8 years.

Today is the birthday of a friend of mine who passed away nearly 8 years ago. She was perhaps the first adult to listen to me on a personal level outside of my family and teachers. We'd have long conversations, about what I no longer recall. I loved her with the awkward simplicity of my late teenage years, at a time when the foundations of my world were shaking.

Looking back now, I'm amazed that I only knew her for a year and a half. Her impact on my life and my outlook seems much to profound for such a short time. I carry her gift quite literally as my lucky charm, and a shield against self-doubt.

Big.

Getting over a virus induced cold can be a serious pain in the arse. I've been sick since monday night. Wednesday, in the middle of a most wonderful meeting, my runny nose turned into a scratchy throat complete with cough. So now I've not been sleeping well either.

But.

I've found myself reaching out to my mom so much more. Its that comfort thing, you know? When you're feeling less than fabulous, you want the comfort of hearing your mommie's voice. And today we had a really wonderful two and a half hour conversation. (Thank god for free weekends). We got to talking about shows portraying women. And how most of the stuff out there on the major networks just isn't compelling. And then I went on about Sex and the City. How it tackles some very similar issues, but yet doesn't take itself too seriously. I talked about how Carrie meets Big - in the very first episode. How she's doing a column on 'women who have sex like men', and is talking about it with Big. He says 'oh I see, you've never been in love'. And as he drops her off, she turns back and says 'Wait. Have you ever been in love?' He replies 'Abso-fucking-lutely'.

And so, tonight, while keeping myself indoors in a seriously over heated apartment, I ended up watching the first and last two episodes of Sex and the City. Like so many others, I feel myself drawn to these four women. Yes, they are often outrageous, and often caricatures. But the writers of this series also treated these women with love and respect, and more importantly allowed them to grow past the cliches. So that last episode, where Carrie and Big are on a bridge in Paris, and he comes out with 'Carrie you're the one', sends shivers down my spine.

Damn I hope the rumors of the writers' strike being nearly over are true. I miss them :S

And thank god I get to spend my Valentines day with one of my bestest friends :D. She's the oddest cross between Samantha and Charlotte, and we're going on a quest for the girliest martinis :D Clearly, it'll be fabulous. And TROUBLE ;)

stranger than...

I've been going to a number of author readings in recent months. I've become somewhat of a compulsive collector of first edition copies of books. So much so, that I had to go out an get special cabinets for them so that they'd be safe from my cats' claws.

The thing that pretty much every author has said is that you have to trust your characters. You give them quite a bit, and then most importantly, you allow them to surprise you. If you do it right, your characters take on a life beyond your plans and become quite a lot more than flat.

So. Tonight. Saturday night. Moderate plans that distinctly involved leaving the house. Arrive character at night time. Character has a headache. Character decides to be 'lame' and sit at home and catch up on Netflix. 'Stranger than Fiction'.

For the first time in a very long time, I feel good. Really fantastically adequate. Despite the potentially drunken people arguing outside my apartment.

Here's why. Kay (the writer in the film), spends the entire movie trying to figure out how to kill her main character. Apparently has spent 10 years on writers block. Little did she know, her character was actually alive, breathing etc. Anyway. Skip the plot summary. The idea that we can actually trust our characters and more importantly trust ourselves to be true to that which we are, allows for a very strange peace. A peace that oddly enough, I can feel physically.

The unexamined life may not be worth living. But spending all of life in contemplation of how to live isn't actually living either.

So. We go forward. We make mistakes. We live. And that's what makes our very imperfections perfect. No matter how we strive for that perfection, we can't ever quite make it. At least not in the way we intended. Because we aren't perfect. Transcendent, amazing, brilliant, genius. But never perfect. Never quite. Never for more than one instant of beauty.

Odd that this is how I would finally arrive at trusting myself. Yet here I am. With a very mischievous smile ;).

Counting on time.

Common wisdom is that time heals all wounds. Or at least that they fade, slowly diminishing in importance.

But sometimes, time doesn't move quickly enough. But until time hightails it on out of here, the past gets in the way of the present, and the future.

I twisted my ankle this week. I was in a dance class at my gym, and stupidly wore the wrong shoes. And then, to make matters worse, when I got home, like an idiot I took a hot bath instead of icing. I was so excited to take this class, because after going even just once I actually had more confidence when I went clubbing this past weekend. And maybe, just maybe, if I have enough confidence, I can stop letting my past keep me from going after what I want. I'm scared that its too soon. But the desire mixed with the uncertainty is starting to drive me mad... And so, at 1am, when I should be sleeping, or working on one of my two jobs, or just plain doing something else, I'm crying out into the ether.

And so... I guess I have to count on time to move its slow, turtle-shelled arse along. I have to count on the fact that my ankle will heal, that my heart will heal, that his heart will heal. And then... maybe... maybe we can all dance. In the meanwhile, I'll just have to wait.

The Family of Man

Once upon a time, that time being 1955, an amazing art exhibit opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was titled "The Family of Man". It was a collection of 503 "photographs, made in all parts of the world, of the gamut of life from birth to death with emphasis on... daily relationships... Photographs of lovers and marriage and child-bearing, of the family unit with its joys, trials and tribulations.... Photographs concerned with man's dreams and aspirations and photographs of the flaming creative forces of love and truth and the corrosive evil inherent in the lie."

And do I ever wish that this amazing exhibit could be assembled again. For it seems that we have lost our ability for compassion. We have lost the ability to look at people on the other side of whatever line, and see their humanity. Recognizing that they, as we, long for the same validation of our existence.

Its hard. Because the human condition is decidedly overwhelming. Its hard to look people in the eyes and see them as whole, as human. Through our interactions we distill people to what we need of them. The bank teller, the checkout clerk, the waiter in a restaurant. And even harder to look at the people that society has failed.

And then... and then. There are places and times when propaganda dehumanizing entire peoples, labeling them as "enemies" becomes institutional. And accepting it, we loose a little bit of our humanity as well.

Here is a quotation from a book I just finished reading by Steven Erikson. "We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned... Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the word. It must be giving freely. In abundance."

And so, I strive to be more compassionate, to see and celebrate the humanity of my fellow man.

Holiday Escapism

Recently, I've been devouring books and tv series and other forms of entertainment. I seem to be living somewhere in a limbo space between the fictitious realities of lives that are so much more interesting than mine, and well, my life. Which is sad really, but by no means atypical.

I long to make the world better, as arrogant as that is to assert that I can change the world. But still. I long to make the world better, to help people be able to express themselves more adroitly, to fundamentally be more of themselves. As I long to be more of myself, to fully discover all of the things that are wonderful, and cantankerous and quirky, and even downright odd.

But I still have to pay the rent. And feed my cats.

In other news, I have (blasphemously) decided that the Keira Knightly and Matthew MacFayden version of Pride and Prejudice may just be my favorite. And this comes back to what I was saying earlier, about being fully yourself. I think that the scriptwriters, and the actors, and hell, everyone who worked on that movie had love and compassion for all of the characters in the book. They managed to show a human side to pretty much every character, with the possible exception of Miss Bingley. Even characters who normally irritate me to no end - like Mr. Collins and Mrs. Bennet - I found not only tolerable, but even somewhat sympathetic. And Mr. Darcy's taciturn nature came off more as shyness masked by pride than sharp condescension.

A Tiny Taste of Fighter Jets

While I was working from home on Thursday, I was chatting with a work friend. I mentioned to him that the weather in SF is rather odd. My apartment building was in the middle of a fairly steady rain. But I could see a patch of blue sky over Russian Hill. Startlingly, through that patch of blue sky flew a fighter jet. A few seconds later the sound of the jet rocked my 1920s windows. The cats were not pleased. I was confused.

I was confused enough that I mentioned it to my friend. Then came the reply: Its fleet week. The Blue Angels are performing in SF. Along with goodness knows how many other loud military planes.

Through the day, I realized that I was really happy those planes were ours. If they hadn't been, the noise alone would have had me cowering under my covers, or perhaps hiding in the basement.

And so, a sheltered little american girl got a tiny taste of what its like in many other places in the world. Except not quite. Because I knew they weren't going to bomb me.