A Letter On Behalf of Justice For Adnan Syed

Sent to Maryland State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby on 11.10.21

Dear State’s Attorney Mosby And All Who Might Also Read This,

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen on the matter of the current incarceration of Adnan Masud Syed, an inmate at the North Branch Correctional Institute in Cumberland, Maryland.  If you are unaware of Mr. Syed’s situation, he was convicted in 1999 as a minor (17 years old at the time) and yet was tried as an adult (the first of many procedural/institutional errors), and found guilty of the murder of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend, who had been missing for nearly 5 weeks prior to being found in Leakin Park.  

Mr. Syed has been the subject of multiple documentaries, podcasts, and books, not to mention countless blogs and articles, all detailing exorbitant evidence proving or pointing to his innocence in this crime.  

There is overwhelming evidence that directly impeaches the state’s case against Mr. Syed, and yet he remains in prison.  Myself and many, many others perceive this man to have been the unfortunate victim of a perfect storm of procedural, prosecutorial, forensic, and legal errors, mishandling, neglect, violations, and misconduct, which then unfortunately created the grounds for denial of his appeals.  This is a man whose experience, in my opinion, demonstrates nearly perfectly the flaws in the justice system and how it unfortunately folds in on itself and denies, rather than promotes, justice.  I am confident that when you examine the evidence and educate yourself on this case, you will come to the same conclusion. 

To name just a few examples: untested DNA evidence that could exonerate him and find the killer of this young woman (Hae Min Lee); police misconduct on the part of the officers who have disobeyed procedure on multiple other cases; prosecutorial Brady violations; and grossly ineffective representation of counsel in his first and second trials by the same defense attorney on his behalf.  That last one alone - ineffective representation of counsel - directly caused or contributed to his later denials of appeals to various courts.  He is servicing a life sentence plus 30 years for a crime based on what was effectively a Magic Bullet theory posited by the state, based on now-agreed-upon faulty cell phone tower evidence.  The State of Maryland has, it seems, insisted upon spending over something close to $1.5million in the incarceration and court costs alone for a man who so clearly did not commit this crime, leading me to believe that the state itself doesn’t act in self-interest, if we’re looking at this squarely; and I know you are a woman who is insistent upon justice and you deserve to correct injustices like Mr. Syed’s in order to recalibrate and rightly orient the direction of your great state.

The real killer of Hae Min Lee is still at large.  The state’s continued refusal to reexamine Mr. Syed’s case and clear his name is tantamount, logically, to an insistence that Hae Min Lee’s killer roam free.  

I urge you as State’s Attorney to please consider my request and examine the evidence that so clearly exonerates Mr. Syed in this case.  He has appealed to every court in the state, and based on the numerous technicalities built into the system, he has either been denied an overturn of his conviction, or been denied the chance for a new trial.  This seems to represent a deeply illogical and irrational “motive” on the part of the State of Maryland to keep this man incarcerated.  Mr. Syed, like many others, appears, in my eyes, to have fallen between roughly every crack in the system over the course of not only the onset of the investigation into Hae Min Lee’s death, but in the procedures of the “justice” system, as well - and I use quotes for that word not out of disrespect but because he has actually been denied a new trial and an overturn of his conviction based on “failing to meet the terms/grounds for justice”.  Mrs. Mosby, I respectfully inquire how the institutions set up by the state of Maryland could claim to seek and protect this concept, justice, and yet leave no room for the actual facts in and about this case that so clearly point to his innocence and to the guilt of another yet unknown/unascertained party.  

I urge you once again to please examine this man’s case and see for yourself how he has fallen into the eye of the storm of injustice in essentially every crucial phase of his proceeding through the legal system.  When it comes to justice, what aspect isn’t crucial?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully, 

Jessica Aimee Cakuls,

A concerned global citizen who resides in Illinois.  

Angelina Jolie and Why I Am The Most Beautiful Girl In The World

I'm the most beautiful girl in the universe, and I'll tell you why this is:  because I do not need any other female to agree with me.  I know where the center of the universe is.  It's me.  And in fact, I want every other female to feel this exact same way *about herself*.  I am the most exquisite girl because my features... are mine.  

If you're female - whatever that term means to you - you need, I cannot advocate this enough, you need to stop worshipping other females and worship yourself.  It's your only job.  Its the only fucking job you were given to do.  

I'm the most beautiful girl in the whole dang universe because I'm Jessie.  Because there's no other Jessie and there never will be.  You couldn't be if you tried.  And I couldn't be any of you if I tried, and in fact, trying is what causes it - beauty - to leave.  

The man that I'm with is going to think and feel this with every fiber of his being, and he's going to know it this as Fundamental Truth, or he's not going to be with me.  He can say it as often as he actually feels it and it hits him.  Some men look at other women, and some men talk about wanting other women, and some women may find this acceptable, but in my kingdom, this is grounds for death. (XD)  There is one king and her name is Me. : ) If you are a female and you are looking for this truth, may you find it *NOW*. 

You do not see rightly if you are female and do not worship at the altar of yourself.  

And if you do not see rightly, you will always be chasing what is actually right in your own heart and coming out of your own face:  your soul.  

Are you in your body yet?  Get there.  Be where you already reside.

That's it, if you have any questions on how to do this,  you know where to find me.  

The Case For Nail Art

I am an artist. 
I have an ability to express the way I see the world. 
I am also a scientist, and my study is life.
As an artist, I am unique: I am able to express how and what I see, and I am also able to explain why I see it the way I do through reason and logic. 
As a woman, I enjoy the transformation made possible through cosmetics and aesthetics.  But I am a force of nature; I don't present myself as a space to be filled.  I present myself as a set of ideas pre-formed but also capable of expanding and growing.
There is this perception of cosmetics, in Western and potentially other cultures, that their use and their end should be as a type of lightly decorated canvas.  In other words, a blank space with a pretty frame.  Makeup shouldn't be "too heavy"; "it should 'look natural'"; any additional materials - acrylics on the nails, or extensions for the hair - are, depending on your career or geographical proximity to New York or Los Angeles, vulgar or insane NOT to use.  Whether or not it's been thought through, this is a direct extension of the idea that femininity is supposed to be a presentation of a space to be filled.  That it should be an aesthetically pleasing void to be occupied and filled.  Let's just say it, it's supposed to be a pretty pussy. 
Cosmetics are supposed to enhance that space, or frame.  If you, as a woman, present your space as not a space, but as a preconceived (pun, intended) idea, or a force not open for negotiation, then your use of cosmetics is vulgar. 

Well, I paint.
I realized that a very limited audience would ever be exposed to my ideas and feelings and sensations about life, as I put them to canvas. 
I'd always admired, immediately, the airbrushed images I'd seen predominantly on nails of African-American women.  It's bold as fuck.  And often really cool and beautiful.
One day after painting, I saw paint residue on the blank canvas of my red acrylic nails.  I kept it.   I thought it'd make for a really awesome set of paintings, actually, if I blew up the images on my nails to a 3'x5' canvas in real paint. 
So I took a risk and started experimenting in nail art.  It would be an approximation of a painting, that I would love to see on my wall, only on my nails.  All ten of them.  And sometimes on my toes, too.  That way, I could present, without carrying around an inconvenient and enormous canvas, the artist I am, simply by handing someone my credit card, or holding a glass of wine, or sitting with my legs crossed and arms resting on my knees. 
My nails are, more often than not, filled.  They are a force of nature.  They say a lot, and they are purposely without a lot of room for someone else to imprint their thoughts or ideas on top of them.  I don't have light, almost imperceptibly pink polish on short nails going forth into the world.  I have a lot of design, color, shape, and striking imagery going forth into the world.  I stand for a lot of things.  As a woman, this makes me a Goddess.  It makes me a warrior.  It makes me, in many, *many* ways, more of "a man" than a lot of men I do and do not know.  That. is.  BEAUTIFUL. 
And if I feel like wearing make-up normally seen on men at 3am in nightclubs, during the day, just to go get groceries, then I do it.  I don't think twice about it.  (Or if I do think twice, I still do it.)  I am not here to be filled, except during the act of actual intercourse, and only then if I so choose, and irrespective of the gender of my partner/s.  I am not a walking orgasm for anyone to possibly arrive upon.  I am a full and complete human being, divine in nature, and that means I am complete and yet I am also room to grow.  - Please note that I did not say that I have room to grow.  I am room to grow.
 
I am fine with you calling my nails, my makeup, or my hair color vulgar, tacky, ghetto, ugly, or anything else that I would not describe it as being.  I am fine with it, because, your declarations and judgments of my beauty and expression are an indication of your acceptance of ideas and values that you have not thought through.  Because if you had, and if you had thought it right through to the end of its logical extension, you'd arrive at the same thing I did: truth.  And I accept a lot without thinking it through.  This is how we avoid going completely mental.  I am totally okay with you judging me, because, you arbitrarily chose not to think this through, so that your brain did not explode (figuratively speaking) from trying to conquer all realities.  I do not take it personally.  I am happy that you are exercising grace and generosity towards yourself, and patience for yourself, to permit your life to be easier.  I do the same. 
But I will absolutely continue to exercise my right to nail art.  Nail polish and nail decals are a human right.  They are the logical, physical manifestation of the thought, the idea, the value, that self-expression, or if you will, talking, is a human right.  In the same way that clean drinking and bathing water, medicine, political expression, and peace are also human rights.  I will continue to exercise my right to nail art, my neutral-to-wild choices for hair color, and my two-hour-plus eye makeup sessions. 
But I will now end this essay, because my nail polish is starting to literally get typed off.  And vanity trumps all things.

Guinness Is Calling You

There was not a space for you before you arrived here at birth.

You broke your way through.

There was some flesh and some desire, and then there was you, and you could not be stopped.

This: (Life:) Is not what I thought it was.

I do not know what I thought it was. I had an empty head and I died to defend that emptiness.

Life is a current to join. Literally. Like, current of a river. Like, the measurement of nowness. Like, the utility of money. Like, electricity.

That current, that time, that river, is the only safety possible, only, you don’t know this, because your idea of what is "safe" is premised on total bullshit.

It's bullshit because you are one blueprint that never existed before, and will never exist again, and you the blueprint are even shifting as you're reading this word, and it doesn't matter how well you describe the temple you're building, or who you describe it to. They will never be able to advise you better than the architect within you, and because they are not you, and they are not going to live in your temple, there are no stakes in it for them that are as immediate as they are for you, and that immediate hunger, that fire, the one pushing each of your cells a little further each and every chance you get? That pushing and that reaching IS your data, IS your information, IS your wisdom, IS your map, IS your application, IS your advice. It's the only good advice.

Your desire is your advice.

You think that by trying to avoid the commitment and taking the half-step, by somewhat considering it, so that you could then go back on it, you are being safe. It's not even that this makes you wrong. You're not even dead-wrong. You're just dead.

All half measures are your downfall. Your best 99% is your most successful fucking failure. Here's why.

To be in something, to have your body present, and to have your mind somewhere else, or nowhere else the whole time, is the sin. To not take full advantage of the goldmine that is all around you, all the time, is what will kill you later, when you see what you missed. The fact that there was a cliff, and that you didn't take a running leap off that cliff is what will kill you in the end. You will not have saved yourself by loitering on the ledge and complimenting the view and looking down at that drop and coining a multitude of positive affirmations and witty aphorisms. Aphorisms don't mean shit if you don't cash them and jump into the abyss. It doesn't mean you need to drive 80mph into a wall. It does mean when you've jumped off one cliff, build your wings on the way down and sail over to the next one. Don't crash to the ground. But if you did, good job! - Now walk it off. Walk it off. Walk it off. And walk it off a bit more. If you find yourself back at that same cliff - which, if you fell, and walked it off, you can count on doing - if you find yourself back at that same cliff, then remember the feeling of your footing right before you fell. And please know that that cliff is now also completely different, and you can't even approach it with the lessons you learned on the last one. Know why? It's not a cliff, it's actually a raging river. Good luck to you! So now, grappling hooks and shoes don't mean shit. You need a paddle and padding and a life vest and a boat to boot and guess what else? Physics tells you that stationary molecules are different from molecules in motion so even your sense of physics is fucked here too. So good luck to you! Maybe tattoo it somewhere on your arm or somewhere visible on your person that there's a lesson at hand here and though the goal is the same, and your instincts will be the same, the important thing is to HOLD THE FUCK ON and to KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.

You have to assume like the biggest asshole in the world that the river loves you even though it SEEMS like its going to kill you, IS trying to kill you, ONLY wants to de-limb and de-capitate you. You need to believe that its very roughness, its very turbulence, and its very deadliness is how it shows its love to YOU, you who are the goal, you who are the diamond floating along this little lazy river known as a raging rapid, you, the diamond, who somehow gets polished while you're being flung against rock break and broken log alike. You're going to be loved very, VERY hard. Mop up those wounds, splint the shit that broke, and say "Oh wow. That was, VERY, VERY kind of you, River, I appreciate your tenderness and that was quite a blow to the head just now and yeah, it appears that there's a branch with leaves lodged through my heart but no, it's not a big deal. What are you doing tomorrow, River, will you be raging again? Cuz I'd like to make this exclusive." Whatever you do, don't abandon ship. Or walk away from the cliff. Or jump out of the plane. All the cliches are true. Try not to make them come true.

You can only recognize actual safety in hindsight, and it’s not even a measure of precaution, or the hand you won because something did or didn’t happen that you did or didn’t value. Safety is, Here's a river. The river is not you. But because you're in the river, you need to be the River. Assimilate your ass to that river.

Safety has nothing to do with somehow knowing a possible outcome and trying to control your way through to that desired outcome. It's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he steps out into thin air and suddenly there is a path to God being built right under his feet. That path, that IS God, will be built right under your next step, by virtue of you taking that step. The path doesn't get built before you take the step. Know why? Because you create physics. You create a vacuum with your desire and your action. That step into thin air IS God. I'm not even sure yet what that means or what it looks like, but we've all taken such a step, we're rewarded when we do, and we'll all need to take them again. We feel it when we do it and we'll get more and more comfortable with being that uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is God. May we all have the strength to trust Out of Thin Air.

If you think safety is to be had by refraining, or by hesitating, or by dragging your feet, or by half-committing, as if showing up halfway somehow means you can both ‘be there’ and 'not be there at all', then you are dead wrong. You're wrong because a) physics doesn't permit such a possibility and 2) neither does logic and c) neither does anything that runs this whole video game called Life. That line in the sand that says "no, not past this point" is the way you learn. And you can't learn if you don't cut off one thing from everything else. Somehow you can only grow by cutting.

You also don't know happiness.

Your half-measures are the greatest roadblock to your happiness. In fact, you may as well call "trying", "misery." It's the half-dedication, the "I'll say I'll do it but I really don't give a shit" that will make you want to off yourself. Know thyself? Yes. Whatever it is that the you in you really wants, fucking listen, and fucking go get it. Stop thinking about it. And you'll know what it is you want because you won't be able to leave yourself alone about it. This is God talking to you, even if it seems not-God. Get over it. You're wrong. Being wrong is sexy. Try to be wrong more often.

Because you are alive, there is a thread of possibility that extends into infinity. You travel this little silver spider-thin thread of an assumption that is life that is a mind that is a path, and you can bulldoze it or tip-toe or doggy-paddle your way through, but it actually keeps moving, or really, the current around you keeps moving, even when you try to wrangle back that current - which you cannot possibly do, which is really just you fooling yourself into thinking that you could possibly wrangle it, or that there's even a thing that is that current that you could understand enough to try but still not be able to put your hands around. Do you think this sounds negative? Cause I sure do, I think this sucks. But I also know that this is the only way you build positivity. The world is entirely distraction so what is pure and vital is rare and quiet. If you accept those limits, then you can build off those limits. And guess what? - Without limits, nothing has a value. So then there's not only no way to be positive, but there's nothing that's negative, either.

You carve out tangents to that path and none of it, not the tangents and not the original recipe, is a pre-set design.

You are both a particle and a wave.

You function in two parts.

And on that note, you are also a tone.

You are a moment of music in a greater piece.
You are your own score to be conducted.
You rise to the crest of the wave because you are alive and then you become part of the part of water that may not be noticed because it is there to support the parts that are supposed to be noticed next.

No one else sounds or smells or tastes like you.
You are not pre-set.
You are not pre-designed.
You have a quality and a sound that is all your own and you cannot avoid it even though you try so hard to mute it out or don’t try at all.

When you try to mute yourself, all you get is distorted sound.

When you try to mute yourself, you get a flat note.

Your sound cannot be extinguished.

There's no way to mute yourself.

There's no way to not have a tone.

There's only a way to make a sound you don't like listening to.

And how can you be the wrong note if YOU're the note?

"How can I be the wrong Alice if this is MY dream?"

You are in need of everything that is always being offered to you, and guess what?

We all need, you, too.
We need you to show up and to unselfconsciously, enthusiastically, throw yourself at us, balls-to-the-wall, and at what you do, too. Mostly, at us.
What you choose is fine as long as you engage with both hands rather than hold back.

Don’t you know the world needs you?

Don't you understand how vital you are to life?

There’s a need for you, and for you to throw yourself into us, because of the fact that you’ve thought about it enough to take one step forward.

There's a need for you because that thing was sparkling enough for you to even think about it, to even venture an "Ok."

If you’re here, if you’ve arrived, and if you’ve been invited, then you’re needed.

Did you think that this was a luxury?

That there's empty space to satisfy nothing?
If you’re here, then there’s a space waiting for you over there, and there is where you're next.
You've lived so long saying “yes” and meaning maybe.
This has caused you more pain and anguish than diving headfirst into a shallow pool, which would have been better than hesitating and circling for a century on the edge.
It may be that it's too much to make your own choices.
The pressure and the uncertainty of not having direction or solid ground?
The suffocating anxiety that feels like white noise surrounding your head and eyes, because you are not being told what to do, and you desperately need to be told?
It induces paralysis.

What if there is no right or wrong choice?

Are you okay with that?

Are you okay with your decision being the only thing that makes it right?

That it’s right because you choose it?

So you looked at all of this.

You looked at what you wanted, and didn’t get, and what you should have done but didn’t, and you looked at how you hurt him, but he moved on, only you never could.

And then you did it again to someone else.

And then, you did it again to someone else.

How it killed you that you cost this to yourself, and how every cell in your body, on your face, in your heart, has been affected and there is absolutely no going back.

What good is there in a life lived unconditionally, where anything is permissible?

Where you set your whole heart upon something, or someone, and you don't get what you want?

Is it enough to be alive and to have all else unwanted, satiated and met, and the one thing you're reaching for, you do not get?

All else filled in the universe, and the one thing lacking, that means most, and this is somehow supposed to be okay, the not-getting?

Fuck that.

It's about possession, plain and simple.

It is both possession, and possession with a light guardian's hand. A custodianship.

But's the getting that means anything.

So I said,
Fuck this.
Fuck all of this,
and fuck you too, God. Fuck you for all this desire.

And that felt like shit. And I wanted to off myself whenever I hated God, and I hated God all the time.

And it had to stop, because it's me or my belief, and somehow, we'd become mutually exclusive.

If I could verbalize it about God, then I was wrong about God. And it suddenly felt good to shut up about God.

So I had to happily accept that I didn't know, and wasn't right, and was actually happily wrong - Thank God - about God.

I walked down the hallway and stared down the devil, and I said,

I understand you. And it's okay. Because I know you're not here to hurt me.

I looked at the sins I thought I'd pay for, and how at times in life, I had so little consciousness and gravity in my own head that the only way I can explain my behavior – even though I “knew” what I was doing - is that something was leading me and my life around on a string and it was a thread extending into infinity, tied to an infinite number of others, and ultimately I had no control.

I looked at what we know of the universe, the grand scope of Life that we can maybe guess that we know. I looked at the stars that are born and burn out, at the non-negotiable need we will always have for food and water, at the preference for paper towels versus cloth towels, and for this paper towel versus another, at the desire for digital versus analog, the compulsion towards the 87th pair of $160 jeans, the kid starving in the apartment on that side of town that you'll never see, at the bodies thrown in mass graves in at least 37 different countries at any given moment, at the militia-led mass rapes and murders, at the director in a townhouse in New York filming 67 takes of that couple walking down a staircase until he gets it just right, at the girl who just gave that guy oral sex because she felt she'd be doing something wrong if she didn’t, and it's all a lot of different hands flitting about in a frenzy, fussing over different objects and colors and yet it's all the same, and it's all riding on the same feelings.

I looked at the duck whose mate was just run over in the street and who stands there, still, among the racing cars on either side that could also end him at any given moment, and he stands there, standing against every one of his instincts. He doesn't know what happened to his mate, but he knows something has gone wrong.

And I heard about the family of ducks in the hotel in Nashville, who ride an elevator twice a day, chaperoned by a nice bellhop, to soak in a fountain, and then back up the elevator at night to sleep on a nice rooftop.

I looked at how I didn’t respond to his last email before he took his life.

I looked at how I would try to save it, and the trying is precisely what would cause it to fail.

I looked at how I didn't try, didn't even think about it, never once cared, and it would come to me like it was born in my hand. And how once I looked and then started walking towards it, it crashed and burned.

I looked at how I may be the magnifying glass to my own excruciating scorching sun, and I'm singeing ants every step of my way, wherever I turn my gaze.

And I was left with: None of it matters.

If all is forgiven in the end, and then if it’s not, and then if there is something vague and nebulous and ethereal with spirit, and then if there is nothing, and then if we are only biology with something brightly firing in our brains, and then if there is nothing beyond the something, and then if there is something when there could be nothing, and then if we are reborn, and then if we repeat the same life over and over, and then if we have a chance to not repeat but we slip into whats comfortable and could, but do not, avoid repeating it, and then if she was a big deal in another life, and then if I can never change my neural pattern pathways, and then if this was destined, and then if there could be no other way, and then if there was supposed to be another way and I couldn’t cut it, and then if the angels were calling my name the whole time but I got the signals crossed, and then if the devil were only inside of me, and then if I were Jesus but never believed it and I lost it for all of us, and then if He actually was just a human being, and then if God isn’t even something that talks to us, and then if we never see each other again after we die, and then if I pray silently but God respects the privacy of my mind and doesn't listen to any of it, and then if all of my prayers are wrong and selfish anyways, and then if we aren’t even real, or aren't actually seeing each other now, and then if there’s an infinite number of me and you, and an infinite number of possible worlds, and then if I’m in the version where I’ll never be happy in love, and then if my thoughts reach a critical mass that cause your actions, and then if you were born with a stronger will than mine and I can't do anything about it, and then if each of us has created all of us, then,

Then, I thought, as I curled my hair in my stark white bathroom, and (empty) put on my lip gloss, switching tops and (empty) checking my hair in the mirror again, getting ready to go out, and feeling (empty) any and all possible meaning to my life receding back just like the tide (empty) right before a tsunami hits,

Then, If I’m going to get old, and all of this will fade, and something that is not me will take my place, and nothing I can contribute will ever cause a tidal change to the world, and I’m too scared and so without hope to even try,

then what do you do, if you choose to stay here, in your life, on earth, and live it out?

What do you do?

You do what you want, at every given moment that you possibly can.

You do what you want desperately to do, but are afraid to do for fear of repercussion.

You do what you have been taught not to do but have always wanted to do, always sensed is just plain fine and rational to do, that you don't even consider doing anymore, somehow, or, ever.

You do what you've just accepted, earlier, as wrong or bad, but that, upon reflection, is actually normal, healthy, or at the very least, typical. You get the tattoo, and you sleep with the guy for only one night, and you adopt the baby on your own, and you quit the job, and you move, penniless, to New York, and you get the other tattoo, and you submit the headshot, and you ask out the girl, and you write that one verse of a song that you’re afraid your band mates will ridicule you for, and you don’t apply the sunblock because you actually don’t care about skin cancer, and you call in sick, and you dye it blonde, and you say “I’m not coming” to your dad, and you buy the fully-loaded model, and you move to the farm in Pennsylvania, and you order it with whipped cream.

You take out the loan on the assumption that you’re going to be around tomorrow to pay it off.

And each morning you awake, in the same spot, in the same body, and it's yours.

It's yours.

And it's all, all a loan that will be called at any second, but you have to buy the fact that it's an endless trust fund.

"That confirms it, then."

("can't believe I got so far with a head so empty...")

I've permitted myself such not-greatness.

When an education in the classics was standard, generations and masses of people did great things, thought, felt, believed great things.

Where did that go?

If you permit randomness, you will express randomness. If you permit greatness, you'll express greatness. There can be no other way. What goes in, must come out, and you cannot make something from nothing. And all other applicable cliches (read: truths) that apply....

This is what stands for all the rage, the frustration.
I haven't had the hardness I required, so I became hard on myself. No matter what, it was supposed to be there. Whether they extolled it or whether I inculcated it, it was meant to exist, irrespective of author, irrespective of agent. It was supposed to exist in the air, between me and them, and because they couldn't give it, I introduced it. And I think I still need much, much more.

His dignity is what compels me most. For all the wealth of pain, abuse, embarassment, and agony, there was an impenetrable core that carried through, with enough exuberance to permit a full life, to permit tenderness and dedication and commitment. That's what grounds you, that's what permits compassion, permits loyalty, permits servitude, promotes leadership. This is what causes you to triumph. The worst thing you can do is spare someone of these challenges. These, coupled with the legacy that is an education, are the soil filled with the most nutrients. Look at the alternative.

Compassion is what permits instant wealth of intelligence, when there may be none in exercise. You go from human and finite to Godly and Infinite in one choice. One.choice.

The world, Life, God, is not standing there, chaperoning your choices. Life looks to you as God, as the ultimate arbiter, as the ultimate Executive Decision, and there is no veto. None. Not regarding the decisions that matter the very most. It all, all of it, stands aside and actually says "You're right." Life is a Yes Man. So you better watch.your.fucking.ass. You better have a great cabinet at your disposal. You better have the most trusted advisors who will say when they disagree, and you better get over yourself and fuckinglisten. Because no one else is guarding what you permit. So be very.very.fucking.careful when handing out those permits.

His face was pink, and dewy, but you only noticed this once they opened the door and you could see that it was raining. Then his face came into focus and it had meaning. The one said "The Duke is terribly busy." The other opened the door, and what was meant was, "You are to leave." The rain was falling hard just outside that opened door.
--I wanted to caress his drooping face; because what else could my role, towards him, be? And I wouldn't even know how to do that.
I failed at that. I failed at my role.
But I was supposed to fail at that.

It's very comfortable to me. The linens. The shined shoes. The hairpins. The jewelry. The starch. The stiffness. The propriety. The decorum. The distance. The maintenance of that distance, because what underlies that distance, is the overwhelmingness, the feelings of it all, the bravery, the dignity, the sadness, the concern, the etiquette, the divinity, the legacy, the heritage, the pride, the servitude, the faith, the leadership. Service requires servants. There is no other way. I am fond of these things I've seen.

The grandness of that entrance hall made me want to break down and cry. When I visit it, I'll be sure to go alone so that no one causes me to compromise my time there, to be spent staring up at the ceilings, for hours, for certain.

"It's supposed to be this way."
The guy coughing to the left of me. My mom kicking my heel accidentally as she shifts in her seat. The guy who asked us, as I knew he would, 'could you please move down a seat, if you don't mind?' which caused me to have to look away from the screen just as the back-ground info was up. It was all supposed to be this way. This is what gives me comfort and peace, no matter how frustrating, no matter how annoying, no matter how rage-inducing, no matter how sad. "It is all supposed to be this way". Because, were I to think otherwise, is an agony - given all the possibilities of what could have been - it's an agony that I can no longer afford to feel.

So this is why arrogance is, shall we say, suggested against? Why humility and tolerance are advocated. Why patience is proposed, but why gentle encouragement, accountability, especially, are emphasized. "To live in expectancy, not expectation."

The truth is that I'd been looking for any excuse to leave it. To leave all of it, all of this, behind. Any chance I get, I may still take.

How far off is that? Not far off.

It's not too far, it's not so impossible, it's not so improbable. I guess this means, I'm still looking to be saved. From....? And how? And by whom? And how good, honestly, would that be? How wise would it really be? Are we so weak that we cannot help but to beg for salvation from our own choices?

Or is it just me?

I learned the absolute worst lessons from him. It's as though I shook off anything that was good - what would that have been again, anyway? - and absorbed only the worst. I cannot afford to soak up like that anymore, from any of them. The next one has to be a fucking maverick at life. It's just too expensive otherwise.

That's why the Year. "It has to start somewhere. It has to start some time. What better place than here? What better time than now?" It's to be prepared. It's to know the only thing that matters, until I find something new that can matter on top of that.

"I would stand in line for this...it's always good in life, for this...."

How-To Remember You Are a Human Being

If we didn't laugh, where would we all be?
Joan Rivers


So it's funny.

It's funny as hell:

"So, what I'm basically asking is, Would your life be better off without me in it?"

"...(two days later).....Yes."

"WHAT?!

WHAT?! I didn't mean that! I take it back, here'swhyIloveyouandhere'swhyIcan'tlivewithoutyouImeanitallreallyquicklynow!"

"...But I think we should see other people.

"OHMYGODthenhere'swhereIdidyouwrongitwasallmyfaultI'lltakealltheblame!!It'scalledanAmendstheydotheseinAAwhichbythewayI'vestartedattendingeventhoughIcompletelydonothaveadrinkingproblembutI'llstilltakethe blameforEVERYTHING!!!!!!............

...............

...............(two hours later).................

---How do you feel now? --You want to come back, right? You got that 8-page email I sent, right? And that letter in the mail you got that too right? How do you feel about it all? Want to talk about it?"

"....(silence...three-month-long silence and counting...and I'll be counting forever....so I've stopped counting....)...."


So, it's funny.

It's actually funny.

Because if it's not, then I'd have to kill myself.

(I think I may still have to leave town though)


It said,
"love what is to come by loving what has come before", which I was able to do for about a month. ("No matter how far we've fallen, our experience will still prove to be beneficial to others." --- Excuse me, but why the FUCK DO I HAVE TO FAIL SO THAT SOMEONE ELSE CAN STILL NOT LISTEN TO ME AND FUCK THEIR SITUATION UP AND THEN NO MATTER WHAT I'M STILL WITHOUT THAT WHICH I JUST FUCKING WANT? Why the fuck can't I just win at this, Goddamnit!?!....WHEWdeepbreathsdeepbreathsSerenityPrayerAAmeetingsprayingonmykneeswhewaddanothermeetingoreightfor goodmeasure....) and then something switched. Because when I was praying "Your Will, God, not mine," I felt the most intense and constant sadness. My conscience was flooded with grief and guilt, and even when I was able to calm my mind about it all, the grief was so full up in my stomach that I didn't have space for food, so I dropped 15 pounds in two weeks.

At work, at times, it got to be so much, barely even thinking about it, that I would be choking back tears, suddenly, in the middle of phone calls. I'd have to get up from my desk and go to the bathroom to get on my knees to pray to relieve it. Or take a walk outside. Or take a walk outside and sit on these church steps and pray and then still go to the bathroom to get on my knees to pray. And there was temporary relief, but not enough. Because I still thought that he was right about it all. And that was destroying me. I had to switch things in my mind, or else literally, I may as well have jumped off the fucking roof. Why? Because what kind of organism deserves to believe that their existence is a fucking mistake? and that everything in their head is evil? (Fuck you.) When that relationship ended, I felt like a murderer. I had to remind myself "you're not a murderer. and even if you've committed fucking genocide, you hold your head high."

So even if I'd had to completely adjust my morality and reality, then fuck it - I'm cutting the cord to what came before. Because I can't live a life in which the greatest sadnesses in my life are due to some major error in my very being.
Fuck it, and fuck you.
Cut the cord.

Here's a little tip from me to you:
Creative Destruction.
Aka, Not knowing how to get the fuck out of a situation without bombing it and burning it all down to ashes around me.
So, creative destruction. Let the forest burn so that the next one has a chance to grow.
Here's to the next one and knowing how to say "No, I disagree. Get away from me" sooner rather than fire-ier.

I didn't know how to not judge myself. I saw "him" as "Him". And it was either, Him, with that capitol H, and I die, or Me, with a capitol "M-E" and I live. So I feel alive, and I move forward, but it feels like there's a price, like something got lost in the process. I could be wrong about how I went about this; I may have skipped over the grief. ("she skipped over her grief, and she tapped into her pain.")

But then that begs the question: Who is in charge of how sad I am and for how long? Someone or something other than me? I wondered if the point of all the sadness, the constant feeling of it, was to prevent rage later on. ---WHOOPS!!----(loading shotgun)

He is, no matter what anyone says, and no matter what I experienced of him, an inherently valuable human being. I can say this honestly, from a very neutral standpoint. I've always had the ability to do this, to suspend self in order to understand the value in another, and yes, that's a pat on the fucking back about it. But to do this after a break-up? Youmustbefuckingkidding. Commence Wiki-hows: How To Get Over A Break-Up. ("write out a list - and don't be forgiving! - about why it is for the best that you are no longer together, and why it could never have worked.") Wiki-how: How To Get Closure. Wiki-how: How To Overcome Depression. How To Overcome Serious Regret. How To Forgive Yourself. How To Get a Guy To Like You. ----Whoops! -- How'd that one get in there? (delete delete)

It is possible to see myself without blame, without all the guilt I've taken on from this thing, so unnecessarily so. We were two separate people, and we were too separate people, and these things often just don't work, and neither one should ultimately take it personally. I'm just a human being. He's just a human being. These things sometimes just don't work.

When I asked him, while we were still dating, if he still talks to his exes, he said yes, but just for casual stuff, birthdays and such on Facebook. It was only after we broke up that I actually checked out pictures of his ex-es. ("....uh,....really?.... and, you, pursued, and then, dated, me?....

...Why?")

I said,
"I don't; I don't talk to any of my exes.
Too volatile."

And that's the end.


The majority of the gold from this situation, as it now stands, is in my head. There was a gold-mine of information, revelation, and beauty to be gleaned from this, and the reason why is entirely because I am a great thinker about things. This stands as fact, and yes, I perceive this to be humility on my part, as long as you define humility as "a healthy awareness of one's divinity."

I had a dream once in which I was a clone, in direct competition, in a very small bio dome, with other clones. We had to climb huge blue structures, and the goal, the meaning, was to get to the top. When I did, I was pushing off other girls, to their death. I have moments every so often in life, in which I feel like that dream's horror is a reality. And it's not even in moments of competition; that sensation will arrive at what seems like an un-related time; thinking about a nail polish color; thinking about a better notebook to buy. That's the last feeling I want, and yet, at many times, I have the thought "I want to be the best."
But not at the expense of anyone else.

The converse of this, is that a few years ago, the only thing I wanted to do was to sacrifice. I wanted to be the one to take the hit, I wanted to be the one to suffer so that no one else would have to. I don't know if that was me at my most intelligent, or me at my least healthy. I don't know that I'll ever "receive" a definite answer ("there are no answers. there are only choices.") And that not knowing, is what scares me the most: that my choices in life will not be judged until it's too late. Or that they won't be judged at all, which is perhaps more unnerving.

---this is what terrifies me: that I'm so broken down, that my doubts, my absolute disbelief that I'll ever, ever get what I want - that in fact, by proxy, I cannot help but to view life as something where I'll never get the very things I want most --- that this belief, which shows itself at the core every time I think something good (and thus, untrue) is headed my way, is going to drive me to the breaking point... or to something else, like...compromise... or mediocrity...or safety, in some things that are not at all what I find meaningful or the ultimate. "when happiness shows up, give it a comfortable seat" but I doubt that these things are real...I doubt so resolutely when it even appears that I could have something beautiful, that when that thing doesn't materialize, the pressure on me, that I've broken it, with my very thoughts, with my very beliefs, my negative beliefs, my doubts is....crushing. that I'm the one bringing about my own hell, and there's no one and no thing that can stop me. this is killing me. (I cannot exit my own mind) ---- (i am having to re-define heaven and hell and frankly this is too much fucking pressure for one small cell)

and I think of April of 2007.
my apartment on Dearborn.
being in my bathroom, having thought about Jesus, thinking only about Jesus, at that time, as I had been doing for months, weeks, hours, minutes, all the time. thinking about how unfair it would be that those who didn't decide to accept Him were condemned to hell. and I thought, "then, if they can't go to Heaven, then I'll suffer in hell with them."

and the tide that rushed in....

the emotional high that I rode, from that moment.....

I don't know if it was God or the devil that was standing up and applauding me harder.... but I heard that applause, I felt that ovation, as if the entirety of the universe, all angels, God, Jesus, everyone I'd been thinking of for months, were cheering for me.

and four years later, I am washed up on the beach of that decision.

because if it's all only what we believe, then what did I just lock myself into? to whom did I just give my soul?

(when their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone
they shall have stars at elbow and foot
though they go mad they shall be sane.
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again
though lovers be lost, love shall not
and death shall have no dominion. dylan thomas)

(what will purify this from me? can this be undone? do I want it to be, ultimately? ---is this a sacrifice that actually exists? and if so, is there a relief from it at some point? what did I commit myself to....)

"the only sin is to act against yourself...."

("oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to.... where you gonna run to.... the rock cried out 'I can't hide you'....")

My wishes, when I'd blow out candles, would literally be "May everyone around me find happiness in love, even if it means I can't."
I'm tired of wishing for this--- know why? Because it's still in anyone else's hands to fuck up their situation. My stepping out of line makes no difference for anyone else's happiness.

I don't know that I fully "feel" or "think" that I deserve the things I want. But I do recognize that the time to stop feeling and thinking this way, is now. I don't know how you undo this kind of damage that exists in your mind. Exorcism? (I'm not kidding.) Retreats to Buddhist sanctuaries? Extended stays on ashrams? Working at orphanages? Readings and meditations on the Guru Gita? How does it get to this point, where you disbelieve you deserve what you want, when you want wonderful, beautiful things? And if that's not the question that matters, then what is the answer to the one that does matter:
how do I undo this?


I was riding it so well for a while. It was prayer in the morning, prayer in the evening, it was a conscience during the day that I reclaimed because it had absolutely been lost; because when I'd been dating him and I disagreed, I'd stay silent, and I'd let down those gate-posts in my mind. So when he left, he took everything with him. everything. I'd compromised, in the worst sense, my values. I didn't realize, until after my mind was gone, that my values are my mind. Each man being a philosopher, a custodian of a specific, valuable set of distinctions and judgments that actually ARE our membrane, and given that we have skins that separate us from each other, the letting down of those judgments? for the wrong people? fucking.disastrous. guaranteed disastrous. Sanity is the holding up of those judgments. If I burn those gates, those judgments, then the flood comes, and when the reason for that burning leaves, then everything that was protected by those gates, goes with it. I know this for a fact. ("fire and water damage? we've changed our policy limits on those...") It's the worst possible way to be burned, and the guarantee is that you will always be burned. Personal philosophy is such a...nebulous thing. Perhaps I need to sit down and write it all out: "I do not agree with x. I think that y is a bad thing. Z is permissible but only under these circumstances." Because when I said "well.....ok..." to all of those, cart-blanche, I both knew what it was to love without judgment, and I lost my mind. Those are two sides of the same coin. I ceased to be an individual, and I was nothing that could recognize nor be recognized.

I wonder, often, what that means for me, for the future.
It feels like an eternity, each day, to be so hyper-aware of time, and to recognize that I may not be ready for anything remotely like that, for a very, very long time. ---I cannot fathom that it's been only three months since this happened - haven't at least 6 years passed? - why does my face still look young... ---

In the past, I didn't think about it: if something ended, that was fine, and I lived my life day to day and the time flew by and I had fun and it was onto the next thing.

But lately it's like a mania... I wonder if declaring a desire for family and kids has placed this unnecessary pressure on myself. Now there's a (time)bomb and it's ticking like a motherfucker. It has to have, because before, when I never thought about those things with agenda, when I hadn't said 'yes' to those things, no deadline existed. And now I feel like I'm going to die, at least once a day, I will do something with absolutely no.possible.fucking.link.to.mortality (like adding a song to my 'favorites' on fucking Youtube, and literally, my reaction is "oh, now that I'm compiling the music I like, I'm going to die tomorrow.") , so the heat is on. Literally.

So, I've released myself from it. I can't take the fucking pressure.
All it took was an afternoon at a diner, and I happened to be seated near a table of kids, and I thought "My God, that is NOT what I want." At least not any time soon. (Of course I say that, but with the right person, this could all be thrown out the window and I could want to get pregnant likethat.) It all seems to revolve around a person. On my own? As my own free agent? No. Last thing I want.

I don't know how to wrap this up cleanly, so.....

this is How To: Be a Human Being.

"Welcome, Jessica."

(Are you sure you want to continue?)

Much

(it's all coming back to me)

to know that you can be aloof, and say, and do some things, and not need affirmation or confirmation because you know exactly who you are, and people cleave to you, and praise you, and affirm you, precisely because you do not need it.

" '...this is all you got? what's it going to be like when we're married?' " he said, and I howled with laughter.

"they'd rather believe that they did something wrong, to deserve this abuse, then to consider that their parent didn't love them." (and I cried)

"this is what you do, at the end of a long day, you come to sit at a cafe, outside, and it's like a game, between who watches and who is being watched."

"I'm alright
I won't be sorry
but it's true
and when I'm gone
you'll realize
that I'm the best thing
to happen to you"

I didn't think I could feel this good. This is what has been missing all along? -- Then, that first night, when I left and described it as ________, what I was describing was me, that night, in that moment, that series of moments. Throwing up all my junk at this person. -- which is what I had done to him. (think of all the things I am leaving out by writing this instead of those)

I didn't think I could feel this good. So this is what it feels like.