i am my new home

Amazing how lighting three little candles can be a gesture of such fecundity. Staying the weekend at my sister's in northern Illinois. Outside it's frigid and white. Inside I'm protected and inspired by familial love. I am my new home.

Chicago. I'm here. Finally. I've moved back to where I grew up, where I was educated, where I was cultured.

Pragmatically it's in hopes of finding a job. Millions of us Americans are suffering for lack of it, for lack of a life. It was hard in Los Angeles for me despite living comfortably, surrounded by love of family, always well fed. But again I felt I was in limbo there. I had merely had a shell of a life.

It all begins with a job, a sense of independence, of owning one's life. But considering how many moronic and insular people in power, in government, have ruined things for the rest of us this looks to be a far more difficult struggle than it has ever been for me and many others in my situation.

I've survived - and championed - great and painful gauntlets in my life before. Perhaps that's why I don't feel as intimidated today. It also has to do with being lucky to have a very close knit family and a strong network of friends to help me, encourage me.

My gratitude to you all is bottomless. My heart glows and trembles with warmth, like the three votive candles I've lighted, keeping me company as I tap out this passage on my laptop on the kitchen table.

So begins a new adventure.

undated found note

...written by me in pencil at least 10 years ago on pattern making paper as I'm sorting through my possessions in preparation for the move :

I sat at cafe and read Anais's diary, which I hadn't done in a long time. I was surrounded by men, the entire place was taken over by men. Outside it was quite cold and icy, so I felt good and safe sitting by the glass-enclosed fireplace. There were so many men that the occasional woman who would come in looked strange, exotic, like a creature that had strayed from her native habitat. And yet the fire felt so good.

We shift and change, and so life shifts and changes for us.

quote me

Maybe that's my destiny in life. To live the richest, most passionate life possible, and yet against my better judgments.

catch up with me

Listen to it loud.

It's autumn.

I hadn't really been updating this blog for while mostly because nothing interesting has been happening for me since the last time. Things around me, though, move along with their own momentum. Me, I'm still in a kind of limbo.

My close friend and niece K plans to come down from the bay area to visit in a couple weeks. Whether she actually does is uncertain, she lives a rather organic life steeped in certain emotions. My other friend G plans to visit on Halloween weekend. If they both come as planned it will be a much needed break each time from my mom. I practically never get out anymore, primarily out of lack of momentum and thrift.

I don't plan on taking up job hunting again until early next year, when it'll be almost a year since I've been employed and enjoyed a steady income. I only hope I'm still marketable, the longer you don't work the less valuable you're perceived to be. But I'm fairly optimistic. Relying on mom for handouts is taking its toll on me, though it's not too sufferable because I'm pretty much her personal assistant. The free home cooked meals are awesome.

Much of my time lately has been spent watching back to back episodes of Dexter via Netflix. I've been gaming intensively, too. Recently finished Batman: Arkham Asylum, one of the finest games I've ever experienced. Also working on Wet off and on, when I'm in a cheap, filmic, campy mood. But my current fixation is on the upcoming Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware's next epic sized RPG. You know what that means - I'll be "gone" for the next few months.

I'm thinking of joining a gay men's support group again, like I did in Oregon several years ago. There's one that's very close to me, but I need to find out how it works and if the program I'm on can pay for it if there's a charge. It could ignite some kind of a social life for me, something I hadn't had in a long time, at least on a regular basis.

I can't really complain that much. I have good home, a warm bed to sleep in, a full tummy, and the epitome of a selfless, loving, devoted mother. But I'm still in limbo. Again. Not much I can do about certain things, like the dearth in the job market. That one's just a matter of time. My ideal gig would be a good full-time job, a fairly robust social life, and being able to look after Mom. I only hope I don't go crazy waiting things out for it all to come together, whenever that may be.

fuck Kafka

^ Epicurus most likely had a lot of things to teach Kafka. Navel gazing isn't one of those things.

In a gaming community I frequent, a fellow member posted this:

Where do they come from and where do they go?

Why do people create knowing that it will eventually be destroyed? Why do people cling to life knowing that they must someday die? None of that will have meant anything once you do.

Kefka may have been completely batshit insane, but he raises a good point. Why do we do the things we do? What does it mean to live? Why do you insist on living and finding happiness knowing that it is temporary and death is probably eternal? What is your response when you are faced with these questions?

I replied with this:

First of all, I wouldn't trust Kafka to be my guru even if I were considering razor blades on my wrist instead of on my unshaved face. The guy most likely didn't know shit about enjoying himself, he was emo before emo was emo. Amazing writer, though.

Secondly, I have no idea if there is an afterlife (I'm atheist) but damn shit if I try not to have as much fun as I possibly could in this life I have now and to be as good as I can to other people.

I don't "cling" to life. I make hot passionate love to it. I lust for it and in it. Not because I'm desperate, but because it's there to take advantage of. It's not death I'm scared of, it's the absence of living.

Years ago I nearly died myself, from a medical condition, so I have some idea how it would feel to be on that "event horizon" of existence. It taught me a lesson: be good, have fun, lust is your friend, and build and create and enjoy while you're around and not give a shit if it all ceases to exist when you do. Because you have nothing else better to do, and what good would it do to just mope in a dark corner?

The idea of the worthlessness of this life hints at a lack of imagination and self-esteem, and certainly to a kind of laziness in imbuing value and a sense of time well spent, no matter how brief that time may be and no matter how mysterious dying may be perceived in terms of what may or may not come afterward.

Oh, I've done my share of navel gazing. The difference is that I got the fuck over it. My navel only looks interesting for so long, you know.

I could use another Mexicola (coke, lime juice, and tequila). Cheers!