What Have You Been Learning Lately?

Rage dissolves into the bloodstream, surging through veins and capillaries until it's circulated to the tips of fingers and toes. And although you should be boiling over with fury, you blame yourself- tuck the hate in between muscle and bone, and seethe internal. Your self-loathing is text book. You have been on the other side countless times, assuring the teary woman that this is not her fault. And your training and text book knowledge informs you that you are similarly innocent. Yet somehow all you can think is "Where the hell did my voice go?" There is a part of you that knows that quietly, weakly whispering "No" should be enough. Any half decent guy would immediately back off and check in, make sure that he was still within a respectful space. There is a part of you that knows that that fucker is lucky that he didn't get his god damn testicles removed. But you're mostly just disgusted with yourself and the way that you wilted into a scared little g

Since I seem to be so fond of nautical imagery, we'll start like this: Lately, I've been adrift without paddles- a little canoe in a big, angry ocean. I don't do well in boats, so all this weather instability has got me fairly queasy with questions like, "What am I supposed to be doing?" and "What is going on?!" Floating blind through a fog bank, I heard a hope and helpful horn in the distance. Then a bright light house beam cut through the confusion and I found some solid ground to stand on after months of aimlessness. What really happened was: I've begun to take the good advice that I give other people and in doing so made a decision about the direction of my life. I haven't worked the details out yet, but, encouraged by Oprah and Steve Jobs, I am less concerned with failing and way more concerned about staying in this literal and figurative fog. I got on craigslist and found a really neat job where I can see myself being happy and challe

When times get rough, I look for inspiration. And between awesome blogs and TED Talks, there's no better source of inspirational material than the interweb. Today someone on facebook posted a link to a YouTube blog with a list of the top 10 most-viewed commencement addresses on the site. Having just heard a great commencement address last week, I sat down and watched almost all of the videos on the list. The common theme highlighted in the videos I watched (except for Meryl Streep's) is the inevitability, the importance and the gift of failure. Did you know that Oprah started out as a news anchor? And that she only became a talk show host because she was fired from her anchor position, but the network didn't want to break her contract? All these influential shapers of culture experienced failures earlier in their life that made the way for the success they would achieve later. Without failure and rejection, it would've been impossible for them to become who they are

My brilliant cousin graduated from UC Berkeley this week with honors, all the while raising my brilliant godbaby, no less. Graduations are rarely interesting to anyone besides the graduates, but this was special. Melissa has worked extremely hard to get where she is today and it was beautiful and inspiring to watch her walk the stage at the Greek Theatre, where we learned to salsa dance to the Gypsy Kings as teenagers. It was a rad, full circle moment to witness. Aside from the sentimentality of the event, there was also a really compelling keynote speaker, Ryan Lizza, the Washington correspondent for the New Yorker and CAL graduate. He told some impressive stories about his past dozen plus years covering the political scene, including his time with a young Senate hopeful from Illinois who would become our president. He pointed out something I had never considered: the word 'decide' shares the suffix '-cide' with words like 'suicide' and 'homicide,' an

we met the day my movie began. you know how movies always start on the day something new happens? you met me days before i closed a brief but important chapter, which was really just the beginning of the end of a much larger chapter. you were at a place of closing and opening, as well. i'd like to think that meeting during this auspicious time was the beginning of something new, but it remains to be seen exactly what, if anything, you mean to me. i fear that i mean very little, if anything, to you. there were several small sound bytes that you dropped, quietly, seemingly unknowing that you were speaking very directly to intimate parts of me...things that made me wonder how you knew that?! are you aware of how intuitive you are? are you utilizing this skill to elevate or to seduce? i'm sure you understand that you affect other people, but i'm not sure you understand how deeply in some cases. in cases like these cases. like ella says, i've got you under

It would be totally ungracious to overlook the abundance of blessings that populate my life...especially on a day like today when people I care about all over the world made a point to reach out with their love. And yet... There is this small, totally ungracious part of myself that can only think about what is missing. Is this normal? To hope for something so much that what is not overwhelms what is? This is the problem with unmanaged expectations...you're not even aware of how important something was until it's not there and then it's all you see (ahh, that's hilarious...the Baths song "Palatial Disappointment" just came on). Moments like these are teachable moments. What is my palatial disappointment teaching me? Maybe there are some things that I care about more than I have let on, even to myself. Maybe finding myself feeling disappointed is a good indicator that these things are actually disappointing. And if something is consistently disappointing,

Friday afternoon I was walking down Valencia hoping to find a good book and a chai to cozy up with at Muddy Waters. In rifling through the free bin outside Dog Eared Books, I found a copy of the deliriously silly teen softcore, Twilight. I have been actively avoiding Twilight for years but being that the book was free and I had some time, I figured this was my chance to find out what I had been mocking for so long. First impression: This book is written for mostly illiterate 6th graders. Second impression: It's almost 200 pages in and the plain girl with the bad attitude is just now figuring out that this mysterious, pale, super stud is a vampire? That's quite the verbose introduction, rife with some not-so-subtle foreshadowing. I think 6th graders should be given more credit. Much like a thirsty vampire, I consumed the book in two short days and was left with no desire to read farther. Not only because the story never really became compelling but primarily because the re

Yogi Bhajan talked a lot about the developing shift bringing about a renaissance of sorts of the Divine Feminine. Women have been mined for their sensuality and sexuality during the last age, but as we shift, the Adi Shakti is rising. I'm seeing flickers of this change and it's a big relief because, honestly, I think without bringing in the power of the feminine, the world might really actually implode. The Adi Shakti is the Primal Creative Power of the Universe. We need this creativity to rebuild the world into one that will nurture life rather than exploit or destroy it. The masculine need to conquer has led us to this point of collapse. The post-war, women's lib world has offered women the opportunity to get in touch with their superficial masculinity. Women can wear slacks, fix flats, operate power tools, provide financially for their family- all previously part of the male arena. But what about men? A couple of years ago Madonna wrote a pretty bad song asking men if

I wish I could give you my understanding, and that I could have yours. Between us, we would know everything. You would understand how well taken care of you are, even if it feels like chaos. I would understand how to channel all of my intensity into real discipline. You would feel the weight of your words in your mouth before you spoke them. I would never again walk in the exact opposite direction of my destination. You would feel Creation vibrating cellularly and fall so far in love. I would consciously pilot my own life again. You would apologize far less often. I wouldn't care quite as much. I want to borrow your eyes so I can see me like you see me- so clearly, with wisdom and perspective. We know the answers to all each others questions, handle each others flaws like diamonds to be held to the light and take care of each other as family. I want you to love you like I love you. It's a lot, you know. And I know you love me, too, a lot, so I want to love

When the future is hazy, or completely dark, my imagination jumps in to populate the darkness. Uncertainty breeds anxiety in my rational, list- and plan-making mind, and I deal by indulging in "future building," as Kaitlin and I like to call it (that's where you craft scenarios about the future that may or may not have any basis in reality). There are probably very few people who have never done this. It's natural to look ahead and try to get some kind of purposeful trajectory going. Then there are times when we simply cannot know what will be revealed when light floods in to illuminate the next chapter (I would argue that we never really know what's to come, but anyway...). In moments like these, when anything is possible, my funny mind populates the uncertain future with monsters, disasters and every fear I've ever secretly held. Or, I choose one possible outcome that seems acceptable and latch on. This limited vision of the truly infinite opportunities t