Who am I kidding? I'm happy.

I am happy.

When I started this blog, I thought: OK. We'll do this blog thing until I get my book deal and that will be the big fat cherry on top, the final entry. Hasn't happened quite yet.

Still happy.

Not living with my cosmic man.

Still happy.

The Next Big Thing...is me staying where I am. Signing a year's lease. STAYING. Me, queen of itchy feet. STAYING. I took a walk on the beach today, letting the ocean chase my feet, sipping my oolong tea (Iron Goddess of Mercy) and suddenly I was inspired to belt out a song. I mean loud, too.

Sit, stay, breathe. Be happy.

Sitting with myself

Today, here, I met myself. Here, while reading Jake Fades. I met me - the whole, the real me. And I smiled.

Jake Fades, by David Guy, is a sweet novel about life, beer, donuts, sex, and oh, yes - Zen. It especially focuses on zazen, or the practice of sitting meditation. You sit, breathe, and see what arises. Soften to all the feelings.

Zen. Zazen. There is something to be said for just sitting.

To the beach

I have moved back to the beach - this time the coast of North Carolina. Sound of the ocean when I wake up and when I fall asleep. Sharp tang of the salt air. Feeling more at home in the short time I've been here than anywhere else I've lived in 2011.

I'm silly with gratitude as I write this with my view of sparkling waves.

What now for me? Whatever comes. Anything is possible.

Crush and Ganesh

Look who I saw yesterday: Ganesh! My friend M told me that he has a big head, telling you to think big and go beyond your limitations. Also, he has big ears, telling you to listen and follow what you hear.

I have a crush. He's a beautiful artist. I saw him looking at me. And hopefully he saw me looking at him. I gave him my phone number.

I wonder where the story goes from here.

Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha
Salutations to Ganesh, remover of obstacles

Lust in the Leaflight

I don't have a lusty encounter - muddy, grass-stained, delicious, took place under these branches - to relate. Sorry. Tricked you. And here you are, reading my blog.

I am feeling lusty though. Spring, and a young woman's thoughts turn to...

Oh, come on! You'd all rather be gettin' some than whatever you're doing right now. All of you! Banging, balling, bonking, rolling in the hay, fucking, knocking boots, getting laid, gettin' busy, doin' the wild thing. Admit it!

Spring is hot pink

Bynum Bridge: doesn't it make you feel good?

Spring stillness

"By being still and receptive, instead of busily trying to find solutions, we give our intelligence the time and space it needs to find an appropriate way to proceed.... What is fresh and alive comes only from the unknown."

- John Welwood, Ordinary Magic

Look at me

That's what this cardinal seems to be saying. Look at me. How can you miss me with this fabulous red coat on? These sexy guys are all over the woods where I'm staying. In fact, all kinds of funky animal friends are busting out in the woods: big spiders, a bullfrog, owls, hawks, deer.

This cool little North Carolina vortex of life is helping me bust out some words and art, too. My creativity is off the charts right now.

Look at me. Not the cardinal! Me, the writer. If you've ever wondered what it's like to live straight from your gut, this is it, baby. It's all magic, all the time.

Sometimes magic can hurt. Just saying! But if you've been reading my blog (and if you haven't, you can always catch up in the archive!) you know the tasty secret: the pain is outpaced by the pleasure.

Sanctuary

I've retreated to a sweet, calm sanctuary way out in the woods, where I'll spend a month writing, reading, walking, and meditating. Space! Quiet! Or rather, songs of nature: birds, water in a pond, horses.

Having spent the past few months living with less space, this is magical and I am grateful. Thanks K, for making this possible for me.

I've decided it's hard to live with someone you're not sleeping with. If you're having sex this indicates a level of coming together, of commitment and intimacy that lets you be in close quarters on a daily basis: sharing a bathroom, padding around in socks, working, playing, being crazy emotional when you need or want to be.

I'm working on my second book. It's sexual, angry, outrageous. All the better to be in a place where I can laugh / scream / cry AS LOUD AS I PLEASE!

Valentine's Day 2011

Happy Valentine's Day: here's wishing you unfettered joy and pleasure no matter where you are, who you're with, or what you're doing.

I started this blog on February 14, 2010, to chronicle my writing journey. It's taken me from North Carolina, to Maine (where I launched the blog), to Mexico, back to Maine...and completing that circle, back to North Carolina once again. Phew.

Thank you for reading...

writing, foreplay, reality?

writing.
"...Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them."
--- from Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood."

The same is true of me. I'm not able to write at the moment and it's horrible...

foreplay.
A friend of mine said she continued to have sex during pregnancy, until the final few weeks, when she simply was so full, so hormonal, so done, that she wanted nothing other than the baby to be born. I feel the same. My body is full to bursting (with my book) and all I can bear is a little light foreplay (writing down a paragraph here, a sentence there).

reality.
I am busy losing my grip on reality. What I have perceived as my reality no longer works for me. Why do I say this? I go to places, like my old house, to look for evidence of emotion and find none. Old restaurants disappoint. My friends have moved on. My ears ring with the sound of music from a different place. I can't even fucking wear my clothes anymore: nothing looks like me, nothing makes me feel like me, I hate everything I put on my body. Who I was is gone. Shit. And the old garb, the old ways, are useless.

So, what happens if I let go the iron grip? What happens if I lay down all my weapons, I mean ALL my weapons, and let the cosmos truly have its way with me?

I'll let you know.

Emerging from the cave

I'm back in North Carolina now after days on the road. The way the landscapes and temperature changed delighted me with each successive state I drove through, the fall foliage lessening to green as if I were rewinding time. No I-95 for me: I took the route through the mountains, down through the Shenandoah Valley on I-81.

My favorite part of the trip was unplanned. In Grottoes, VA, I randomly pulled off the highway to see the Grand Caverns. The mountains turning purple in the fading light, I barely made it to the last guided tour of the day.
The belly of the mountain was beautiful, and a cool 54F year-round. Quiet, just a handful of other visitors at the late hour, the marvel of the dripping stalactites, living rock. Even saw a couple of (early) hibernating bats clinging to the upper reaches of the cave when we were 200 feet below ground. Only the next day did it hit me: bats symbolize rebirth. And if that's not what I'm doing by returning to NC at the end of a long journey, I don't know what it is.

Leaving the cave as the sun set, we visitors made polite walking-to-the-car introductions. The others were inspired by my summary - quit my job to write a book and travel - and told me how brave I was. Oh, how I needed to hear that! It made me glow to remember. Me. Brave. Yes.

Gotta say it feels weird here in NC. Past, present, and future simultaneously: all my possible selves merging into one. Full circle.

Here I sit now, in a borrowed empty bedroom with no furniture, staring at the ceiling and thinking about it all.

Going, going...

Man. So I mean look, I couldn't even write in my blog this past month. I can understand if I bored you. I bored even myself. I asserted at the beginning of October that I felt good about the month--- hey, it's not over yet! But I was so wrapped up in trying to figure out what not having a book deal yet meant for me / being sorely pissed off that I kind of

ground to a halt.

And to get somewhere, you have to go somewhere. Keep moving, keep dancing (homage to Haruki Murakami's excellent Dance, Dance, Dance) to stay alive.

So while Maine was the place I edited my book, North Carolina is the place I will wait for it. No, I never imagined I'd go back to North Carolina, not in a million years, and I do not consider it a destination but -- as has happened so many times this year -- a friend has offered a place to stay while I look for a work gig. And along the way there will be adventure, friends, and resources that appear

as if by magic.