I’m on a boat

Close your mind’s eyes for a moment and imagine with me, if you will, being on a boat on the water. You feel the wind, cool and sharp on your face, and every so often the ocean spray refreshes you with tiny droplets. You smell the salt, your hair blows back, and your worries are a distant horizon in the rear view.  

At every instant, when traversing waves in your vessel of choice (mine would be an agile speedboat), you’re bringing a boat into new water. You are a pioneer in foreign territory as the intrusive, uninvited hull slices into the calm water, displacing it. A boat perpetually ventures into the fresh, unbroken unknown as the standing wave rises to meet the bow, forming crests which tumble upon themselves, creating white foam and bubbles, trailing away from the site of injury/impact, and before you can mourn the glass water that was, the boat pushes further unapologetically, always launching into fresh water, peaking, breaking, foaming, and replenishing. Constantly, continuously, for as long as you ride that boat in our visualization. “Transverse waves rise astern and move away from the boat parallel to its direction of travel. Diverging waves course out in a V shape behind the boat. Where the waves converge, two lines of standing crests persist at an unchanging angle. We think of these as the boat’s wake.” (Annie Dillard, For the Time Being) You can see the water resisting the displacement futilely; you can see the spilling foam just behind it, and bubbles breaking and dispersing, unendingly. Collisions, interactions, remnants, repeat.

We live and move, exerting our force upon the world, as a speedboat (or canoe or yacht, or dinghy if you’re nasty) bow parts water. The force we exert on the world is met when the world pushes back on us with an equal and opposite force, we feel it, there is resistance, yet we persist. We split the crest of the present in every moment we interact and exert our force on the world. We leave a wake behind us, a legacy, for the force of the world that rose to meet us. If you do it right, no one will be the same when you’re done with them.  

One of my favorite Garth Brooks songs postulates, “You know a dream is like a river ever changin’ as it flows and a dreamer’s just a vessel that must follow where it goes. Trying to learn from what’s behind you and never knowing what’s in store makes each day a constant battle just to stay between the shores.” I’m the captain of my life; I’m navigating whether to steer or go with the flow. In my speedboat, whether to accelerate, or let it ride… the choice is mine. All of the choices are mine. I have that power.

Quantum interference principles indicate that waves can interfere with themselves to either amplify themselves or quiet themselves. I love the possibility that we don’t just need to be a predictable wave of energy at our given amplitude and wavelength experiencing the same crests and troughs forever. We have the power to disrupt the inertia of the lives we’ve been living, to change where we end up and how we reflect on the world. We can interrupt old habits and patterns of thinking to reawaken fresh, conscious choices in our daily lives.

Inertia is the property of matter to exist in a state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is acted upon by an external force. Inertia is the tendency to stay the same or remain unchanged. This is the daily rat race of our lives, the hamster wheel we exist in running futilely, that straight line causing mass despair, anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. The struggle is part of the trap of that straight line. Price Pritchett encourages readers of his You² book to “search out and vigorously employ new behaviors.” What keeps you in that straight line are the beliefs you hold and thoughts you think that lead to your decisions. What has worked for you in the past is the key to maintaining your current level of performance because it is what got you there, perpetuating that rat race. If you want to break out of it, you must do something different, choose differently, think differently, and behave differently. You have the power to change that straight line. “You have the potential, the resources are available, the opportunity is there. What has been missing is your decision to go for it.” (Price Pritchett, You²)

If we can interfere with our own energy wave, we can have an impact on it. Through practice, we can learn the controls to have the precise impact we want to have on our lives. By reverse-engineering the current reality we are in to determine the thoughts we are thinking, we can throw a spanner in the works, choose to think new thoughts, and change our current reality into, hopefully, a better one. We’re not the same wave of energy anymore. We’re changed. We changed ourselves when we realized we had the power to do that. And we’ve learned a new skill of the power to control and direct our own energies. Quantum interference. Boom.

I love glitter. My favorite color of glitter is iridescent white. I allowed myself to follow a white rabbit down the rabbit hole to learn what, exactly, iridescence, was. It turns out, iridescence occurs as surfaces gradually appear to change color as the angle of observation and angle of illumination changes. Said another way, things change when the way you look at them from another perspective and you change how you look at them from that other perspective. Wave interference occurs and suddenly, riding a crest of a pink light wave which just perfectly syncs with a blue light wave to peach to green to purple like a brilliant Australian opal, and none of those colors are sequentially next to each other in the spectrum. The light dances. I love thinking that we can become more iridescent and allow ourselves to shine brighter and with more color; our colors can sing, just by changing how we look at ourselves. Changing our angle of observation (nonjudgmental awareness) and moving to another seat to see a new perspective from a different angle and changing the angle of illumination (enlightenment) makes things iridescent. You can choose how you want to look at things. Everything can be iridescent glitter if you want it to be. If that’s how you want to see the world. It’s light diffraction. Science. I freaking love that.

You’re not just the wave, not just the object made of matter traveling through space uniformly. You can also be the external force that smacks you upside your own head. That interferes with the trajectory of your life currently spiraling into predictability. You can change how you reflect and how you are in the world by making new choices. Choice is power. How many people even consider challenging their decision making to arrive at new answers? Nothing changes if nothing changes. If you want more or different, you must do more or different. Disrupting the inertia of your life means overcoming resistance to change and creating positive momentum toward your definition of improvement. Identifying weak signals, plugging into new trends, being curious to try new things, all of this is innovation that can lead to improved results in your life. Disruptors can turn entire industries and institutions, even antiquated ways of doing things, on their heads.

Disrupt inertia. Make new choices. Quantumly interfere with yourself. Leave a wake. Exert a force on this world. See everything with a pearlescent lens. Live your best life. Steer yourself where your dreams are.

Identity, Intersectionality, Culture

I have been working lately on rebranding myself. I’ve undergone a lot of inner changes by doing self-work just in the last year alone, and some of those changes were to very fundamental aspects of my being that I had no idea could change.

Those fundamental aspects of myself I believed would forever define me contributed to an identity I’ve spent 40 years creating, meticulously (consciously) and not so meticulously (subconsciously). Now, here I go, killing off old identities that no longer serve me. It had me really thinking about how, as humans, we build our identity over time.

Identity creation is partly science – it is composed of many elements of both a quantitative and qualitative nature. Identity may be comprised of social support (who you are to family and friends) or socioeconomic status (your place in society or a bigger picture), and it may be both numerical and story/narrative based. Simply put, identity is the characteristic determining who or what a person or thing is. It might include key demographics (race, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical attributes) and psychographics (personality, needs, desires, wants, mission/values). Our identities are formed by political affiliations, religious beliefs, professional identities, and so many more.

The aspect I love most about identity is how fluid it is – it develops and redevelops and iterates over time. That means it’s not set in stone – unless you want it to be, and even then, change is inevitable.

One of the other aspects I love about identity is we are never just one thing. We belong to multiple groups at the same time, and like icebergs, what is visible is no measure of what lies underneath. We may hold some traits as more sacred or central to our identities than others, and not everyone holds a similar values system. What we value most in life (and about our identities) may change as we age. The overlapping, interconnected aspect of identity is called intersectionality, and it just means the intersection of those different elements of our identities.

Never One Thing – May Erlewine

I personally love that my identity can change on-demand. I think of a sheet of labels you can put into your printer, to make mailing or address labels. We can create any label we want for ourselves on a sticker, slap it on, and be whoever we want to be. We don’t have to commit to a sticker. Be whatever you choose to be on any given day. One day, you may want to be a basketball player, so you join a team, go to practices, play in games, and then you have a label of being a basketball player. You can take it off anytime! You don’t always have to be a basketball player your whole life! While some derive a sense of pride in a few key aspects of their identities, like being a basketball player, how wonderful it is to try the buffet of life and be a basketball player one day, then a mother the next, then maybe a real estate agent, then maybe join the Hindu faith, and so on.

Where you have identities and intersectionality, soon, a culture is formed. By definition, a culture is “a collage of language, beliefs, traditions, codes of conduct, rules, membership, and health beliefs that guide our daily lives. Our culture influences our tastes, our food choices, sensations of pain and pleasure, and even how we love. Like identity, we can belong to many cultures at the same time, however, we can’t necessarily be competent in all of them. Belonging to a culture doesn’t mean you’re competent or fully understand that particular culture either.” (Source: https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/visible-and-hidden-identity/)

I’d even venture that science is a culture. It is a system of shared beliefs, practices, norms, expectations, and maybe even special language. It uses the scientific method, and we come to expect objective experiments, sharing of knowledge, and other characteristics similar to a culture. Science will always be a part of my culture and identity, I hope.

Part of what I learned in science class in elementary school was how to classify insects, animals, and everything. Our brains learn to categorize or organize based on identity and comparison. It is our nature to attempt to make sense of what we see, to draw connections, and to seek relationships. When we create categories in our brains, for the goal of ease and organization, we can actually open the door to making judgements. How we judge depends on the lens through which we see the world, our own self-identity. Our lens changes over time too, so how we may have judged things in the past may change as we age, too. We can also become subject to flawed judgements or decision traps as Annie Duke, author of “Thinking in Bets” and renowned World Series of Poker champion, calls them. She postulates in that book that we can get better at separating outcome quality from decision quality (whether we were right vs the correct process to decide), become less reactive decision makers, build and sustain pods of fellow truth-seekers to improve our decision process, and recruit our past and future selves to make fewer emotional decisions. I love that we can actively take radical personal responsibility for our own judgements and biases, which is sometimes curative in and of itself.

Like most queer youths, I literally sought out others to be in my chosen tribe. I still do this. We observe; we notice how we are similar and how we are different. Part of growing is striking out on your own for a walkabout odyssey and deciding who is in your chosen tribe. I wrote about this part of my queer identity formation journey here.

Our tribe is a particular group of people. When seeking tribes, we seek similarities. We go in looking for them, so that is what we see. We minimize our differences and maximize our similarities. We experience the decision traps, flawed judgements, and cognitive distortions. Our in-group in terrific. The out-group, like how could they even choose to be that way? We don’t understand. It’s, like, clear as night and day.

All of this – our identity, our tribal support – affects our sense of value, our sense of self-esteem, and how we see ourselves in relation to others. We compare ourselves in terms of perceived control within a hierarchical society, a ladder of power, privilege, attractiveness, and being the recipient of cognitive shortcuts (generalizations/stereotypes, the subject of bias, or the target of discrimination/prejudice) in other peoples’ sorting processes. We naturally look for patterns, trying to save mental processing energy, and we are driven by a brain system that is efficient at helping us see connections (even when perhaps none do or should exist there, but that is a whole other tangent I’m not choosing to pursue at this present time.)

One of those cognitive shortcuts deserves some attention – bias, namely, optimistic, or positive bias. In the formation of our own identity, we can have a skewed bias to how well we see ourselves in relation to others. We can see ourselves as above average (or likewise, below average for negative bias). If we rely on that bias too much, we may come to have an unrealistic sense of who we are, what we’re able to accomplish, and perhaps may not see own weaknesses or development points. Positive bias can exhibit as pride or arrogance if used too much, but it does contribute a healthy sense of belonging and self-esteem when measured appropriately and taken in conjunction with other key parts of identity.

Likewise, when we have a bias that is too high of ourselves, we can sometimes be prone to a bias that devalues an out-group to a distorted degree. We increase our opinions of our tribe/in-group and can sometimes go to an extreme, devaluing or dehumanizing those in the out-group. Some people take it even further, causing harm or committing crimes in the name of this in-ness and out-ness. Belonging and unfamiliar. Some postulate this happens to ease guilt from competition between the in- and out- groups. By assigning labels, wearing our distorted lenses, we may think we know more about a group than we actually do. The out-group is likely not as bad as we have labelled them. They are humans too. They love, dream, and hope, just like us. When we look for the differences, we see them.

What’s the point, you ask? Know yourself. Get to know others. Allow for development and change and development and change over time. Be aware that whilst you may think you have none, we all have lenses through which we see the world, and those lenses may have inherent biases from things we gave meaning to in our developmental years. Question old beliefs, be aware of biases, and be open to changing them.

One last thought on identity – for a bit of actual research from Vivan Cass to fulfill your naughty librarian fantasies, check out my blog post here describing her 6-stage Identity Model.

Of late, I’ve been working with a future self-identity we’ll call HER. I’ve recruited my HER from the future to help me make decisions today. She’s my Chief Decision Officer, and all my choices in the present time must come from HER.

You see, Annie Duke’s “Thinking in Bets” shone the light of awareness on our human tendency to favor our present-self at the expense of our future-self. It’s called temporal discounting – look it up. We all know this – present self is really enjoying this crime series and we’ll watch just one more episode then go to bed, when future-self is kicking us tomorrow for staying up so late when we needed a good night’s sleep. Jerry Seinfeld put it so eloquently, “Night Guy always screws Morning Guy.”

Not in my world. Night Me is no longer allowed to screw over Morning Me. Morning Me isn’t available for Night Me’s bullshit anymore. If I want to get where I’m going in life and achieve what I want to in what time I have left, we’re not fucking around anymore.

Quantum leaping

For over 20 years, I’ve been a pillar of the financial services industry, earning my CPA qualification in 2008, having worked 12 years at a Big 4 accounting firm both in San Francisco, CA and Sydney, Australia, then 8 years in private industry at a boutique asset management firm in Seattle, a vertically integrated real estate company, and most recently, in private equity in the agriculture, water, and renewable energy space in Los Angeles.

I’ve run the gamut as “Gay & Lesbian Rights Barbie” at said Big 4 accounting firm, the poster child for diversity & inclusion efforts, serving as a leader for the Northern California market LGBT affinity group, and as a founding group leader in Sydney helping the Big 4 accounting firm reach #1 on the Australian Workplace Equality Index within 2 years of the index launching. I worked within the Diversity and Transformation group in our Australia practice, studying “the bamboo ceiling” encountered by my Asian female leader sisters in seeking to elevate their careers past lower-level technical jobs to break the barriers into corporate leadership.

I’ve instructed multiple 2-week orientation trainings to fledging auditors joining the firm on day 1 and for continuing professional education annually. I’ve served as a professional coach and mentor to those following my footsteps in the industry, seeking guidance to navigate the gray in what most see as a black and white world. Any woman would be proud of the career I’ve built with a modest bachelor’s degree from a California state university. I even started my own business in college and operated at a profit, providing general bookkeeping and reporting for small businesses. I passed the Series 65 Uniform Investment Advisor Law Exam in 2002, but never did anything with it.

Currently, I serve on the Board of Directors (and on multiple committees for change) for a non-profit organization with a mission to empower promising LGBTQ students to reach their full academic potential.

Despite a fantastic and admirable career thus far, I find myself wanting to break free. The trajectory I had for my life simply won’t do anymore, for many reasons, the biggest and most important of which being alignment. My prior trajectory was drilled into me from a young age by parents that just wanted me to go to college, and get a good job, so I wouldn’t have to worry about money. Recently though, I have dreamed more for myself. Life isn’t just about getting a good job I repeat every day until I die with no passion. Accounting is interesting, and I’ve met a few people with a true passion for it, but alas, I am not one.

I recently picked up Price Pritchett’s “You²: A High Velocity Formula for Multiplying your Personal Effectiveness in Quantum Leaps”. This book resonated with me on many levels, mostly because I find myself on the precipice of taking a Quantum Leap, defined by Fred Alan Wolf in his book “Taking the Quantum Leap,” as “the explosive jump that a particle of matter undergoes in moving from one place to another… taking a risk, going off into an uncharted territory with no guide to follow.”

I’ve spent the last year becoming a nonjudgmental observer of myself, noting habits, patterns of thinking, old attitudes, disempowering beliefs, and emotional addictions, in the hopes of identifying them, questioning whether they serve the next level version of myself, and putting them to rest if they are no longer serving me. Let’s put a pin in these and come back to them. There, Pin 1 – I placed it here. Let’s go wander some more before we come back to these.

I question everything now, including who I am and what I’m meant to do in this world. I found my historical dependable behavior, operating as if on auto-pilot, was keeping me small because I was afraid. I was afraid to break free, jump out of the hamster wheel/rat race/whatever you want to call it. I’m reaching a point in my life where I can’t try any harder, my spirit is waning, and my physical and mental resources are stretched to the limit like a rubberband, poised to snap back or catapult me forward. More effort is not the answer for me, but a change in direction and rate or growth is. I’ve wandered without a compass or map for the last 40 years of my life, which I’m finding won’t work for the next chapter of my life.

One of the best pieces of advice I remember that I got during my formative college years was, “Make sure you’re on the right ladder before climbing it.” One could get to the top of the ladder after years on auto-pilot, doing what is expected of them, and wonder how the heck they got there when they finally woke up and looked around, only to find, at best, mild satisfaction at a life sort of lived. One thing I’ve learned since getting that valuable piece of advice is that I’m allowed to choose a new ladder if the old one suddenly doesn’t make me happy.

What has been the right ladder for me for 20 years is starting to look like it’s no longer the right ladder to climb. In that scenario, it’s ok to abruptly change behavior, abandon the status quo, and change it up. I tell myself it is safe to mix it up. I write a new narrative at how I’m agile when it comes to change, not change-averse. It doesn’t matter how successful or impressive of a career it is if it’s the wrong thing for you to continue doing. I have a fresh perspective for the next chapter of my life, and I’m so excited for it.

By rethinking how I think, what I’m thinking about, and moving outside my mental boundaries, I’m flirting with big dreams. In the past, I’d have said I have no right to dream such big things for myself. Those big dreams were simply not available to me. I limited my desires to what I thought I was easily attainable. I let myself be governed by perceived constraints that, when I got to the bottom of it, were actually a self-imposed prison. Oh hell no. I’m giving myself permission to dream, to risk, to try, to fail. I didn’t survive a pandemic to play small.

Now back to Pin 1. What I found when I questioned everything I thought, was that my doubts and habitual thinking were not the Truth. They were true to me; they were narratives and stories I’d told myself so many times over the years that I believe them as truth. But, objectively, they were not my Truth. I blindly accepted flawed conclusions I made while my brain was still forming as correct, didn’t believe I had any potential, and aimed for a bland flavor of mediocrity. By becoming aware that I was both the problem and the solution for my thinking, I made myself truly limitless, because the only limits were mine.

I was in Palm Beach, FL this past September, and visited a spiritual intuitive in Delray Beach while I was there. I was given a vision just for me that I’d love to share with you, reader.

I am on a speedboat, on calm, glassy waters. There are no obstacles, no lane lines, no guide posts, no guides. I’m truly limitless, and I can go anywhere. This is new path I forge, and I’m not following anybody else. Nobody is going to create the path for me. There is no one to whom I compare, as I’m peerless. Others will follow me. The message for me was clear as the waters on which I found myself in this vision: hit the gas. It doesn’t have to be grandiose. Don’t pressurize it. You can’t fuck it up. Just take action. Go. Tear it up. “There’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s,” so I’ve been told. I’m drawing the map as I go, using what’s inside me for a moral compass. What pulls at my consciousness gives me direction.

For awhile, I think I will encounter ambiguity, confusion, and possibly some sprinkles of chaos as I explore my new path. I’m allowing the opposite of organization into my life as I traverse new landscapes. I call this part of the journey actively looking for failure. I’ve heard successful executives seek failure early and often, because it’s data on what is not successful. Best to find that out sooner rather than many years down a path. Failure is reinforcement to keep going, not to quit. NASA’s engineers successfully got to the moon by constantly making mistakes and correcting them. What a way to learn! I’m embracing failure as I step out, knowing it’s a question of when, not if it will happen. I’m letting go, releasing any illusion of control.

Most importantly, I’m excited for a new trajectory for my life. As successful as I’ve been in my career, I only got there because I observed my gifts and talents, opened them, and used them to benefit myself and others. I have so many more gifts and talents I haven’t opened yet. I do have unused, untapped, undiscovered potential. In there, I know there are wings. I know there is a metamorphosis of the grandest scale.

I’m not choosing mediocrity anymore. I’m absolutely scared shitless. I think you have to be, though. It’s exciting. That is where passion is. Fear. Failure. Success. So many have stood where I stand and made the leap. My turn is coming up. The anticipation is palpable. I must bid adieu to the past and what has worked so well for me in the past. With grit, grace, and determination, I’ll take a step forward soon and that will be the leap into a new trajectory for my life. I don’t know when, but I’ll land somewhere. It’ll either be exactly where I need to be, or not quite. Then I course-correct from there.

This is me

My posts have been few and far between – yet I feel called to post tonight. It’s been over a year since my mom passed away on May 11, 2020. My last post on this blog was June 11, 2020, just days before my cat Cheddar would also pass away unexpectedly. I entered a dark time and space in my life, losing my 2nd parent and my ride-or-die sidekick for the last 5 years right when COVID was unleashing its fury. I went back on antidepressants. I quit drinking. I began the tough inner work of healing my wounded self.

The details of this inner work deserve their own show, and in due course, they will get the attention they deserve. Believe me, I want to share it with the world, so much so I’m getting certified in this work I’ve been doing on myself the last year. I went through dark times and came out the other side. I’m here. And that’s all that’s important right now.

That song always pumps me up. It resonates in my soul.

“I am not a stranger to the dark
Hide away, they say
‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
Run away, they say
No one’ll love you as you are”

For 40 years, I spent my life in the dark on autopilot. I was afraid to shine my light brightly and truly be myself. The circus freaks who sing this song in the The Greatest Showman are my people: the outcasts, the downtrodden, the marginalized, the forgotten, the seemingly insignificant and peripheral dirty little secrets. I’m here today for them, as one of them, a misfit. A rainbow sheep.

I’ve heard multiple women use the word “broken” to describe themselves. It used to be one I used to describe myself as well until working on myself this past year. Healing is a process, and for me, there is no waiting until I’m fully healed to move on. My mom used to joke, “What’re you waiting for? Rain?” I’d be waiting a long time for that fully-healed moment in order to be able to move on, and newsflash, that grief shit circles back around over and over.

I’m reminded of the Japanese art of repairing pottery called Kintsugi. Healing the broken pieces together with gold creates scars that let the light shine through, and beauty is seen in the repaired strength. We have scars, but they can make us beautiful and strong. My scarred knees connect me to my higher self so I may connect with others who had similar injuries. By helping others, I heal myself, and no longer see my knees as broken but as powerful instruments of love and gratitude. I look at my depression and anxiety that way, too, and other traumatic life experiences. They are simply things that happened, they do not define me, and if I can help one person learn from how I handled what happened, if I can save a life because I can show how to get on the other side of that which is most daunting and fearsome, then it’ll be worth it. Put me in, coach.

Oh, and spoiler alert, I figured out everyone’ll love me as I am, but most importantly, I love me as I am. I’m whole and complete. And so fucking lovable.

“I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me”

What I love about being a work in progress is that I’m a masterpiece never finished. I’ve learned to love my fear, that little Inside Out frantic purple emotion with my facial expressions making lists of 37 ways I’ll die from stepping outside my comfort zone just for fun. Her hobbies include wearing seatbelts, pretending she doesn’t speak English to avoid speaking, convincing herself everyone is staring at her and judging her, playing by the rules, and she hates hates hates trying new things because that means I’ll definitely die.

She does help keep me alive when I’m in danger, but the journey I’m on, of healing my trauma, releasing guilt and a lifetime of repressed/suppressed emotions, working on my energetics, where I place my focus and attention, replacing the disempowering beliefs about myself with empowering beliefs… this journey is not dangerous. So I’ve had to learn that when the fear won’t go away, I have to do things afraid. Like move on. Take steps forward every day. Inch by painful inch sometimes.

For those who know me, my drum is a one-woman wolf pack, at least historically. I was recently given some guidance to go even bigger. The crazier, the better. More. Louder. These are my people; the ones who encourage my dinosaur rawrs/primal gurning water buffalo grunts and help me make them fiercer and an even fuller expression of my self.

I’m working on removing my invisibility cloak that provided safety for a long time. A dark world aches for my beating drum. I told you, I’m no stranger to the dark. I’m not afraid to be seen because being seen won’t kill me, fear. I’m ok. I need to do this. I’m going to save lives, including my own. I’m changing the trajectory of my life. I’m not sorry. This is me. It’s always been me. I was just under a lot of stuff.

I am bursting through the barricades. I am a warrior. God, this song makes me feel powerful.

We get to choose who we want to be. When we wake up to knowing we hold the power to our own happiness, that our dreams are only one new choice away from coming true, when we learn how deserving we are of love, and there’s nothing we’re not worthy of, we shall be free. We become limitless when we stop creating our own limits. Just show up for yourself.

I was gifted a vision from a spiritual advisor during a recent trip to Florida. She told me that I was on a figurative speedboat, on placid, calm, wakeless water right now. It wasn’t a canoe; it wasn’t a dingy or a pontoon boat. It also was purposely not a car on a highway. It was an agile speedboat on the calm water with no one else around, no obstacles, no rules, no lanes, no guardrails, no lines on a piece of paper to squeeze between. No limits. Just hit the gas. Fire it up. Forge my new path. I can go in any and all directions. There is no guide for me, no map, no compass.

You know when you used to forge your parents’ signatures for some permission slip at school (I know, we all do it), and it was easier to free-flow a signature than to try to trace and copy over the real signature (that inevitably looked like a 5 year old with aggressive/advanced Parkinson’s signed it)? When we’re not so focused what it’s supposed to look like, or following the rules, the result is 1000x better, more natural, and no one can tell if there’s a mistake or just a beautiful embellishment. The best part of forging a new path is not following anybody else. I don’t need anyone’s permission but my own. I don’t have to do it the way anybody else does; in fact, what I’m doing hasn’t been done yet. Comparing myself to others is irrelevant and unnecessary. What I can do is unparalleled. There’s no wrong way to do it. It doesn’t have to be grandiose. Knowing this depressurized it immediately. I’m not behind or doing it wrong; it’s more than enough. Done is better than perfect, and just have some freaking fun with it.

I know if I can feel like I did after my last blog post and come back to write this post from a place full of hope, then there is a reason I’m still here. I’m off of my antidepressants as of this month. It feels amazing. If I can get right up to that darkness’s nostril hair and whistle at the bats in the cave and still truly believe today with every fiber of my being that my best days are ahead of me, then my message to you is:

“But I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious”

Come with me. Let’s go.

Tearing down walls

I initially began writing on this blog after my father’s passing. Writing helped me process many aspects of the grief I felt. I’m back at it again as today marks 1 month since my mother’s passing. I’ve followed the yellow brick road of emotions and it’s led me through unabashed grief and extreme vulnerability into what will hopefully be a new beginning. I feel an incredible sense of guilt and countless regrets that I didn’t expect I’d have over many things that seemed black and white at that time. I’ve learned about myself as I delve into the depths of my mind trying to break through the fog of shock. I force myself to pick up the unresolved things I put into mental storage when my father passed. I unwrap new complexities around my mother’s passing; the experience is wholly different than it was 7 years ago with him, yet also somehow very similar. I’ve decided to begin writing again because there is so much going on inside and I need to let it out.

This is a strange time in the world. Everyone is isolated. Frankly, I think everyone is out of sorts as our daily routines and lives were materially disrupted. It’s hard enough getting through the feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted, and ready for change when it comes to COVID impacts and racial injustice. I feel the weight of all of it. It’s heavy. I have guilt that I’m not out protesting and using my voice like when I lived above Market Street in San Francisco between the Castro and Civic Center. I joined protests frequently then. My mental and emotional battle I’m fighting now is my own. I want to do more to fight for racial justice, but I’m saturated with minimal spare capacity for that, and I’m geographically further away from the epicenter of the protests this time.

I think of amazing memories of my mom that only in hindsight mean so much. I thought I had so many more moments with her. I think of the last time I visited her in November. I try to remember her features. I remember getting dropped off at the airport, and we hugged as I wheeled my bag in. It was always hard for her when I would have to go home after a visit, and she’d worry until I called her when I got home, no matter how much I didn’t want her to. I went back for a second hug this last time, and completely surprised her as she was already back in the front seat. I never do that. I just thought she needed it. And I did too, looking back.

I called my mother once a week, on the weekends. She could always call me, but she rarely did. Before she went into the hospital on March 9, our phone conversations averaged 5 minutes or so of mostly small talk. I found myself wanting to say more but not knowing what, wanting to hear more from her too. I found myself missing those conversations, as mundane and unsatisfying as they were. The rehab facilities where she stayed post-surgery had the pro of being COVID-free, which was a rarity, but they had a con of no phones in the rooms, and her very basic non-smart flip cell phone had gone MIA. I think about her, feeling alone, no iPhone to feel connected socially to her friends and family, no books to read, no friends where she was, in a bed, constantly in her head when she wasn’t sleeping. I tried reaching out, but the rehab facilities were like black holes with phone systems that function as a wormhole zooming you at warp speed to the wrong coordinates. I couldn’t reach her, so eventually I wrote a letter, and then sent her a Mother’s Day card. I regret not flying out when she asked me to make arrangements to go there on Mar 20. COVID had just blown up, and life had stopped. I didn’t want to risk my getting sick, but also, I didn’t want to expose her or family if I was exposed to it on a plane. Plus, that is when hospitals changed their visitor’s policy, disallowing them. So, I’d have been alone in her house, isolated more than I already am here.

All my mother wanted her whole life was to be my mom. She made my world her world. She sacrificed her interests and hobbies to cultivate my curiosity and the options available to me. She only ever wanted to be let in. And all I did was put up walls. I didn’t even tell her about this blog, and I blocked her from seeing posts when I would share my latest post. I even had to block my family in case they told her about it. So much of my identity was wrapped in learning to fly – asserting my fierce independence. I only realize now, I needed independence from my parents to figure out who I was. Independence is relative; it requires you to be independent OF something. Independent FROM someone. My life has been slowly (and ferociously) pushing her away, not letting her in, being an asshole kid. Being selfish. And now that the person from whom I needed to be independent isn’t here anymore, there is an overwhelming feeling of one of the largest aspects of my identity disappearing. There is fear. There is relief. I don’t have to hide or push away anymore. I need to relearn how to not be like that anymore.

I remember being at college, trying sumo wrestling suits for the first time, and tearing the ACL in my right knee after already having surgery on my left knee for the same injury in high school. Now if you know my mother as a driver, in the days before GPS, she got lost in a paper bag, and worse, worried herself over getting lost. When I told her I’d injured my other knee and was somehow supposed to move out of the dorms the next day to come home for summer, she was in a car on her way to me like September wildfire for the 4-hour drive. She found me, got to my dorm room, brought my crutches, and proceeded to help me move everything out of the dorm and take me home. She just did it. I regret not being able to return that kind, unconditional love instinct she showed me then. She drove to get to me despite being afraid and nervous about getting lost.

I used to say we fought like cats and dogs. I realize in hindsight we fought like cats and cats. I was more like her than I wanted to admit, which is why we fought for blood. Our relationship was complicated, and very painful words were exchanged. I found myself squeezing myself into a very defined role or persona I kept with her. I liken it to when you’re home with family, you usually sit at the same seat at the dining table with your relationships. I sat in the seat where I was like a synchronized swimmer. My life looked easy, effortless, and calm on the surface, while underneath I was frantically panicking and trying to keep afloat. She was so proud of me, and I didn’t feel worthy of that pride. I didn’t like when she talked about me to other people. I don’t want to be talked about, period. I’d get so mad at her when she’d betray my trust when she got a little too tipsy and started farting sunshine and vomiting rainbows about me. I took it for granted. I never doubted she loved me. However, I don’t know if she knew that I loved her too, even when I wasn’t happy with her.

Just before the end of March, after she’d been in the hospital a couple weeks and had her first surgery, I had a dream. My dad and I were sitting next to a hospital bed she occupied. My dad got up, and started walking away, presumably to get some air, or a coffee or something. My mom told me to go with my father and nodded nudgingly in his direction. I got up and began following him and turned around to look back at her. She was gone.

I think my subconscious was trying to prepare me for accepting what was to be the end of the world – hers, and to an extent, mine. The safety I felt of having someone who loved me unconditionally, whom I could always call to be there, disappeared. While friends and family have reached out to extend condolences and offer support, I still somehow feel smaller, more alone, and yet, relieved. I feel clarity.

When I was small, I had this untested hypothesis that when someone dies, they suddenly become omniscient and suddenly know everything about every instant of your life. Like they can watch the video of your life, even the moments they may have missed when they were alive. I was terrified that she would see through those walls I’d built and be disappointed in the real me. She’d feel disappointed I couldn’t tell her everything, or even most of what I’d experienced without her.

I feel like I did a shit job writing her obituary. I completely missed adding her work, which was a big part of her life. I even blanked on her mother’s family name. I don’t know that I could adequately sum her up on a page.

However, in some ways, dealing with my mother’s passing has had a similar impact on me as my father’s. I have made changes to my workout routine, changed eating and sleeping habits, quit drinking, started antidepressants again, and will begin seeing a therapist. I’m trying to work on me and be mentally, emotionally, and physically healthier so I don’t meet the same fate too early in life. However, there are good days and bad days and I don’t get to choose them sometimes. I’m getting at better when a day begins to go sour, salvaging it and still trying to make something of it, even if it’s small. I can’t even take things a day at a time. That’s too big a measure.

Rewind Fast Forward Pause

I think if given a remote that controlled our own lives, the order of importance in descending order of buttons is “Rewind”, “Fast Forward”, “Pause”. No whiplash intended.

So many wish they could go back. Change. Do something differently. Regret. Daydream. The real life rewind button, the ability to predict the future in a linear fashion and have some ability to replay and have an impact on the future, if there was a fucking app for that, man. My bitcoins would bring all those stock options to the yard. With sprinkles. To go back and save ourselves from utter humiliation. To save a life. To make a difference. Rewind in real life is the unicorn.

So many of us actually do fast forward. Get ahead of ourselves instead of being in the moment. We end up 1 mile ahead looking back wondering why others aren’t there with us. We play out a scenario, a partner, the motions, a whole future in a matter of minutes by escaping with all our molecules to that moment and place when that scene finally happens, fictionally or nonfictionally. We predict the outcome with 100% certainty which is 0% probable. Fine, maybe 0.5%.

So few of us want to pause. If you don’t slow down, no one can keep up. Hitting the brakes is hard. Abrupt. Icy. Earth-shattering on your own personal earth. In the immortal words of BB King from the soundtrack of one of my favorite movies, Thelma & Louise:

“I’ve been around and I’ve seen some things
People moving faster than the speed of sound
Faster than the speeding bullet
People living like superman
All day and all night
And I won’t say if it’s wrong or if it’s right
I’m pretty fast myself
But I do have some advice to pass along
Along in the chorus of this song

Better not look down
If you want to keep on flying
Put the hammer down
Keep it full speed ahead
Better not look back
Or you might just wind up crying
You can keep it moving
If you don’t look down.”

You can keep it moving if you don’t look down. If you don’t hit pause.

But just pause, for like, a second. Think. Be.

You can’t actually hit rewind. Unfortunately, that’s not how time works. You shouldn’t hit fast forward. Slow down. You need to hit pause. Live in this moment.

Time to hit a new button: Record. Absorb. Venture out, go forth, recede, stumble sideways. Live life beautifully. Share you. Share the moment.

Toby

Last night, I received word that the fur baby I had before Cheddar, before I moved to Australia, had to be put down due to aggressive mouth cancer. Toby was my kitty from October 2006 until May 2011. During that brief time, I came to love her, so very hard. I originally posted about her in another post, Survival of the cutest.

This brief post is in remembrance of a sweet soul who departed this earth far too soon. Whilst her daddies gave me the heads up of her imminent fate in December upon discovering the cancer, it doesn’t make the grieving any easier. I miss our early morning love sessions, the buggies you would kill and leave as gifts for me, how you would shred toilet paper rolls for fun if I left the bathroom door open, and mostly, how mellow and chill you were all the time. I’ll never forget about the time we experimented with a leash to take you on walks, and you ended up in a car engine. I had to get underneath the car to fish you out. You were a great big sister to Pippin, the little orange fluffball, whom you groomed as if she were your own. You were all love, and I will always love you, sweet one.

Hold your fur babies extra close and give them extra love today, for me.

RIP Toby 4/21/06 – 1/25/18

I see fire

It’s been a while since my last post. Truth be told, I haven’t wanted to write. I had some opportunities, but frankly didn’t see the point. I didn’t think anyone was listening. So much has happened. The flames burn higher into the night. My life completely changed this year, very much unexpectedly. Like what is now the largest fire in California history, the Thomas fire of Ventura seems a sufficient parallel to my life. Desolation everywhere.

2017 brought an unexpected change in my living situation – I started the year in a condo in Seattle, not expecting to leave anytime soon. I round out the year in my first house I’ve ever owned near LA. I started the year working in the asset management industry, an industry in which I’d focused my career up to that point. I end the year in a new industry for me, real estate. I bought a new car in June. Cheddar, my sweet cat, is still with me through it all. I’m closer to friends and family in LA, and the weather is much more mild and manageable. On the whole, it’s been a good change for me, but it hasn’t been without its stresses. It took me much longer to find a permanent home in the area, longer than any of my previous moves. As a result, I was commuting to work 1+ hours each way (over 2 hours each day). I now fucking hate driving in bumper to bumper traffic.

The fires in LA were also uncomfortably close. Heavy in the air. Looming. I see fire around me. I can smell it.

My mother’s health took a turn for the worse in December. She was hospitalized for mental health issues, and just released out three days before my flight home for the holidays. I fully expected to stay in an empty home and visit the psychiatric ward for Christmas. 6 loonies screaming, 5 personalities fighting, 4 medications in paper cups, 3 guests allowed to visit, 2 changes of underwear, and a roommate with unparalleled dementia. Old scars from a previous breakdown she had when I was in college resurfaced, fresh and vulnerable. Anger bubbled to the surface at not having my dad around to help deal with it this time around. I remain ill-equipped to handle the turns, yet I continue to do my best when it comes to her. I recall an old promise to my father before he passed, not to abandon her. To take care of her. Even when it hurts. It hurts.

I truly feel like 2016 was a rough year, and 2017 told 2016 to hold its beer. Watch this. I didn’t want to buy a 2016 model car, because it was such a shitty year. I didn’t want to remember that. I bought a 2017 model, and maybe I shouldn’t have done so. Fuck this year, too.

I once had a warm heart. It had been scarred. It was not gently used. It remains so.

A woman I once loved thought that by hurting the lover, she would kill the love. She was vain to believe such a stupid thing. Love is not to be commanded by mortals. That is but the freshest wound. My heart has known many battles. It is broken and imperfect. But it is mine. Love has yet to find me; but there is something out there. My turn will come one day… or it won’t. I no longer care, if I’m honest. I charge forward.

I would like to be better about writing this year. I am tentative; scared to share. I’m more scared to leave this earth with nothing behind to show for my time here.

Holding it all in has done nothing for me this year. Letting it go feels equally ineffective. Like an artist, anything I create feels undeserving of admiration. Insufficient. Yet, I will take one ugly step after another. Not for you. For me.

Florence & the Machine sang it best:
“I never minded being on my own
Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home
To be where you are
But even closer to you, you seem so very far
And now I’m reaching out with every note I sing
And I hope it gets to you on some pacific wind
Wraps itself around you and whispers in your ear
Tells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here.”

I’m not lost

I’ve been meaning to write. I’ve needed it.

It’s good to be back. I’ve held so much in, withdrawn, rescinded, faded away… My site became a dog’s breakfast as my third party hosting website for gifs and media linked in my previous posts (which added much needed and appreciated context and sidebars, even if just for me) suddenly stopped offering free third party hosting. Very devastation. Such overwhelm. Wow.

It is what it is. I am what I am. The anal part of me wants to go back and fix every single post before this one, find a new third party hosting site to relink each post. I’ll erase your memory of my crashed shitty site with a flash, like the Men in Black mind eraser.

Alas, my lazy wins over my ambition and here we are. Not a finger lifted. Could not be arsed.

I emerge 6 months after going private. What inspired me to go public again? To put myself out there?

Netflix. Curses *shakes fist*

This quote from a movie called 5 to 7 the late Anton Yelchin starred in resounded in my brain the moment I heard it. And now I’m back… from outer space…

I had a long time to consider the value of memory, and the idea that just because something doesn’t last forever doesn’t mean its worth is diminished. Maybe it was just a rationalization – easier on the soul than mourning what might have been – the life unlived. I honestly don’t know, but I chose to believe in memory. I chose to believe in her. I chose to believe that the bond was never broken and that we carried each other in our hearts. As a secret singularity. She made me a writer.

There would be other loves. Even great loves.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, or a bad one. But I will promise you this. Your favorite story, whatever it might be, was written for one reader.

This blog is my favorite story. The one of me, and my life I’m living. Real time. Perhaps it has some too-long pauses in between breaths. But it has to be my favorite, because it is mine.

I’ve wanted to reach out to you. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Like the lyrics of the Maroon 5 song, the weight of the things that remained unspoken built up so much, it crushed me everyday.

You may not embrace me with the same open arms you once had as I appear before you in blog form with the same open heart, wounded, yet alive with purpose. Sunshine comes to all who feel rain.

I begin a new chapter, and with it, picking up this blog again. In my absence, don’t doubt my desire. It’s always been there. Burning. Aching. Yet repressing out of necessity. Until it was clear.

I will be leaving Seattle in September, selling my lovely little condo, and moving to southern California. I have accepted a new position in Redondo Beach, CA. The move brings me closer to family and friends, and presents new challenges and learning opportunities.

I remind myself:

1) My dream doesn’t have an expiration date. Take a deep breath, and try again.
2) You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.
3) To exist is to change, to change is to mature; to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
4) I’m not lost. I’m on a road with no destination. I’m just driving with hope that I’ll find a place that I like and I’ll stay there. I’m not lost. I’m on my way.

Dogs of war

In a shocking turn of events, I am no longer going private. Do not get me wrong; every inclination is to take myself off the grid emotionally, figuratively, literally, physically, mentally… That could be the fight or flight reflex kicking in.

Maybe I’m extra raw right now. I found out Monday a friend of mine from my former employer passed away. He went on secondment like I did, from California (LA) to another country (London, to be specific). My journey took me from San Francisco to Australia, but we had similar experiences which left similar tastes in our mouths after the fact. He’d left the firm, and found a great role at Ares Capital Management. He was gay, as am I. He was active in our LGBT employee diversity group, as was I. He had stage 4 colon cancer and was only 2 years older than me.

I’m shaking as I type this, so much so I can barely keep my hands trained to the keys I must type to say this. Adrenaline has been coursing through my veins all morning, as the anti-immigrant executive order signed, subsequent detaining of even legal green card holders, and protests at airports has unfolded. The United States has placed a ban on travelers from 7 countries, effectively targeting the Muslim religion, which coincidentally do not include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Trump’s businesses have ties there in those 3 untouched countries, to be clear. If anything, terrorists from those 3 countries were primarily responsible for 9/11. But they’re not blocked. They’d get through Trump’s “security” today. Things that make you go, “Hmmmm.”

I consider myself a citizen of the world, though my passport may be from the United States. Traveling internationally gave me profound respect for cultures other than my own. I saw the unity of humanity despite and through its differences. I appreciated how tiny I was in the scheme of the things, yet how loud a single voice and experience can be.

No, I cannot be quiet. A song debuted at the women’s march on January 21, 2017, practiced by online participants in advance, called “I Can’t Keep Quiet.” Like its lyrics proclaim, I, too, am a one-woman riot right now.

What Donald Trump and his supporters have done in just his first 8 days in office has completely up-ended the good, stable things that have made America great in the past. They have just made it un-great. That will undoubtedly have consequences. That’s gonna leave a mark.

I watch in shock and awe as history repeats itself. The dogs of war have been unleashed. It is on. This is how the 3rd world war commences, and that would make the time of the 3rd anti-christ upon us, according to the predictions of Nostradamus.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know what gift to give my dad, so I asked. Maybe it was a birthday, maybe it was Christmas. My memory begins to fail me in the details from long ago. He asked me for a Pink Floyd CD as a gift. I was shocked that there existed a Pink Floyd album he did NOT have! He told me it was the album with the song “Dogs Of War” on it. If you’ve not heard it, I urge you to give the link below a listen. It begins ominously. As we have, as well.

We can’t stop what has begun. Signed, sealed, delivered – oblivion, as the lyrics to the song go.

I am so disappointed. I’m disgusted. I am angry. I am sad. I am ashamed. For America. But I cannot hide. I’ve chosen my battle. I’m 35 years old. This and now is as good as it gets. I am as strong as I need to be right now. If I don’t commit myself to fighting this, then what is my purpose in life? I’ve never felt so passionately for something before. Peace. Open borders. No walls – the wall in Berlin was not only to keep unwanted outsiders out, but also to keep people in. If Trump builds a wall, part of me knows it too will be to keep Americans who want out in.

Giving up is not an option, now. Staying silent isn’t either.

He is Voldemort in the sagas of Harry Potter. He is President Snow in the Hunger Games. I just hope it doesn’t have to take 2+ more books to put his evil to rest for good. He cannot win. This is not how the story goes. I find myself wanting to shout from the rafters, “I volunteer as tribute!” if it would help the situation. It will not, but I’m involved now. It’s gone too far.

Iran is already retaliating against Trump’s order. I do not blame the Iranian people. I worry about future international travel plans I have. What if citizens of the US are no longer welcome anywhere else? What if the tables turned, and the Americans are now the refugees trying to escape a terrible force of unwanted government, and we have nowhere to go? No one to help us? No no no no no. Borders, bans, walls – these are not the answer.

I feel unsafe. Uncomfortable. The stress of only 8 days in the presidency is taking its toll on my body. My PT had to tape my left knee the other night, as I’ve got bursitis from perhaps too vigorous a leg workout day, working out my aggressions and stress. All morning I had a tension headache. I’m not sleeping well. I’m barely eating. This is not good for me.

His impeachment cannot come fast enough. This tangent we’re on needs interrupting. This would be a great time for the Avengers to make their presence known. For greater powers with sanity, logic, and a heart to intervene and make things right.

But that would be easy. Nothing ever comes easy. We must fight for it. Our ancestors fought for freedom in the past, and the fight is not over yet. I hope the election didn’t wear you out, because this has only just begun.

Resist. Everything. He. Orders. Resist.

Also, I again refer you to a post written by John Pavlovitz, who seems to have a knack for saying things the way I want to these days. Please read his most recent post “Dear World, From America”. I couldn’t have said it better myself, again. Please forgive us; you are seeing us at our very worst right now. We are turning to look at ourselves with horror.

I’ve said it before and it’s worth reiterating: Muslims, I’ll ride with you. Like the hashtag that went viral after the Lindt café shooting in Sydney, you are safe with me. I was coming home on the bus from yet another stress-induced vigorous workout today, when two women with head coverings and dark skin sat next to each other on the bus next to me. Maybe they weren’t even Muslim, but my sense of protection kicked in. My reflexes were so taught, I was literally thinking if anyone came onto that bus and began to harass them, I would literally get in that person’s face. I wondered what it would be like to get my ass kicked for doing so. I found myself not caring because what is right must win. It must.

I have also said before (see my post) and I’ll say again, this is exactly what the terrorists wanted, and America has played right into it. Fools.

Yes, I’ve admitted before to having hate for Trump. But that shows that I have passion. I am not indifferent, which is the true opposite of love. I’m certainly not indifferent. I have chosen a side, or perhaps the light has chosen me. I refuse to be on the wrong side of history, and now, I am prepared to die for that. Where this is going is unacceptable. Where America is going under Trump’s tutelage is not acceptable. I cannot, with my mind, all my heart, and very being, exist in a universe where the bad guys win.

So I must do everything I can to see to it they don’t. It’s hard to keep it all straight, as the M.O. of Trump and Republicans has been to throw the entire cavalry to the field within the first 8 days, signing executive orders that impede on my rights as a woman, as someone with a voice, as someone who appreciates the many freedoms afforded to me as a US citizen.

Yet today, I’m a little unsafer. Yes, I’m scared, if I’m being honest. I might look white. But I am female. And I definitely look gay. I’m not safe in Trump’s America.

If you’re not scared, then maybe you should be. Leadership of America now rests in the tiny hands of a malignant narcissist, bringing us ever closer to midnight on the doomsday clock.

Remember to find little joys where you can now. Sleep. Try to be good to yourself and others. Build strength. Find a way to fight and be active. Now is the time. If you find yourself getting tired, just rest; don’t quit.

I recently rewatched V for Vendetta as it recently became available on Netflix. Where is Guy Fawkes now? What day exactly do we mail out costumes to everyone to create an uprising? Do we wait for the curfews? How far does it have to go before we stop giving him a chance and begin shutting him down? Why isn’t he impeached yet???

I still believe in diversity and freedom and liberty. I have no children to protect or look out for. I have no wife to keep a photo of in my helmet as I press on. I sit here, writing to you now like Bastian in the attic of his school while reading the Neverending Story. Perhaps we had to be brought on this terrible journey, to give the empress a new name and save this world. We had to watch the horse die in the swamps of sadness. We loved the damn racing snail.

I sit here, writing to you now like the lesbian who died in V for Vendetta among the masses of emaciated prisoners likened to Holocaust victims in the film, who wrote her life story on a tiny scrap of toilet paper and rolled it up between the bricks of her cell for Natalie Portman’s character to find during her stay in the very same cell.

I have something to fight for, though. I still believe in good. I do not own a gun, nor do I want one. It would defeat the purpose of what I believe in, to fight with a gun. I do not think our government should take away your gun, if you have one. I’d feel a lot safer if you put it away, actually, unloaded, thanks.

I’m on edge tonight, and as I go into tomorrow, and the next day. My defenses are up. Maybe yours should be, too.