there is a grammar to life---

you need to know how to conjugate

your hopes and memories,

how (and what) to decline,

what tense to use for the tensions

amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant

cogito, ergo sum.

(the sum is sometimes greater, sometimes less

than the parts.)

past tense:

after my daughter was born,

i asked him

more than once---

come with me, i said,

please come with me

on this journey i cannot help but take

because it is my life.

 
present tense:

i sit at the window

watching cold rain

slide down the glass,

confronting all the ways in which

i've failed,

fighting the temptation

to keep doing nothing.

future tense:

i want to take these broken pieces

that were my life

shake them up and let them fall,

glittering and turning

and watch them land,

to read a pattern into random shards

and hope they make some new whole.

integrity is the state of being in harmony with one's values. first, you define those values; that means deciding what you personally believe in, what you believe to be worthy of your soul's greatest efforts. this may or may not be what your upbringing told you to believe in. it may or may not be that which is rewarded and supported by your society. but it is what YOU cherish. after you know what you truly believe in, you try to arrange your life and actions to align with your beliefs. it can be as extreme as saying to yourself, "what would i die for", or as simple as saying, "how can i be gentle today?" often, it will mean that you have to choose between what is easy and what is right. it may mean holding yourself to a different standard than many people around you. and most of all, it requires that you be rigorously truthful with yourself.  "to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." in a world where it seems almost anything and anyone can be bought or sold, integrity is possibly the greatest treasure and the most powerful agent for positve change. and visa and mastercard have nothing to do with it...
big old house: $500,000 - 800,000, excluding land
mercedes sedan: $40,000
private school tuition: $5000 - 26,000 per year
divorce lawyer: $2000 and up initial retainer, $500 and up per hour
integrity: priceless

apple will soon unveil their exciting new product, the i-man. building on their innovative i-pod line, highly-rated i-macs, and the i-phone, the i-man is a life-sized, fully-customizable gentleman. it's likely to be very expensive, though; apple hasn't released a suggested retail price, but it will most likely be very cost-competitive compared to marriage. company reps envision i-man replacing traditional dating to a large degree within a few years.

the product line will be available in a huge variety of finishes---eye, skin, & hair color are configured in many different combinations with custom options available at additional cost. there are five different heights available in standard models, with four basic body configurations to choose from. the product comes with what company spokespeople refer to as "type-specific, demographic standard genitalia", but there is a mail-in form for further customization to ensure complete customer satisfaction and optimal performance. the preferences menu will allow the happy owner to set parameters for all kinds of data storage, security features, and sexual preferences (described as "ken", "dumbledore", or "both sides now").  you can create a randomizable menu of playlists and "lock out" other users. the software for managing the i-man is said to be quite similar to the i-tunes program, but instead of music or video playlists, the user can compile personality traits, mental abilities, and social features. for example, one can have an "artsy" guy; an "academic" or "philosophical" guy; "hipster"; "prep-school/ fortune 500" model; "boho-chic" is compatible with some models, but not all; "redneck" man (base model only); "boy-next-door"; "surfer-dude" (west coast & australia only); "meet-the-parents" model (still in development); and many other possibilities. "engineer" and "gangster" models were test-marketed, but rejected during the research & development trials by most users. trial users praised the i-man's reliability, ease of use and maintenance, versatility, sweet temperament, and near-psychic ability to infer and play what the user would like to hear and do at any moment. even the base model will come with a broad range of supplemental practical skills, including housework, home and auto repairs, cooking (may be customized to accomodate dietary needs), and tech support for most household electronics. apple regrets that at this time, child care is not an option, stating that the potential for legal liability was too great. likewise, all models will be completely sterile, which most users actually rated as a huge plus.

the company anticipates a possible sell-out upon release, but states that they are confident they will be able to meet demand subsequently, although pre-ordering may be necessary. i-man is being manufactured in an undisclosed location, but industry insiders speculate that the majority of components are from japan and germany, making it reliable but expensive to repair. i-man will work for up to seven days on one full charge, and can be recharged on the fly via the included charging kit with cables for wall socket or car lighter use. i-man is unique among electronic devices in requiring a weekly recharge with cheap beer; apple indicates that they are working on this, but believable replication of male behavior was mysteriously inseparable from the beer. as i-man has shown no other objectionable traits like aggression or dominance, their success rate is still most impressive.

when queried as to a forthcoming i-woman, apple stated that they have no plans to develop that concept, saying, "our research and development teams found that female minds and bodies were not readily susceptible to technological simulacra, and the functions needed were too unpredictable and multifarious... all trial models failed to perform to expectation."  apparently they were unable to create a product that had the necessary complexity and flexibility to imitate women, though they are expected to keep trying, as demand for the "stepford" model would be huge.

yeah, sure, if they really like children. it's wonderful to be a mother. it's also "the toughest job you'll ever love"...(apologies to whichever branch of the armed forces uses that one.) i never had a paying job before this past year, though, so i am still kind of new at this. i teach yoga and do healing touch occasionally, and i enjoy those. it's lovely to feel like you are doing something that helps other people. and it's a good feeling that what i do doesn't feed the military-industrial complex or exploit anyone. of course, i am now in "below poverty line" status, but i don't care as long as i can pay my bills.

the mothering job is definitely the most challenging, but then, it's also the most important and the nearest to my heart.  i feel so strongly that this is somehting that shouldn't be done half-assed and carelessly. i can't believe that there is no real training or preparation given to our young people about the work of parenting. in the past, perhaps this was not as needed, but in the modern world which is composed of multiple independently spinning spheres, kids and young adults can grow up without having much knowledge about child-rearing and other life tasks. the majority of kids are in school and/or daycare from a young age. the majority of adults are out of their homes working for most of the day. the majority of elders are in nursing homes or cared for by paid professionals in their own homes. there isn't a lot of time where there is significant interaction between these spheres of existence. so it might be helpful to prepare young people for the responsibilities and joys of parenting.

i think it's fine to do a job that you don't especially enjoy, but it's maybe not so fine to spend a long time doing work that you really hate, or that doesn't align with your personal beliefs. that makes your job a daily hell, and erodes your energy. do it short-term, maybe, to get through a rough patch until you can find something better for you. but i know many people with a glaring dissonance between what they believe and the work they do, and many more who have a sort of ethically neutral job that they hate for other reasons. life is too short and your soul too precious to collude in your own gradual destruction...

oh dear goddess, to what am i NOT addicted?

dark chocolate
sex, men ( i think those are the same thing)
my bed
color
music
clean air
linen sheets
pretty knickers
books
movies
quiet
laziness
beer
luxury goods
handbags and shoes, judging from my closet
holding babies
indian food
hot water (hot tubs, hot springs, baths)
my best friend
tea (not coffee, though i like it too; only tea)
flirting
learning
sleeping
jewelry
my ipod

thankfully, i've not had any major chemical addictions. i used to smoke a bit, but not so much or so long that i had any problem quitting when i wanted to. i'm getting better about refusing the free drinks too.  i'm not really addicted to sugar, or caffeine, or painkillers, or recreational drugs. happy pills (ssri's and the like) make me vomit, which sort of ruins the anti-depressant effect they are intended to have. i was addicted to a man once, but i got over that. (ahem.) "might as well face it, you're addicted to love..."

guilty as charged.

in response to an amazing past week or so...

how can my heart throw open its doors

so quickly, so heedlessly

to you

how can it be that i feel i have come home

to a place i have passed so often

walking in an empty street

and looking up at lighted windows

and now

i find myself inside

at last

safe harbor for the traveller

coming home

to you

 

my first conscious memory is very simple---it's seeing and feeling the sun shining on me, through a window, i think.  i would have been just an infant at the time, so it is very tenuous.

i also have very early memories of looking up at the sky from my pram, which my mother used to roll outside and park in the grass. i was afraid of large birds, or any shape or shadow that reminded me of one, for some years, because apparently (according to my mother) a vulture swooped down and took my pacifier and flew off with it. really weird, i know. it probably explains some of the odder aspects of my personality, eh? and it's a family trait, because my own daughter is occasionally visited by birds, generally crows. they will fly directly at her for no clear reason and one pulled her hair repeatedly. she has, um, mixed feelings about this; i have tried to smooth it over by telling her the birds have messages for her. and maybe they do...

i remember the cats we had. there was a siamese who didn't take crap from anyone, least of all a human brat. i loved the cats.

when i was a toddler, my father accidentally broke my ankle in a bicycle wheel, so i remember sitting on the floor in my funny cast. i remember that it hurt, and that i was frustrated by having to drag myself around instead of walking along the furniture.

i remember being read to in the afternoons. my poor mother was probably trying to keep me out of her hair or settle me for a nap (good luck), and i would have happily listened to stories until nightfall. that's how i learned to read, from looking at the words as she read to me. it was like magic when i looked at a word and realized that i knew what it meant. i think it was in "frog and toad", but it might have been one of the beatrix potter stories. anyway, i looked at it, said it aloud, and my mother was very pleased.  for a while they thought i was repeating the stories from memory, which i am sure was part of the learning process, but one day they realized i was reading.

i recall certain toys---i had a little toy airplane with people to put in it that could be pulled along by a string. i liked the globe so much that they let me have it in my room. i would sit for long periods gently spinning it and looking at the land and water. after i could read, i would read the names of all the places aloud to myself and try to imagine what they were like.

i remember the first days of kindergarten---complete terror and mystification on my part. the teacher showed us how to draw a snowman by drawing three graduated circles just barely touching (head, a bigger one for the middle, a bigger yet for his base) and then putting in a dot face. i thought that looked really stupid and drew a proper snowman, with his sections melding together as they should and a carrot nose and twig arms. she took my drawing and put it in the bin, and told me to copy the one from the board like everyone else. i think that may have been the point at which i ceased extending automatic respect to adults. i wonder if i ended up majoring in art just to prove to her that i could draw!

wow, DREAM with capital letters, as if i had anything so grandiose or well-articulated! i have lots of dreams, but no organized plans for making any of them reality. i suppose i tell anyone who asks me about stuff what i wish or hope or dream...i suppose i sort of chip away at the obstacles between my dreams and their manifestation, but mostly i exist in a state of passive receptivity to life. this tends to work well for me. i am learning that if i really desire something, i need to have a very clear image of it in my mind, and then i need to step back from it and wait with an open mind and heart. it's rather eerie how often that is responded to by the universe. when i am muddled or unclear about what i want, i don't get it, or i get something that isn't a perfect match for what i needed or thought i wanted. when i have a proper picture in my heart about what i need, it frequently manifests just as i hoped or even better.  so perhaps the answer to "who have i told about my dream?" is simply "the universe". whatever is out there listening...