into a fog and not really want anything so I won’t have yet another disappointment to overcome?

And then, I mentally kick myself and think about my novels that would go unwritten, the poetry that would never evolve into a verse, the potential creativity and love and contributions to this world that would go unrealized. I have to sometimes force myself to stop saying, “It’ll never happen” and reprogram myself to say, “It hasn’t happened YET.”

I always say, “Speak it into existence.” Want something? Go after it. Picture it. Envision what you’ll be wearing, what you’ll say, what sensory influences will mark the moment when you finally achieve your milestone. Don’t be afraid to dream … instead, be afraid of all the great things you’d miss out on by squelching your wildest thoughts.

Achievement begets greater achievements. And if we’re so dead-set against others holding us back, why do we hold OURSELVES back?

So, until I finish gathering the irreverent strength that I know is hiding within me somewhere (as I’ve seen it before and need to dust it off), I will be cheering on Mandisa as she takes advantage of her chance to set the world on fire in any way she can.

My turn is coming next, I can feel it in my soul and my bones. I might not be on a nationally televised stage, but hey, you never know what can happen. The first step is re-emerging from my self-inflicted shell. The second step can be as far of a leap as I’m ready to make. …

I have had one of those weeks in which I have been busy and definitely put in some looong hours, but I don’t feel like I have a friggin’ thing to show for it. *pfft*

WHY YES, I DO GET ‘SLIPPERY WHEN WET’

Bon Jovi is in town this week. On a freaking work night. *sigh*

There is seriously nothing that makes me happier than Bon Jovi music. I mean, I am psychotically addicted to it. And I have never missed a show of theirs — whenever they come to town, I’m so there. I missed their Dec. 17 show at the MCI Center because I was in Vegas, but I figured I’d catch this show. But then money crises came one after the other and are still in progress, and blah blah blah whineycakes, I never got a ticket.

So today, I said fuck the phone bill — I need a Jon Bon Jovi fix. I’m depressed, damn it!

Alas, I debated about spending the $98 a seat, plus $12.50 Ticketmaster fee PLUS the $4 fee to have my ticket e-mailed to me, and I thought about the best-case scenario of rushing out at what other folks would call “on time” and then what traffic would be like at that time and whether I could go home and park at my local Metro station and take the Metro to MCI center and still actually *see* the concert.

But alas, lest I get called a whiny, sniveling bitch again on my own website, I’ll do the rest of my whining behind the “more” tab.

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Happy anniversary to me. I’ve gotten through one year on the job without killing anybody (or myself) or blogging about it. Whee! Celebration indeed!

I’ve learned, I’ve grown, I’ve seen more of the world than I ever dreamed possible. I’ve had hornets butterflies and I’ve seen victories. I’ve had days when I wondered what the hell I was doing with my life and others where I couldn’t for the life of me come up with a better place to be.

They say the journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step. Well, judging by my car, I’ve driven 21,000 miles, so I think it’s fair to say that I’ve logged more hours and done more commuting in a year than most do in three.

What a year it’s been. It was my “get back on my feet” year — there was a lot of convalescing done in my heart and in my head. But I got back to work, I got back into writing for myself, and I recovered my ambition to rejoin the human race.

This year is the “get back on my feet financially” one. As well as a continuation of rejoining the land of the living. There are certain life milestones that I assumed would never be for me. It’s not that I never wanted them — I just never figured they’d come to me. And it seemed that no matter how many hours I’ve ever worked or how many jobs I juggled at one time, I never felt like I caught up, let alone got ahead. And all of that came at the expense of not only being forced to start my career all over again, but also at passing up people who could have possibly been those with whom I could have been reaching those life milestones.

When I was leaving my old job, someone asked me why I felt compelled to blog so much of my life — in her (paraphrased) words, why couldn’t I just go out and find someone to date and just talk things out of my system and move on from them? I would have preferred to have a real, live human, of course. In response, I had inquired when I was supposed to find the time to meet someone when I had an ankle bracelet chaining me to the desk — I was too burned out to go be “on” for potential dates.

Those who’ve been with me through my many blog incarnations know that the format has changed, but not radically. I have gone from trying to teach lessons from my trials to just telling you, in the most roundabout way possible, what is happening in my world. But it occurs to me that by leaving out so much of the scary/sad/terrifying, I’m also depriving you of the evolution I’ve experienced to get to the other side of the moat.

I’ve met so many of you during the past year. And while we all aspire to be one thing online, it’s the offline characters who are truly captivating. I just wish there were a world in which we could all blog freely — because isn’t that the point? Growing together, learning from each other, enjoying who we are and having fun finding out exactly who that person is.

But we hide so much, and well, I guess that’s the way it goes and always will. I look at it as dating — you don’t want to know everything and then some about the person from the first minute. You want things to unfold, to incrementally get to know someone, to like the good points they show you before you get to the less-charming idiosyncrasies. And if there’s never another date, well, they get to remember you when you had your game-face on. It’s when the facade crumbles that we get into trouble, anyway. It’s when they decide they didn’t want you after all, or that they can’t live with the whole package.

Which is why I’m happy where I am for now. I can be me. It’s like you were previously in a relationship where someone tried valiantly to mold you into their version of perfect, and then you find someone who not only tolerates, but maybe even enjoys, you.

Imagine all the wondrous things we would be able to achieve if our heads weren’t so jam-packed with the sandbags of constant worry weighing us down. To take all the stressors and replace them with dreams, achievement, unwinding, pampering.

The world is missing out on so much — we deprive the universe of our talents and capabilities and creations when we’re fretting about dumb shit that won’t even matter when we’re dead.

I face today, and every day thereafter, knowing how far I’ve come (and knowing that I’ve traveled these roads twice before). So I’m not where I’d planned to be. But apparently the universe had a different plan for me than I did, and it’s in motion. And I can’t wait to see where I am next year at this time. …

OK, how the hell do comments break on a weblog? Seriously? Thanks for the e-mails — I didn’t realize anybody was reading this crap.

I tried changing the template to see if it would be restored, but nothin’. If there are any guardian angels out there who can take a shot at it (and no, I haven’t upgraded to WordPress 2.0), then I’ll be your friend for life. Unless you don’t want me as a friend. So then I will stalk you instead. 😉

Anyway, I was thinking more about the idiosyncrasies post, and I have yet another to submit, as weirdness is a way of life.

What happens is that I feel stress and anxiety from every angle right now, and that’s OK — it’s the story of my life. But how I react to it is very diametric, depending on the situation and who’s around. Several of you who know me know that I can shut down and not breathe a word — I can smile like nothing’s wrong and I can make you believe I’m suzy goddamned sunshine. But then there are other days that I just want to stomp and shout and go assault a dartboard with mental pictures planted squarely in the bullseye.

It’s weird, really. If you tell me a secret, I will keep it till the day I die. But there’s something inherently wonky in my wiring that prohibits me from truly squelching what’s bothering me. I mean, I try to swear and rant and snark and just plain bleed the wound so that the poison is no longer in my body. And sometimes, it really works.

But more often than not, all I want is just one single solitary person to whom I can rant absolutely uncensored. I don’t want to worry that it will be held against me at a later date and time. I don’t want anyone to think me difficult and unpleasant and, well, NOT easygoing. Because I try to be, but it’s those things that I really AM squelching that start to rear their ugly heads in other ways that impact my demeanor and my choice of words and my inability to fully reign in my emotions and maybe even actions.

The comedian Chris Rock had a great take on that insofar as dating — he said that you (as “you”) can’t show up to a date — you send your representative, ’cause no one would ever want you as you are. The older I get, the more experiences I’ve had in which people prefer the quiet, smiling, agreeable version of myself that really doesn’t exist. The passionate, opinionated, restless one always bubbles to the surface eventually, but going back to my earlier point, it’s likely because I don’t really tell anybody the full story about anything.

We have a saying in my line of work that perception is greater than reality. Applied to humans, I guess we distort our own realities so much that we don’t even remember sometimes who we started out trying to be. And for me, a victorious day is one that ends with generating the hype but not always believing it. A truly wonderful day, however, ends with someone else understanding exactly why you feel the way you felt — and loving you anyway.

I wasn’t expecting fireworks and confetti or anything like that, but standing here, sleep-deprived and spent, I want to somehow celebrate — you guessed it — this:

The story isn’t over, of course, but it is a good time to take a break. I need to dream up something rather dastardly, and believe it or not, that simply isn’t my nature. I get good and mad in life, don’t get me wrong. Rev me up and watch my head spin. But honestly? I’m more apathetic than anything.

A REAL FIRST — AND HOPEFULLY NOT THE LAST FIRST

I mean, I just don’t finish things I start. EVER. One thing I miss about being in upper management (and perhaps it’s the only thing) is the possibility of having a really good staff who would listen to my visions and execute my ideas with whatever methodology worked best for them. Because left to my own devices, all those ideas got trapped in my head when something more shiny caught my eye.

So, that I wrote 115 pages, well, damn. Go, me. But what scares me? That I will leave my poor characters suspended in their drama — that I will look at the book next October and go, enh. Didn’t get to finish it. Oh well. Too bad, so sad.

I was kind of thinking about how to do something evil to my beloved characters when I realized that I walk away from everything. Not intentionally, but when I’m done with something, I’m really done. I don’t mean to be that way — but when I give up, there’s no going back.

POWER FAILURES, GENERATORS

I was asking my mom the other day why I seem to put off so many people (we were talking about particular people). She reminded me that I was put off by THEM in the first place, so of course they weren’t going to find me lovable. Heh. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

She also revealed that I intimidate the shit out of practically everyone I meet. Mild little me? Was she for real? She said few people know who they are and can articulate it at every turn, and that makes some people quake in the presence of that trait.

I don’t know. I don’t know that I’m all that strong or smart or even ambitious anymore. I just feel like I’ve lost chunks of my life and, thus, pieces of my identity — and “completing” (as it were) my novel gave me back the power I’d lost

TO START ANEW OR TO CONTINUE, THAT IS THE QUESTION

I realize that, in never finishing things I start, I’ve walked away from numerous arguments and situations — ranging from the volatile to the downright frustrating or just BORING — because that’s my nature. Things in my past are dead to me. Sure, I reflect here and there, but it’s mostly to examine what happened so I can learn a lesson and REALLY nail the coffin to the past.

One lesson I’ve picked up is that my impatience is overpowering. I want immediate results or I don’t want to play the game. Or maybe I can wait for awhile but then I become a pressure cooker of sorts.

So the neat thing about NaNoWriMo was that I was the only one who could make myself win. I had to organize my time to allow for two extended periods away from the computer. I was the one who had to budget whether an extra hour of sleep or that extra thousand words would make me feel more alive.

The latter always won.

And thus, so did I.

So, I’m not so sure I made an actual point with this entry. Maybe all I was looking to do was see it in black-and-white that I set my mind to kick ass, and I did. And that I need to keep up the momentum by kicking my OWN ass because the pressure of the deadline is gone.

I don’t work well without deadlines and certainly not with arbitrary ones. For as free-spirited as I am, there’s a part of me that craves structure. I am a taskmaster when I want to be, but if no one’s holding me accountable, well, the free spirit reigns supreme.

Maybe I’m afraid of committing to anything (or, let’s face it, anyone) because I’m so afraid I’m going to lose that spirit. But maybe what I hadn’t considered all these years is that, the more familiar I am with someone/something, the more creative I can become in keeping things interesting.

Which is why I’ve opted to write a book series for NaNoWriMo every year as opposed to new, wacky and wild storylines. Because I know these characters so well that it actually DOES hurt me to hurt them. But that’s what makes me fix up their boo-boos after I’ve finished annhilating their lives.

And maybe, to bring this full circle, that’s what I need to do with me. Be patient, gather my strength and rock socks in any way I can. Even if it’s a series of quiet victories rather than the huge splash I’d rather be making.

Someday, I’ll get my fireworks. And maybe I’ll be able to relax and watch them sparkle and shine. Maybe someday, others will be watching me do the exact same thing.

Good things reportedly come to those who wait, but do they stop for those who are too busy to notice?

Or am I just doing things right this time around and the reward will come when it’s ready to and not necessarily when I’m ready for it?

Either way, give me the strength to play my part flawlessly in the interim. And beyond.

Unrelated, if you missed my characters taking on a life of their own, then you need to go catch that discussion. It’s magnificent.

But the question at this juncture of the book is, which one of you is the father? And will our heroine ever really know? 😉

Life isn’t horrible.

Stay with me — this is quite the revelation.

Things are just good, y’know? Not great, mind you — they could always be better. But allow me to bask in the complete non-suckage of my existence at this moment in time.

If I could just get my anxiety under control, then things would be great. But I’m grateful for the times when I actually can breathe and laugh and simply be. I’d nearly forgotten who I was for quite some time.

And the creativity? Flowing. Gushing. Oozing. May it last through — and beyond — NaNoWriMo.

Subtitle: Going through the motions

It’s long and drawn-out — what do you expect? Skip to the last section for a summary, if you wish — this post is about not doing what you don’t want to do. I’ll kick your ass later. 😀

If there is a life lesson with which I am more familiar than any other, it is that joy and pain are not the slightest bit mutually exclusive. Yin and yang and all that hoopla — we’re always bouncing between one extreme and another, often simultaneously.

But therein lies a purgatory called quietude (that’s what I call it — it’s when you’re just hanging in there, waiting for the next thing to happen that will swing the pendulum in one direction or the other.) And that is where I have been finding myself, of late, more often than not.

‘E’-MOTION SICKNESS

When I talk about “going through the motions,” I don’t just mean pretending that you’re having a grand old time in the sack (see: pizza theory, the). I mean that it seems like we’re always trying to cover who we really are and what we really want, just so that we do not annoy or offend or, god forbid, make waves.

Because waves? Can pummel us, fill our lungs with water and, in essence, take us under to where we don’t know where we are or how we can escape. If we even want to, that is.

And I hate to sound like a petulant child, red-faced and clenched-fisted, stomping my feet and hollering like a demon, but I had one of those revelations recently that we waste so much time trying to care — or even pretend to care — and for what?

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Actually, I take that back — I had the Best. Day. Ever. And what’s weird was that it wasn’t a specific event or achievement or conversation that made it that way (although, those did factor in pretty heavily).

I’m pretty sure, though, that it was the fact that I stepped into an old costume today, that being of the *Dawn* I used to be. It needs a few alterations, of course, but it feels fuzzy and warm and has such a familiar, lightly perfumed scent that I’d forgotten that I’d left behind.

Yes, today was “Sassy Dawn” Day.

God, I’ve missed her.

In my head, I’ve been strutting like John Travolta in “Staying Alive.” Now, to just pick MY theme music!

HERE’S TO NOT GIVING UP

I give Ted full credit for beating my spirit back into me (literally — LOL) this weekend. I have spent the last year (and probably a hell of a lot longer) as a mere apparition of my true self, and so few people were able to either remember the fearless chick I used to be or see past the facade-of-the-day that I put up to disguise myself … to the point that I barely remembered what I was hiding, as I seemed to be in hiding all the damned time.

I give props to Ted (and some others — you know who you are) in my life for not taking me at face value — for letting me stop talking if that’s what I want to do, yet for not allowing me to stay silent or to let my random utterings go unqualified. And for just listening, damn it — for letting me bleed the wounds so they can just heal already.

It’s not that I’ve written off my thoughts as unimportant — for the past year (and yes, maybe more), I’ve written myself off as unimportant.

That shit? Stops NOW.

I had one of those weekends and one of those days today in which I simply let go and had fun. I wasn’t on guard, wondering who was judging what I had to say and who was watching my reactions to everything. I said exactly everything at the moment it occurred to me, and I did it unfiltered.

I felt do damned liberated that I’d’a burned my bra, had I actually been wearing one. 😉

In any event. …

TIME TRAVEL THROUGH ART

We went to the Hirschhorn and to the Freer and Sackler Galleries. My favorite place in the entire world (that’s indoors) is the Hirschhorn, which is filled with contemporary paintings and sculpture.

I am not an art junkie, admittedly. My scope of beauty stems from whether the work pleases me aesthetically — that is what makes it art, in my view. It needs to be living, breathing and inciting me to want to run out and create something of my very own.

There are two kinds of art I love — impressionism and postmodernism. My passion in contemporary works is for paintings and graphics and sculptures that look like they could have been created rather easily today, but then you look at the little sign next to them and see that they’re 80 years old and you say, “Damn.” That’s all — just damn. That’s visionary.

One of my (myriad) quirks is that I MUST stop and read the sign next to every piece of art. I need to know who did it, what they called it, what they made it from, and any other extraneous detail that the curator chose to share.

I do this because I can see the love and effort that went into crafting each piece, and even if it doesn’t aesthetically please me, I want to get some sort of insight into it.

That’s why I wish we would be able to touch the works. I know, the oils from our hands (and the destructiveness of some people) would damage these irreplaceable treasures. But I almost wonder if I could somehow channel the muse that inspired each work — or, maybe, I could get inside the artists’ heads, by touching the same materials that they molded so wonderfully.

I was at the Carnegie art museum in Pittsburgh a million years ago, bumming around and killing time, when I stumbled upon the Impressionist wing. And I felt electrified.

It was very strange — I walked up to each and every work and knew who had done it without even looking at the signs. I was somehow possessed, or at least in some otherworldly dimension, as I breathed such names as Degas, Renoir, Rodin, Cezanne and Matisse.

Now sure, anyone with half an IQ point knows a Monet. But the rest? Where the hell did that COME from?

If you believe in past lives, I sort of came into my own at that moment and realized I may very well have lived during that era. I speak French pretty well (I learned it for five years, duh) and have always had a passion for that region — I don’t feel like this life will be complete if I don’t get my happy ass to France to see if that electrifying feeling that I experienced in the hallowed halls of the Carnegie weren’t just an indicator that I have some connection to that time.

I promise, I don’t just want to go so I can stalk Johnny Depp. Although if I happen to turn up in one of his trash cans, don’t be surprised.

Until then. …

BACK TO THE FUTURE PRESENT

There were three pieces at the Hirshhorn that struck me. One, I can’t locate in the online collection, but the other two are Diana and Patty.

Patty is just fucking disturbing, yet I spent a good half-hour with her, including the time I was looking over my shoulder as we moved away from that sculpture. It’s a naked, pregnant girl on a bed with a tiny headboard yet a bigger footboard. There is a photo of a baby on the wall and a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water on the nightstand.

Patty has a shaped, plaster body, but her head is a glass portrait of someone’s profile. She was literally staring into a brightly lit headlight. If you go around the wall with the headlight (the wall has trunk handles. Bizarre), you see five fists, each of which is holding a cross of some sort. Ted and I pondered that one for a long time, and the proximity sensors kept sounding off as I kept trying to step into the scene to uncover more details. Morbid, grotesque and goddamned magnificent, all told.

Diana (not safe for work, kids) spoke to me — the real me. She’s naked and crossing her arms, her hands on her shoulders. I’d thought it was a photograph, the lines were so crisp from across the room. But, alas, she is a portrait, and a beautifully done one at that, down to her not-so-attractive feet and yet to the curve of her biceps and, well, to the exquisite detail of her girly bits.

I fell in love with her expression, her stance, her guardedness. Naked from the waist down yet crossing her arms over her heart. She reminded me of someone I used to be many moons ago — her aura emanated, “You can fuck me but I won’t let you love me.”

AS IN ART, SO IN LIFE

It’s amazing how I can feel so damned alive looking at works by artists who may have passed, of subjects who may no longer exist — if ever they even did. And so, I may not be able to touch the works, but I feel them.

And it kind of kicked me in the ass that my existence is not a still life. Nor was it ever meant to be. Nor, then, shall it continue to be.

Damn it. 😉

One thing that those of you who are not fortunate enough to know Ted would adore about him is not just how smart he is, but how he is committed to setting an example. He teaches me to expect a certain level of regard from others. I am simply not allowed to merely accept anything less than what I would (right now) consider a royal treatment but what I *should* consider as business as usual.

From opening doors to every other possible courtesy, he let me know that he will break my arm if I try to do for myself what someone else should be doing for me. 😉

And when a girl’s never had somebody treat her so well, it’s an eye-opener that it’s not wrong to want to be worshipped. 😉 As a dear friend, he’s setting a supremely high standard for people who may come into my life.

For me, it also shows me that I unfairly and oftentimes unnecessarily beat myself up — I need to command respect from myself just as much as from others. The old Dawn used to be that way — the old Dawn knew how to illuminate the world, true to her name.

The old Dawn has re-awakened. It’s time for the season of darkness to go away and for the season of light to start burning again.

Thank you — to all of you — for having faith that this day would, in fact, arrive. Again.