In Lieu of an Ambien Tweet

I’m waxing thoughtful tonight, and the post that follows was going to eat at me til I got up and wrote it, even though right now I have little idea of what I will say. So much has been happening, and I’ve considered the past few days about putting up a bullet list, but there’s more that is stewing and percolating inside my head. I’ll start with the list and proceed from there. Wish me luck.

• In the past two weeks or so, I’ve lost my phone and my iPod without a trace. There’s no way they walked out of here and very little chance I left them elsewhere. I’ve combed through half of this house so far, packing and unpacking boxes to move the bedrooms and the living room around. Nada. They were both last seen in the bedrooms, and I’ll be emptying the rooms again if necessary to see what lurks under the surface. So to speak. I’ve also lost a couple of more minor electronics. Might have to wait until Mercury goes direct, who knows. It’s disheartening, though.
   
• I either broke or severely sprained my toe.
   
• I broke a window out of my car with the lawn mower, which evidently threw a rock at high speed. I got that fixed yesterday.
   
• Said lawn mower, belonging to my mother, hates me as apparently does all lawn equipment on the face of the earth. I’m cursed. Literally every time I mow the grass, no matter what equipment I use, I am thwarted before completion or never get the damn thing started at all. I’ve jumped mowers only to have tires come off, etc. I even entertained the idea that it was faeries or elementals or something that didn’t want the grass cut, and offered to reserve a section of yard for them if they’d show me where. No sign that any being heard me or otherwise gave a damn. I’m skeptical about faeries even though I’m quite certain I saw a gnome once. Seriously. But in any case, I have some difficulty taking them as something I need be concerned about, whether they exist or not (rather like the Christian god, in that sense). But I was open to the idea just in case.
   
• Yesterday I woke up to an email from Michelle Belanger to contact her asap regarding Paranormal States. I was nerve-wracked worrying I’d replied too late, then nerve-wracked anticipating the interview, then seriously nerve-wracked conducting the interview (on the phone, btw — not sure if I mentioned that), and now I’m nerve-wracked worrying I won’t make the cut. But it was fun, and yay for a good thing on this bullet list, eh?
   
• My daughter continues to exhibit emotional, er, vulnerability and unpredictable shifts in mood, so I may have to drop everything at any moment to tend to her.
   
• I haven’t seen or talked to anyone, until yesterday, in like a month. I don’t have the energy to spare even though I miss them (and you).
   
• Stupid thing — I got impulsive and cut my hair. Short. Myself. Good thing — Today my brother cleaned it up, said I did a pretty darn good job (I cut off 8 inches or so), and colored it. Layers of color consist of natural, blonde, and a burgundy. It’s awesome. Kara got more of a fuchsia. I like them both.
   
• I feel like I’m blooming somehow, in spite of or because of all these things, these things being the next step in a journey that began at least a year ago and probably more like around the time Jesi left in March of 2008. (Good riddance to a situation I misread so completely that I am astounded at my naivete.)
   

And this brings me to my next point: Integrity is an incredibly rare thing. Incredibly rare. It’s difficult for me, and for each of us I’d imagine, to go through life with disillusionment piling upon disillusionment. Sometimes things go very well for so long that we forget how unlikely it is that everyone we trust is honest, loyal, and caring toward us. I don’t have anything in particular that has prompted this line of thought, other than a mystery I just finished reading (called The Dead Room; I’d give the author but the book is in the other room) and by a couple of things I viewed on TV in the past few days.

Tonight I was channel surfing and happened upon The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, which as you may recall is the television show that starred Mark Dacascos (mighty fine). The show was a piece of shit that nevertheless had its charms. The stories were the most watered down crap that had you boggling at how stupid they must’ve thought their viewers were, acted almost completely by two-bit, lousy actors. It was like watching The Partridge Family when I was ten. I’m sure ten-year-olds ate the show up. The key points of the overall mythos of The Crow were thrown out in favor of an Eric Draven that stuck around over time wondering as to his purpose, and instead of painting his face etc., his Crow guise was an organic transformation that occurred for him whenever he needed to amp up the bad-assery of his character.

I watched every episode when it originally aired back in the 1990s, feeling horrifically embarrassed to be watching yet unable to stop. The saving grace of the show was Dacascos, who found his footing after a few eps and then ran with the role, allowing the Crow aspect of Draven to become a license for juuuust a bit of evil playfulness to emerge. He became a delight to watch in spite of the horrible storylines. And he was just getting really good at it when they canceled the show. Figures. Isn’t that always the way?

Why do I bring this up? I have no idea. But Draven is one of those characters who see right from wrong in a very black-and-white way, where there is no room for deceit and you’re either good or evil. The bad guys who killed Shelly and Eric don’t get murdered by Eric in the series, until later when Top Dollar leaves Eric no choice. See, Top Dollar finds out that if he’s killed in a specific way, he can come back as a Crow-type figure and be immortal. So Eric kills him, and Top Dollar does indeed come back, except that his avatar or guide or whatever it is, is a snake. The Snakes were pretty funny. But anyway. I don’t know if Encore will be showing this on a regular basis, but just in case, it was on tonight at 11 pm Central US. Catch it if you dare.

Better yet, catch Dacascos in Drive or on the Iron Chef or whatever he is doing now. I have a sort of inner conflict of feelings about him. He is a truly amazing martial artist, fantastic form. But I get the impression he’s a shallow dick as a human being. The interviews I’ve read with him over the years, he’s very focused on appearance, for instance. But anyway, again. Who cares?

So I guess the show along with the book got me to thinking. I have a potential change in my life if I get on the air with the show and if I get any new clients via that. I’ve been trying to decide if I should put Rending the Veil out to pasture and focus on the spirit companion stuff that feels like my calling. I can’t decide if RTV is important for my development or not. Some people have told me not to give up on it, because I’ve already put a lot into establishing it, if you can call it “established.” Others say that synchronicities point to taking the other direction. There’s always the option of continuing to divide my energies, not doing either thing all that well. That doesn’t sit with me but it is still the easiest way to go — to maintain the status quo rather than change and upheaval or the possible lack of exposure that could be a side-effect of letting go of the magazine. I’m not sure the magazine gets much exposure, but it’s very hard to tell right now.

I’ve always bitten off more than I could hold on my plate, let alone chew. I feel something coming for me and I would rather heed a call than to necessitate a slap in the face such as I had about organizing this house. I’d rather be more observant, clearer thinking, and stop missing so many signals, both of the interpersonal and of the cosmic variety. I want to bloom. I feel that bloom is beginning, but I’m still feeling unfocused and uncertain of where to attempt focus. Most of all, I think like everyone else I want something to believe in that isn’t going to squash my remaining idealism (a trait I seem to hold onto with the tenacity of a pit bull in a tug-of-war). I want to help people, but I don’t want to feel alone. I want to trust people without . . . regretting it. I want to learn to layer my friendships so that I don’t have all my faith in one person and so don’t get so deep so fast that I am essentially behaving like an idiot. I want to balance things with greater ease. And I feel that it is all within reach in a way that I have never really felt before . . . I mean, I’ve felt significant events looming prior to now but this time I feel something deeply essential is almost within view. And I want it. I want it really badly.

So how’s your August been?