hell-mothafuckin yeeah!The Virtues of Promiscuity

went to a concert yesterday featuring (drumroll please) J-5, The Roots, Outkast, and Lauryn Hill !!!!!! AAARRRGGGHAAAAAUUUUOOORRAAAAH! (that was me, screaming my head off inside, though outwardly i was just biting my nails and smiling in awe for 4 hours) so much great music, all in one place....i....was....rendered....speechless.

i love getting away for the weekend--going places where i have no chance whatsoever of running into anyone i know, and where things are just unfamiliar enough to make me feel like i've escaped the drudgery that is my work-week.

after a set of unexpected (though on a level, i supose, not completely unforseen) events, i am now in a state of deep confusion that will take a lot of soul-searching, and perhaps a pint or two of ice cream, to resolve. although i have not read the book, i feel i am caught in a catch-22 where any action i take, even if i take no action, will precipitate situations i would not be happy with. is the rather crazy scattered life i have been living of late something that i will later look back on with nostalgia or shame? am i lying to myself when i say that i'm happy alone, or am i too much of a coward to stay independent? and did my morals accidentally get dumped out with the bong-water, or am i finally becoming comfortable with myself?

what are promises unkept but lies?

i am afraid to hope.

been running around, driving WAAY too much, trying to improve my job situation by going to interviews. i hate pantyhose. hate hate hate!

i feel like such a sedentary drone--it seems like everyone's traveling but me! sherry's in costa rica, mat's all over asia, will's leaving (sniff) for taiwan and japan this week, janet is going to new zealand, my dad and sis are headed to france...dammit, even my evil stepmother is out of the country! i'm green with envy, and feel that i need to make certain sacrifices in order to travel soon before i get too caught up in the daily grind.

i went on what would have been an extremely romantic date last night, by the beach....cozy italian resaurant, bottle of wine, andre boccelli crooning in the background (in spansh, strangely)...EXCEPT---i wasn't with a date! i was with carrie! we both laughed at how date-like C&O is at night. who knew? i had a blast getting all tore up singing "that's amore" and feeling my

notes for the poem a few posts below, in case anyone's wondering where the hell THAT poem came from:

Bridge of Sighs: A bridge in Venice, Italy. Legend has it that if you kiss under the Bridge of Sighs, your love will last forever.

Eighteenth level of hell: The Chinese soap operas that consumed most of my childhood told me that hell has 18 levels... and that if you try hard enough, you can fly around like a bird.

River Styx: In Greek (?) mythology, the river serving as a moat for the Underworld, keeping the dead from leaving and the living from entering. You have to pay Charon to ferry you across. Styx means "hated."

Cerberus: Greek and Roman Mythology: Three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades

poor huddled masses: The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry masses yearning to breathe free. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

My soul’s sanctum for a seat: pilfered from an Eminem lyric: "The sinner's mind is his sanctum"

“Bring the eternal note of sadness in” : a line from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold. One of my favorite poems...i have taken to writing the end of it on dry-erase boards across Southern California.

Ark of the Covenant: a very holy piece of furniture mentioned in the Old Testament...with two gold, winged Cherubim on top of the Mercy seat.

between the cherubim’s wings: (excerpt from Catholic Encyclopedia, link above): The holiest part of the Ark seems to have been the oracle, that is to say the place whence Yahweh made his prescriptions to Israel. "Thence", the Lord had said to Moses,

will I give orders, and will speak to thee over the propitiatory, and from the midst of these two cherubims, which shall be upon the Ark of the testimony, all things which I will command the children of Israel by thee" (Ex., xxv, 22). And indeed we read in Num., vii, 89, that when Moses "entered into the tabernacle of the covenant, to consult the oracle, he heard the voice of one speaking to him from the propitiatory, that was over the ark between the two cherubims".

Yahweh used to speak to his servant in a cloud over the oracle (Lev., xvi, 2). This was, very likely, also the way in which he communicated with Josue after the death of the first leader of Israel (cf. Jos., vii, 6-1). The oracle was, so to say, the very heart of the sanctuary, the dwelling place of God; hence we read in scores of passages of the Old Testament that Yahweh "sitteth on [or rather, by] the cherubim".

a thought on predestination.... someone once explained to me that the existence of predestination and free will at the same time is possible because: if God is omniscient and knows the future, He knows what we will do, and whether or not we will choose to accept HIm or not. But, he cannot intervene because if he does then that infringes on our free will. Er...but I've been wondering--doesn't that still mean that some of us are still damned from the get-go? It's like a big, cosmic "I TOLD YOU SO." Is there room for free will? To what extent? I am TOO confused.

strange...my computer at work freaked out on me today, and Word lost all its capital H's and lower-case Z's. which is hilarious becasue my company's name is HHH and i use the word "authorize" a lot in my daily correspondence. i should post a bulletin: You are all orrible ombies and i ate you!!!! (except for my boss, who is cool)

My boss called us all into work this morning and had us vote on whether or not we should come into work on friday. and my MORONIC co-workers voted to work on friday! i was the only person who voted to have the day off!!!!!! i guess these people really feel that this is their career... i gotta get the hell out of there. who in their right minds would rather spend the day after July 4th sifting through files and performing mindless administrative tasks?

Something i wrote while cracked out at work, based on a hallucinatory daydream i once had:

There is a statue near a creek
Smelling of fear, covered with moss
A talisman for those who seek
The memories of the lost.

I look into the statue’s eyes
And find myself floating under the Bridge of Sighs
Falling through the wishing-well
To the eighteenth level of hell

Over the River Styx, its black waters a rising tide
Past the pit where the serpents writhe
Into a room where I beat down Cerberus
The three-headed dog guarding a door
With a placard labeled “Nefarious”
I pick the lock and fall through the floor

And arrive at a church—full to capacity
With the poor huddled masses who conquered adversity
Only to become anonymous faces
In a sea of forgotten places

There’s no room for me in this church
So I turn within and search
My soul’s sanctum for a seat
While my mind rages on to the voice of the proverbial beat

Muffled whispers in the din
“Bring the eternal note of sadness in”

I run, struggling to fight the insanity
While holding my head and screaming profanities

Run through the hallways of time immemorial
Past forgotten aspects of the aural and pictorial

Past classrooms full of mute teachers
Teaching deaf children—past truth-seekers,
Prophets, professors, lyricists, liars
Politicians, philosophers, false messiahs
Throwing their thoughts into a funeral pyre

From the fire I steal a spark
That feebly assuages the deep cold dark
And in the distance there appears
A torch made of tears

And holding the flickering flame, I light the torch
That transports me back to my front porch
Where waiting for me under a dirty tent
Is the Ark of the Covenant
And inside, between the cherubim’s wings
I find what I’ve been looking for:
Myself---nothing less, nothing more.