fulfilling the holes

It had long since come
to my attention that people of accomplishment
rarely sat back and let things happen to them.
They went out and happened to things.
~Leonardo da Vinci

I want to happen to things. I want to lay down each night completely amazed at exactly how many things I happened to. I am not talking of the diving off of cliffs or the jumping out of planes. I would rather punch myself in the mouth than race down an icy slope with a board strapped to my frozen feet. I do not want to outrun a raging bull or outsmart a hungry alligator. I do, however, want to fill each day with an accomplishment. a something, rather than the nothing response to the "what did you do today?" question. today I washed the dishes and took out the garbage and then watched the ken burns "baseball" documentary. is that enough? should I have also learned latin and published a novel and sewn a dress and baked a cake with homemade frosting? what is enough? what filling will fulfill the holes I feel in my life?

is life about spackling?

as far as I can tell, life is not about thinking too much and doing too little. thinking will only get you so far, what you do with the thought is where life takes shape. I'm trying to think less about how to sculpt and trying instead to just chip away at the block in front of me, trusting myself and learning as I go.

leonardo was a genius, not only because of his intense curiosity but because of what he made of that curiosity. he turned the thought of curiosity into the act of invention.

"cogito, ergo sum--I think, therefore I am." "to err is human..." to just think and never do anything because you're afraid of erring is just plain stupid. I'm trying real hard not to be stupid.

time to change your metaphorical diapers

He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ~Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera



God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me. ~Author Unknown


the days are getting shorter. the sun has started to relent on the hot heads of our summer days. sweaters know they will soon come off shelves and summer dresses ready themselves for the wrinkles of unworn piles. as the chipmunks and the trees prepare for change, we resist it. why when everything around us opens to the shift, do we falter so? change is good, right?

perhaps it is the fear of labor pains that prolongs our rebirth. bones hurt as they grow us closer in reach of the things we grasp. what's a little pain? what's a lot of pain? part of the process, no? big bawling babies are less afraid to grow. grow up. wake up. smell the roses--new blossoms have replaced the decay of yesterday's flowers. let go of the things you'll only miss long enough to propel yourself forward. shed the dead that is piling up inside you.

John Henry Newman said "Growth is the only evidence of life." so why not prove to yourself exactly how much you can live. now is always a good time to start again.

passing out in a blaze of glory

my life is on hold. I blame the heat for everything. the desire to do nothing but sleep. the inability to sleep. the irritability that brings. fights about nothing. sweat defying gravity as it pools on the vertical surfaces of my body. weather.com claims the heat index will reach 105-112 degrees today and has issued an “excessive heat warning,” which basically means find a cool spot or die. we have had power outages three days in a row, making that difficult. we have had to take desperate measures to escape the heat of our hotbox house. crashing pool parties at apartment complexes we don’t live at, or know anyone who does. sitting in suburban cafes all day long watching soundless sports clips on a flat screen TV while eating ice cream. taking trips to the mall on labor day weekend, trying not to stumble over the bodies of children doing what everybody wishes they could be doing—laying motionless under the vent of an air conditioner in the middle of a walkway. utter chaos. mervyn’s looked like ross the day before Christmas if everything was 80% off and the customers were only given 5 minutes in the store to stock up on shit they didn’t need and no one else wanted. (see pictures).















the world has lost its collective marbles. everyone is on edge. glitches abound. electronics and waiters alike are not working properly. last night we walked the street marveling at the darkness. businesses and street lights taking the night off. hot bodies amassing in cool places, raising the temperature. mexican food melting my margaritas. there is an unspoken sense of adventure amidst all this struggling. how much can we take? what can we make of a night with no electricity? what new place could we discover in this aimless wondering away from the heat? if nothing else, this heat is a simple reminder of how lovely a cool breeze is. until the cool breeze returns, we’ll be sleeping naked with ice packs under our feet, seriously.

backing up my heart drive

"The unexamined life is not worth living." --Socrates

today my computer crashed and I wasn't wearing my seat belt. irreplaceable writing and photos lost to the black hole of technology. it has made me think a great deal about the archiving of life. after the mac genius delivered the traumatic news, I literally felt something inside of me fizzle and fade. pieces of me were parts of that hard drive. after recovering from the loss, I comforted myself with future plans on how to avoid such devastation. I pictured dedicating a whole room to the storage of hard copies of everything that has now gone digital. I imagined a rain-forest slain in the name of printing out everything I have ever written.

and then, I starting thinking of it in a different way, as in, what did I really lose?

do I need to have pictures reminding me of times my brain has decided to forget? do the stories my hard drive destroyed perhaps need retelling? how much are we held back by memorabilia of past loves and past lives? how much do we really benefit from reading our 7th grade journals? maybe we cling to these things as progress reports, proof of the evolution taking place in our own life. or perhaps, we keep them as valuable proof of a life lived. I often look at photos of my life and marvel at how exciting it seems frozen on a screen. the wonder of experiences worn down by time is often renewed by a photo album. how much of who we are is defined by how many relics our museums hold? does framing our better moments and hanging them on our walls give us a clearer impression of the artists we have become?

Benjamin Disraeli said, "The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it." just make sure you back up your manuscript, or you might forget who you were.

tall grass grows

tall grass grows
round the remembrance of your face
its meaning
is hidden by
the undulating green
summer suns
frozen by snow
the sleep of bears, yawning blossoms
the ache of bones, both growing and forgotten
what questions did your eyebrows raise?
what histories could be traced by the slope of your nose?
strange to miss the things we no longer need
strange to want for things we’ve always carried deep
all we ever need, is a shovel

yodic wisdom

I grew up in a small town. I'm not talking no starbucks small town. I'm talking one flashing stoplight small town. I'm talking two gas stations, one grocery store, a few bars and a lot of gossip small town. I could ride my bike from one end of main street to the other quicker than you could find my town on a map. sublette, kansas. I grew up watching the waves of grain they sing about. I grew up making more toys out of water and dirt than you could find in a super wal-mart.

I grew up. I left the small town.


I feel galaxies and light years away from that place. I left that town, but the town still lives in me. I still see fields in my dreams. always fields, miles of them and nothing else but maybe a tree struggling against the relentless wind and the endless sky. so many clouds. clouds making faces at the ground. me, bruised and smiling picking at scabs.

I missed out on many things in that town. mostly things I could do without, but some things I am still trying to understand. a television-free trailer and no movie theaters for miles. I never saw star wars. I never saw a lot of things people still talk about. I feel foreign in the midst of most pop-culture remembrances. it happens all the time. people bringing up he-man or simon and simon. I don't know the facts of life as told by blair. so many times, I have been clueless as to what a wookiee looks like, that is, until today. I now know that a wookiee looks like a really hairy basketball player and makes funny sounds not unlike a drooling baby with banana stuck in its throat. at the insistence and persistence of my boyfriend, I have joined the rest of the world in wanting a yoda backpack. at the video store last night where we supplied ourselves for the long overdue marathon, the clerk nearly fainted when I told him I had never seen the films before, a reaction I have grown accustomed to. but no more, I have heard the wisdom of yoda and there is no turning back now. I have seen luke and darth do their lightsaber dance. I now know that the only thing keeping anyone from pulling their sunken spaceship out of the muck is the belief that they can't.

luke left tatooine and its two suns. I left kansas. may the force be with us.

strike a poser

ask me what I do and I'll most likely flinch. then I'll proceed to stutter. a question I used to answer enthusiastically has become the daily equivalent to plucking my toes--surprisingly painful. I am a writer, yes, though I've never been published, let alone paid (unless you count the $75 I made my first year in junior college for an essay I wrote which won me second place.) what do I do? so many things. I wash my clothes when they stink, I read books but only look at the pictures in magazines, I sing in fake voices while I shower, I dance like various jungle animals late at night when I should be sleeping, I sleep in, I drink iced black coffee to keep me regular, I eat food when I'm hungry and even when I'm not, I pick at things that aren't smooth.

so many things.

but I'm sure the question is more about what I do for money. aahhh, well, um, I (quiet mumble) model... eyes down, I am shamed. my boyfriend tells me every time not to be embarrassed about it, but I am. my livelihood is based off of my measurements and my smile (or pout). I don't get paid for my ideas but rather my ability to "sell it". but what exactly is "it"? every audition I go to, I realize how little of "it" I have to sell. "it" is not a look but rather an attitude and a belief that there is absolutely nothing degrading about making love to the camera. yet every time I feel dirty, used, and anxious to see if he'll ever call.

today I had a music video audition for the new j-lo hit we're all dying to hear. you wouldn't see this kind of freaky in a five dollar circus. an 80-year-old woman with throat cancer wearing a see-thru teddy and fishnets. a homeless man with a head shot. a pimp named "fancy" that wasn't acting. a big-breasted woman in a tiny red dress proclaiming "I'm australian, of course I'll show you my titties!" a pock-faced korean guy in a fluorescent orange tae kwon do uniform telling a girl she looked pretty in her photos but not in real life. a rosy-cheeked santa claus. a hunchback wearing high-tops. and me, eyebrows raised, trying to decide why I was here.

oh yeah, for the money.

oh the price I pay to make a little cash. don't get me wrong, I know it's a choice I've made and continue to make. I can always go back to taking orders and slinging drinks. but with this new gig, I have more time than ever to do all the things I do that don't pay my bills. and for that, I am grateful. just don't ask me what I do.

comet dust

last night I left the bright lights of the big city and headed north up the 2. my fellow stargazer and I settled in under the pinhole sky. armed with two chairs and some peanut butter and jelly, we sat, quietly, looking up at the dancing sea of stars. we watched them twinkle and fall. some were like flaming arrows arching through the sky. some, a mere whisper of failing light. others were like lasers cutting brilliant rainbows out of the dark fabric of the night. one by one, like shimmering stones from the river, I collected shooting stars. 29 in all. Zeus rained gold on Danaë and Perseus was born. the Comet Swift-Tuttle passed by the sun and the Perseids meteor shower was born. for thousands of years wishes have been made on the dust of this comet. eventually, this comet will hit the earth or the moon. in the meantime, once a year, you can watch its journey and enjoy its fireworks.

punk rock and poetry

"end war with dowina"

that was the sentence that was going through my head right as I woke up this morning. gibberish, maybe. or perhaps, an important message sent from the deep of sleep. a message that once successfully translated and understood could possibly bring about world peace. no pressure. apparently I was talking in my sleep all night. my boyfriend said I was quite articulate despite the fact that he could make no sense of any of my nocturnal nonsense. I need to start recording this stuff...

having never consciously heard the word dowina, I decided to do a little research. apparently it stems from the Slovak word "deva" which means "girl". interesting. there is a Slovakian punk band named Dowina as well as an ancient Slovakian castle located on the Danube and Morava rivers. the castle and its history inspired many romantic poets, one being the great Hungarian poet, Endre Ady. I came across this poem:

Longing for Love

Neither the issue nor the sire,
neither fulfilment nor desire
am I for anyone,
am I for anyone.

I am as all men, the sunless sea,
the alien thule, mystery,
a fleeing wisp of light,
a fleeing wisp of light.

But I must look for friends and brothers;
I want to show myself to others
that seeing they will see,
that seeing they will see.

For this my lyric masochism;
I long to close the gaping schism,
and thus belong somewhere,
and thus belong somewhere.
(1909)

so there you have it folks, end war with punk rock and poetry. oh, and love.

ask yourself to dance

Oh dancing with myself
Oh dancing with myself
Well there's nothing to lose
And there's nothing to prove
I'll be dancing with myself
--Billy idol




"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." --Oscar Wilde

until we can sit comfortably at a candlelit dinner alone, until we can gaze lovingly into our own eyes, until we can shout to the mountaintops, "I LOVE (insert your name here)!" every proclamation of love to another is a farce. to not know how to love yourself is to not know how to love.

so in an attempt to light or simply rekindle that internal flame, I offer up a private prom of sorts. you can wear nylon taffeta or a tux or your saggy ass drawers. you can crown yourself prom queen or king. you can be your own favorite dj. pick a song you love, I mean really love. now look at yourself standing awkwardly against the wall. walk over to yourself. say, "you look really nice." and then ask yourself to dance. now dance like it's nobody's business. sweat, sway, shimmy, shake. punch the air. grind yourself. do the running man. pop that ass. lose yourself in yourself. forget all the mean things you think and forgive all the mean things you say. commit yourself to the beautiful sweaty dance machine that is you. ask yourself to go steady. give yourself a kiss, hell slip in the tongue. be vulnerable. tell yourself that you love you. I promise you will say I love you back.

hardhats and headsets

today has already started off amazingly. at work. i just picked up the phone and said, "Production. This is Jamie." and the person on the other end said, "Hi Wendy, is Lisa available?"....awesome.

xoxo,
wendy moosters




"To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting." -e.e. cummings


it's astounding really, how difficult it is to do something as seemingly simple as be yourself. something you would think is effortless is nearly impossible. every attempt we make is met with shouts of protest. whether it's parents or bills, so many things challenge the act. for many, one of the most pervasive forms of self betrayal comes from our job. my rock star friend is an accountant. my writer friend is in medical sales. my actor friend, an office rat. myself, I have done hard time behind a bar, in a fluorescent lit cubicle, on a cruise ship, in a candy store, on a golf course, in a casino, in a toy store and in a banquet hall. I have wielded a hammer, a keyboard , a camera, a nail gun, a bottle opener, a vacuum cleaner, and a tray. I have worn hardhats and headsets and bejeweled crushed velvet gowns and fishnet tights and pleated khaki pants and polo t's and tool belts and goggles and vests and visors and nude pantyhose. I have driven boats and built trusses and sold teddy bears hugging candy canes and installed shelving and puttied holes and filed files and made spreadsheets and mixed margaritas and rolled silverware and asked too many questions about the quality of a taco bell tortilla to angry people who were too polite to hang up the phone but not to treat me like less than a human being. in the name of making ends meet, I have worn many silly hats. I have spent entirely too much time doing things I hate while the children of my dreams sat crying in dirty diapers. too many times my jobs have demanded that I neglect myself and all my ambitions.

so what is one to do? commit to their goals regardless the cost. sleep under the stars. eat soggy dumpster fare. take bird baths in gas station bathrooms. develop sores that won't go away. personally, I'm way into things like comfort and having money to see a doctor when you're sick and also having the time to write and create. it's unfortunate that the idea of having a job you love is a romantic notion rather than a reality for most people.

to not only spend your time doing what you love, but to pay your bills as well. maybe we are all getting there. I like to think that my rock star friend will soon retire her adding machine and that my writer friend will start selling her books instead of band-aids, and that my actress friend will be lit by spotlights rather than fluorescent bulbs. myself, I would love to get paid to be the best person at being myself. I've yet to meet anyone who is as gifted at being me as I am.

now if you'll excuse me, I have to lace up my gloves and get busy never stop fighting.

midday margarita magic

the day has dictated itself to me, like a faithful secretary, I take notes:
plans will only get you so far.
you wanted to write today, but instead you are going to get drunk at 3 in the afternoon.
as soon as you are ready to write, there will be a knock on your door. answer it.
it will be your friend who you haven't talked to in too long.
talk with her.
she will suggest midday margaritas. drink them. eat too much mexican food while you're at it.
walk down sunset. push shopping carts and ride quarter horses. admire the sidewalk art.
admire everything.
see new things you pass everyday.
plan to spend the whole day doing what you hadn't planned.
a day spent is not wasted.
now, write...

catch me now I'm falling

hand me a ball and I'll beg you for a helmet. too many times I have caught a ball with my nose while my gloved hand blindly grasped at the air. put me in a field and I am a flailing mathematician who hasn't studied for the eye-hand coordinates pop quiz. a page of numbers, meaningless. my limbs are left helpless, there is no communication where flying objects are concerned.

as a child I gave my try at baseball. I longingly watched what was happening all around me; friendships forming, victory being tasted, fun being had by all, expect me, who would wait in the outfield praying to the god of awkward childhoods, please please please, send that ball anywhere but here. let this patch of browning green be my sanctuary. please grant me the friendship and spare me the pain. but then I'd hear the successful crack of ball on bat and every scrawny inch of me would beg for the womb and its fetal protection. the screaming of teammates was deafening. the scorching sun blinding. I'd scrunch up my face and stick out my arm and ask the god, who had thus far proven a traitor, to at least guide the soaring ball away from the delicate bones of my face and towards the untouched leather of my glove. time would stand still and then I'd hear the thump of the ball on the earth and the moaning of my teammates grabbing at their heads in frustration. I'd release the buzzing oxygen from my lungs, find the neglected ball and throw it as far away from me as I could. for me it was a small victory, no blood, no stitches, but for my teammates it was the disappointment they had come to expect from me. Eventually, I realized that no friendship was worth the anxiety of being an imposture. I offered my glove up at the sacrificial church sale and said goodbye to baseball.

so given my history in the sports hall of shame, how unexpected that I am now opening my heart back up to the thing that once broke it. thanks to the constant inspiration of my pal skl, I am learning the fine art of being a sports fan. flanked by smiling friends, I am falling in love with baseball from the bleachers. the dodgers stadium is becoming my second home. my idea of fun is now synonymous with $12 beers and the crunching of peanut shells. give me a blue foam finger and I will shake the shit out of it. I can't get enough of the night air at dizzying heights from the cheap seats. less than a movie ticket to get high off a home run. the glittering of lights, the clapping of hands. one giant romance taking place. strangers sharing the intimacy of hope. in the moment it is that simple. everyone in love with the moment and nothing else.

the god of awkward childhoods taught me my lesson and now I am rewarded for faithfully following my heart. and now my heart sings, "take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd!"

lizard love

through you
a momentary awareness of the weight of the universe
not much at stake
just my heart
I’ll grow another one
oh wait,
that’s lizards and their tails

romancing the pavement

7.7 miles and 2.5 hours later, we arrive at our doorstep, exhausted, blistered and bursting with a new found love for this city.

your car breaks down in the middle of your day, not part of the plan. you go through your list of friends, no one answers. you are left at 109 n. naomi with an idea of the general direction home. it can't be that far. you start walking. worlds unfold along the way. you encounter humans and hold conversations that would never have taken place had the car started.

an exuberant estate salesman points the way. a fat woman watering her lush garden stares at us in disbelief and then exclaims through the thickness of her jersey speak - "yuh walkin to wheya?" it's as if we had asked her how to get to calcutta. any distance on foot seems unbelievable to the dwellers of this city. we battle cars for most of the journey.

we continue in the direction we are headed. somehow we are now in a small town within a city. sun-bleached businesses speak more to forgotten towns in new mexico than to the metropolis they are hidden in. the trail becomes littered with horse shit. stables are stuck in between apartment complexes and homes transported from kentucky. there is a blond girl riding a big white horse. she is talking on her cell phone. behind a white picket fence a gray-haired man sits reading lengthy literature on his lengthy porch.

where are we?

his wife comes out and points the way.

we walk through secret parks and stumble on rotten leaves and cigarette butts. we cross a river, and a river of cars. one travels slowly, the other whizzes by. our feet start to get dirty. there are brown bunnies and deer grazing and joggers jogging and bongos banging and baby butt cracks and native americans meeting and too many tourist to count and golfers and golf balls and golf carts and buddhist in burgundy gowns and toddlers rolling around and skunks striking poses and lovers kissing on benches.

a grown man rides by on his daughters hot pink bike. it is too small for him and his knees splay out to the sides. I am so very happy. I don't mind the hill or the heat or the blisters. I am a hero walking with my hero and this is one of our many adventures. a romance in the truest sense of the word.

library lovers

to the moon and back linda would love al. is that where al went? to the moon and now he's back and that is why linda says "welcome home..."? did he go to the moon to show linda how much he loves her or did he go to the moon because he was scared of his love for linda? did he finally realize while on the moon that the only thing scarier than his love for linda was his life without her? is that why he came back? the one thing in the card that I am consumed with is the ... at the end of welcome home. three dots. three universes of possibility. are the dots symbols of hope or half completed question marks?

I found this card inside a book I checked out at the library yesterday. you would have thought the envelope had been stuffed with c-notes the way I felt upon discovering this hidden treasure. not only does the library offer the world in words, but also, the exchange of worlds. I do not know al and linda, but I like to imagine their lunar love for each other is real. I like to imagine that someone else somewhere has opened a book to discover an envelope marked "linda" and that inside there is a card that says

Linda,

I went to the moon and back because I love you.

Al

I'm home.

circus freaks

our love in the big top

you navigating me like an acrobat
my body a tightrope
your breath a lions roar
together we fly through the air
there is no net below
we land on the backs of elephants
everyone stands and cheers
the tent all color and smiles
we both don round red noses
our shoes too big
we dance to the sound of laughter
we are our own greatest show on earth

the astronaut in my chest

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.

--Sally Ride, America's First Woman in Space

feeling myself to be more from earth than venus, normally I use the men are from mars argument to scrub my toilet. but today I waver. I do feel a bit distant from my martian lover. perhaps I am, after all, light years away from understanding the mechanics of the male mind.

I grew up in a home where the mother was the caregiver, the dishwasher, the cooker of the bacon that the father brought home. my mother buttered the bread my father won. not that I have a problem with any of this, it was for the most part a happy and loving home, but I always hated that my mother and father had such a difficult time understanding each other. no amount of time together could undo the simple fact that my father felt one way and my mother the other. so here I am, maybe not cooking bacon, but uttering words I remember my mother saying. I am hurt by what I see as inconsideration. he is disturbed by what he sees as me being my mother. I love my mother but I don't want to be her. but who's right? should I just "relax"? or should he stop relaxing so much? should he perhaps squeeze a bit? why is it so damn difficult to just meet somewhere in the middle of our planetary hearts?

you know, when I think of the romantic space mission my parents have been on for over 30 years, I realize that progress has been made, new terrains have been discovered, and craters have been overcome. in fact, I remember my father making his own sandwich once. now if that doesn't give you hope?...

holding out for a hero till the end of the knight

so this is our modern day hero? no wonder so many of my friends are single. too many of my smart, talented, funny and beautiful girlfriends are single. take off your armour boys. lay down your plastic swords. let down the wall of your castle heart. your faithful steed isn't fast enough to escape the reality that you're scared shitless of actually finding your match. quit hiding out in the dungeon of indecision. stop spending way too much time at the round table and buy the girl a drink.

rock and roll romance

Dearest Jimmy Jam Band,

I’m your Number One Fan.
I’m the girl that sat on my boyfriends shoulders and flashed you my titties.
That was my red lacy bra that hit you in the head during my favorite guitar solo.
I hold my lighter out to you.

Guzzle your heart out,

Misty


ahhh red lace romance. romancing the stoner. falling in love with a song. falling in love with the fingers forming the chords. falling in love with the mouth forming the words. a sea of lighters illuminating faces as they are falling in love with the magic of a musical moment. worn-out t-shirts.
drum beating hearts pounding fists. rock and roll romance. keep singing. my head wants to bang.