i am

feeling insane. advice sometimes hangs on decision like weights, dragging them down further into indecisive oblivion. some days happiness seems like my due, and others i am sopping wet with other people's expectations and perceptions.

it's true, i don't know what to do. i don't know if i can do this for the rest of my life. my love is expansive for him, but is it enough? is there enough here to build a working life?

fuck it. don't take advice from people who can't seem to have a successful relationship to save their life.

last night

i had the most interesting dream. in it i was with a family; there was me and the mom and two kids, and i was closely connected to them, i was family too i think. Everyone was brown except for me. we walked up to a gymnastics studio, the children were going to take gymnastics, and after we walked in a very short old man greeted us. it was a dark and calming studio, no artificial light, with plants and open windows and yoga mats, dark wood walls and floor. the children began their gymnastics, but then so did the adults. there was something eerily intimate about the way the adults moved, the instructor moving in tandem, leading them, shouting encouragement and pushing them to be focused and connected. there was something deeply spiritual happening and it made me squirm.

i made an excuse and left. i went to a restaurant and drank beer and ate lots of food. i paid with a credit card that was declined. i returned to the gymnastics studio.

the instructor offered to engage in the movements with me, and I accepted, feeling sheepish. i moved, but not very gracefully, making fun of myself the entire time. the instructor stopped and looked at me. it was clear that i had a choice to make. he pulled out a deck of cards and asked me to choose. i chose a card, and it made me cry. i forget what it said. everyone was quiet while i cried.

i woke up this morning in a rush. my alarm has not been going off, and it upsets my daily workplan when i'm an hour late to the facility. i cursed and rushed to the shower, upset. i looked at myself in the mirror and scolded myself for being so out-of-shape. then i remembered the old man of my dream, and it jolted me. after my shower i dressed and came into the living room, turned on this computer, and looked for a meditation center close to me. it turns out that there is one 3 blocks away. and that the drop-in intro is tonight.

there has to be a dividing line, a defining moment that separates the me of then to the me of now, the me that rushed and criticized and wished and craved, the me that still is, and the me that will bring me to enlightenment in whatever way i am supposed to achieve it. i wonder if a dream could be that for me.

my days now

are full, each of them, with repetitive and unique tasks, each step down the same hallway brings me to that same person, and our conversation each time changes, they move forward and i move forward, they move back and i move back, we together struggle toward a goal that we both are aware of and cage around. i walk away to step down different hallways toward different people that i have had countless conversations with before, we engage in a similar process with unique challenges, and i step away again.

in the end i cannot actually be there with them. i can only hope to somewhat understand, and i am not sure that they know how much i depend on them for everything, how much i admire them for their fortitude, how i never would stand for this for 30+ years in a blue collar job, but then i am reminded that it hasnt been 30 years of this, that with the rise of a corporate economy a more caustic management has overtaken them, i often hear stories of supervisors past who offered aid and advice, not disciplinary actions and disrespect, but here we are in the heart of the beast i suppose.

i wander the halls with my white skin and my long hair and my pretty face and i confront a population of immigrant people of color who have struggled hard just to get here. its an interesting and moving life to lead, being confronted with your privilege constantly, and being compelled to struggle for the rights of less privileged people each day. really, my job is about constant confrontation. fight the boss. fight the boss. fight the boss. fight the boss. fight the boss.

i guess

that my problem is that i have too much to write and i can't get any of it out anymore. the words push hard against my fingertips and clog like so many cars on a narrow san francisco freeway, engines running but getting nowhere fast.

so many metaphors strike me, they all reflect urban themes: streets, cars, buildings, smog, bridges, cables, phonebooths, parking lots, meters, cops, old women trailing rolling groceries, ipods&phones&minigamemachines, busses and munis and subway entrances, fluorescent lights, blue faces unsmiling, staring forward to some unknown destination, hurrying no matter what there is another place to be as soon as possible. smoking dirty people in doorways, empty cups asking for anything, trees poking up lonely out of concrete mouths