RIP Lydia

In 1994 I knew this girl named Dana. She was rad and worked with my boyfriend as the manager of Musicland in the mall. Closest that goth/punk/hipster hybrids could get to a cool job in the town of Okemos. After we had been friends for a while she asked me a favor. She knew I loved animals. She had a baby iguana. Her boyfriends mom had given Lydia the lizard as a gift and her cat was terrorizing it. Would I take it? I lived in the dorms at the time, but critters in aquariums were ok, so I said yes. We had many good years together. I hand fed her strawberries and bananas. She would climb up into my hair and swish her tail around. I still have a scar on my wrist from when we were playing one day.  She stayed with my brother when we went to California for the summer and when I came back we were so dorky playing, me letting her crawl on me and eating veggies from my fingers.

She roadtripped with me, John and Cluecat when we moved to Arizona and we set up an entire walk in closet as her home with lots of edible plants, heat rocks, a little pool, the whole nine yards. Later when we moved to West Oakland she weathered the trip like a true trooper and loved the new walk in closet home with 8ft tall climbing branches and levels of tree like hot spots to lounge on. When John and I split, he had the closet (and the apartment) so he got custody. I helped pay for a big open cage once the heat in the apt got fixed and she had a queens quarters. When he moved to Wisconsin he wrote to tell me she almost died on the trip but didn't. I was so mad and worried all at once. I didn't get to agree to my iguana leaving town. He left and told me later. He had custody for years, but her and Matthilder the cat always still felt like mine too. Today I got the email. After fourteen years, she has passed away. I lost a piece of my family.  It's hard to explain missing / mourning a critter that's been out of your care for so long. But I loved her so much. Knowing she's gone, means I know without a doubt I will never see her again. Never know how big or sweet or how her greens changed over the years. I kind of always thought I would see her again at some point. But now it's finite. And done. No more Lydia. No more wondering how she is. No more thinking about watching her carve up a banana again.

Fuck.
Just. I loved her a lot.

too much web

i just had the strangest impulse
i was looking at a pic of friends a and b on friend a's myspace
i got curious to see what friend b's pics were
so i clicked on her head
of course nothing happened
but for a moment i was confused
it's the interweb
everything is clickable

and of course i fully predict the software will exist in the future that would have analyzed the image i clicked on, ran an algorhythm with google image search, and presented me with a page of results. or at least did an image analysis within myspace and took me to friend b's profile.

weird

i feel like a cyborg.

hope

truth.
real fact based truth vs emotional truth?
i think lately i have been walking in a whole lotta emotional truth and not so much with the fact based
i like my feet in the dirt
i like facts.
when i look at the facts i am doing alright.
i wish i was doing.saying. being more. but i also feel done with apologizing. especially to myself. about where i am and am not with my own placement in my life. call it bday time re-examining. but i am done with wanting to worry. about things. i want to move forward. i want to create and do. and i have been creating and doing. i have been moving forward. and the more that i do it offline, the more room i have to actually call, email, text people and reconnect with them. last night while rooster got some film feedback i waited for her / took myself on an art date writing at ritual. i wrote for 2.5 hours solid before happenstance brought sherilyn to my table. it's been a long time since i have written so much longhand and you know what? i had the devils grin on the whole time. you know that smile when you know that it's all just too perfect and it feels somehow sinful to be that happy. i had that. after a day where i felt like i never wanted to even exist anymore. i gave myself some time and some space and tada. when the words leave the brain, the paper fills up and the brain, it finds space.

i am excited for the next year. and i don't think that jinxes anything. i want to put the gas pedal to the floor and just TRY everything. i dont know what that looks like yet. maybe it means i finally answer my cell phone once in a while. (eep). maybe it means more nights at cafes writing. or more nights at gypsy jazz feeling life in my blood. or days wandering parks. or more impromptu trips to other parts of the country. i'm not sure yet how living all out realizes for me. i do know that i am writing more. and the more i write, the closer fact based and emotional truths get. the more firmly in the dirt my feet are, the more poems grow between my toes and make me pay attention.

i have some people who are showing me immense amounts of love and care without a whole lot in return right now. i am getting to a place where i can return it and that makes me so happy. i got some owe-ing to do. and the me that has room to go to oakland and walk in a park, to meet at the club and talk all night, to come over for dinner and hang out, to call instead of text or email, to pick up the phone when it rings, to go to the market before breakfast, to do all of these things that make me full of joy. that version of me is starting to surface. i don't want to scare it off just yet. but i am telling you. even with the sad news (twofold) that hit today. i have a crapton of hope. and hope really - is what gets me through.