Yo Home Skillit from VA!

So I have this sitemeter thing that tells me what parts of the world my blog is being read. It's pretty cool and I have to admit I've become a bit obsessive in checking it, Mostly people just come here to read the lyrics to the Kate Havenik song I posted a while back. That particular entry gets read by people LITERALLY all over the world.

I'm FASCINATED by the person who regularly reads my blog from Herndon, Virginia. Whoever you are, please tell me how you know me. If you are a random stranger I don't care. I would just really like to know. I've been racking my brain to figure out what Virginian I may know and I really can't come up with it. So please leave a comment, even an anonymous one. I'm dying to know. Give a girl a break.

Perfect

There are days that are so perfect. In those days I feel safe being so connected. I'm sitting here in an office waiting for a meeting but my brain is on a beach in Portland. I feel sand underneath my toes. I'm standing there watching 4 men who are just most the amazing people I know. They are splashing tackling each other and making me and another friend laugh on the shoreline. I'm getting picked up and thrown in the water. Salt water is rushing past me as I laugh. I'm catching my breath and diving towards my friends. Trying to tackle them as they have thrown me. We are laughing, screaming, taunting and splashing. One of them grabs my arm and swings me into the surf as I flail and make sure it's tough for him to let go. I bruise. I laugh. I feel beautiful in your estimation, but better then that, in my own. We head home in a van. We listen to the radio as the sunset. In our silence there is love. There is fear of tomorrow because today felt so good. I carry you friends. I just carry you with me. Today, lack of sleep and exhaustion do not diminish my glow. I carry your beauty. I walk confident in a world where you love me and I love you. And I praise the powers of beings greater then I ever imagined that they brought you to me.

The People I Love

It is 3am and I am hearing the snoring (and assorted other choice noises) of my friends. I am in Portland, Oregon. I have spent the last two days just valuing and being valued by a good group of people. My heart is full. And I can't sleep because the thought of going back makes my heart ache. errrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.I still have one more day. Why am I doing this now? Oh well. What can be done I suppose.

Kailicious and the Baby Burrito

Tonight I babysat Kai for about 7 hours. Now Kai is the six week old daughter of my ex-coworker and pseudo-big brother Mark. She, like he and his wife, is amazing. I mean absolutely fantastic. I was sitting there holding her and just fully in love. I wonder how you can love people who aren't your blood relatives so much. It was sad for me, driving away from them. The first and really only exemplary marriage I have ever known. The people who helped me believe that loves exists and that it can be a partnership and fun. I'm just sooo utterly grateful to them. And I'm happy for Kai. She is so lucky to have them as parents. Amy is a strong ass woman and Mark is this amazingly wonderful man. The odds are all in her favor. I love seeing how much they love her, how much patience they have with her and each other. Its really beautiful. I am going to miss having that beautifulness (is that a word?) in close proximity. I was watching Mark swaddle her tonight, wrapping her up tight like a baby burrito. The first of many times I know he will venture to make his girl feel safe and protected. It was just sweet. I know the kind of support he will offer her. I only wish more men were the kind of father Mark will be. I'll miss them. I've already spent 30 minutes being weepy and silly because of it. But what they showed me, I'll carry it with me forever.

Here are the lyrics to the song that reminds me of Mark and his Baby Burrito

Father and Daughter by Paul Simon



If you leap awake
In the mirror of a bad dream
And for a fraction of a second
You can't remember where you are
Just open your window
And follow your memory upstream
To the meadow in the mountain
Where we counted every falling star

I believe the light that shines on you
Will shine on you forever
And though I can't guarantee
There's nothing scary hiding under your bed
I’m gonna stand guard
Like a postcard of a Golden Retriever
And never leave till I leave you
With a sweet dream in your head

I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you'll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you

Trust your intuition
It's just like going fishing
You cast your line
And hope you'll get a bite
But you don't need to waste your time
Worrying about the market place
Try to help the human race
Struggling to survive its harshest night

I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you'll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you

I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you'll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you

Singing

I've spent my morning/afternoon talking to friends and singing at the top of my lungs. Oh thank you Alicia for providing the material. It's been great release.

Tired

So I am a germ monster today. Hella sick. MY GOOD GOD. Why did I just realize yesterday that I have been working for the last six weeks straight. Which I assume to be why my body is rebeling. There just doesn't seem to be enough time. I wonder, is there too much too soon in your professional life?

Don't get me wrong, I feel totally capable of doing the tasks at hand. I know I wouldn't be happy if I wasn't challenging myself. But I just did about $2000 worth of accounting I've been procrastinating on, more when I add the other $2000 worth of checks. I am managing a budget that is pretty close to $700,000. I sat there for a second tonight and had this overwhelming feeling of just tired. I can't believe they let me do this stuff. They trust me with this, and I am trustworthy. But damn, most the other 25 year olds I know are not managing this. Everyone else seems to be having a lot more time for fun. They don't carry the kind of weight that I feel like I carry. I guess the next best question is, am I self-imposing the weight?

Truth be told, I have no idea. But I want some time for my own brain. I have a trip scheduled to Portland for next week. I'm visiting with some friends and WILING OUT! I really can't wait. I have been everyone's role model for just a little too long. My brain is flippin and all it wants in the world is to stop. I wonder about my pace and am I cut out for this, and then, even if I am, do I want to be? Will I have a really successful professional life at the sacrifice of being young?

I will step out of the victim place tomorrow, I swear. Tonight, I wanna be a kid. I wanna be a kid not in charge of 150 some odd lives. I want to sleep and not think. I want to fully immerse myself in a crush that is healthy for me and not worry about the time I'm "wasting".

Gizmos and Gremlins

It's funny how there are times when you go long time periods without writing, even if there is something to write about. Then randomly you will want to write and you pretty much have nothing to say. That's kinda the boring spot I have put you in today. I am just sitting here in my robe, mentally prepping for my second workshop in a row. I just wanted to ramble. You are under no obligation to read. My last workshop was a huge learning experience (I guess they all are). I had 28 boys (I know I keep saying this, but damn, it did mean something to me), 4 alumni that I had rap directed, and lots of other little fun factors.

When I say learning experience, I just mean, it allowed me to observe the way I have come into contact with the world. As much as I have tried to let the feeling go, I really believed that I blew last years certification. I mean I walked away feeling like the most awful person for even stepping into that workshop. I questioned how irresponsible of me it was to walk into a workshop recovering from an assault that had happened only a week prior. I didn't think I did what was in my capacity to do. Never recognizing that different capacity comes with different trauma and experiences.

Let me tell you about Jo. That workshop, I had this fiery, angry, cuss you out in the hallway if you look at her the wrong way, girl. And I loved her, I loved her immediately. From the beginning I could see the capacity of her heart. I just knew she had been hurt so many times that she bites as a reflex by that point, not a defense mechanism. And over the course of the workshop I wondered how far she had internalized the lessons.

Then I saw her this last weekend. This tiny, spunky, loving girl. She threw her arms around me and hugged me in the airport. And as I tried to recover from the shock I sat an watched as she and 3 past students of mine showed me how they had discovered the world through the year. She was changed. She had opened her heart a little more, let herself share and feel more. She is also going to be a student at Cal State Fullerton. All facts that delighted me to no end. I really laid into her anyhow, because really, I know her capacity, and this girl can be a superstar. In the end, I feel like she had more tools to find peace and was looking forward to a world that didn't have to genuflect whenever her parents commanded it. I was proud of her.

Your inner critic can be so strong. I mean, how is it that you can not even see the very things happening in front of you. It blows my mind. We can completely process things so skewed from reality. All because of the little voice in our heads that tells us we aren't enough. I mean that voice is tricky, it is forever altering its methods to really get at you. And it can change your entire perception. I saw that critic pop-up this last weekend. Instead of battling with it, I think I just kinda invited it to sit down. Put up with what it said and talked myself down. haha. I know I sound like a nutjob right now, but I hope some of you understand. It just takes so long to make peace with that critic. It's like a freakin gremlin. And not in the cute gizmo state, in the icky conniving green state. I think I should name mine. Any suggestions?

To all of you battling the gremlins I commend you, don't put water on them or feed them after midnight. ;c)