Halloween 2006

So this weekend my roomates and I had a Halloween party that proved to be quite enteraining for a variety of reasons. As we typically do, we turned our apartment into a themed nightclub of sorts inclusive of blacklights, house music, a bar and much more. I've decided to post my top six observations from that party here...partially because i'm so bored at work right now that I could cry...and partially because, well...i'm so bored at work right now I could cry!

1. I should dress as an apache more often...i look good in a headdress!

2. Large Indian headdresses and heavy winds don't mix well, particularly when attempting to cross the street quickly to avoid oncoming traffic.

3. When a pregnant Jamaican woman who's husband just drug her an hour and a half away from their home in Far Rockaway (in the rain) comes to the bar and asks you for some cranberry juice...you damn well better have some cranberry juice.

4. New Guinea penis sheaths are so much fun!!!! (long story)

5. Small neon fish that glow under blacklights = very cool

6. Putting small neon fish that glow under blacklights in a margarita glass and leaving it at the bar with all the other drinks = not cool...not cool AT ALL!

Oh, To Breathe Again...

So yesterday was kind of a piss poor day! It felt like everything that had been hovering around in my head and my heart just suddenly congealed and started oozing out of my eyeballs (sorry, that was the only metaphor I had). I was upset. I was irritated. I was very "emotional". *I’m ditching the term "emo" because I’ve realized that it's just one more word we use to pigeonhole men into some culturally defined idea of masculinity...i.e. men characteristically aren't supposed to be "emotional" so lets cut the word in half and use it as slang whenever a guy does anything outside the normal stereotypical activities of a male*. Anyway, today I feel much better.

Now granted, all of the same issues that existed yesterday exist today. Nothing in my life has miraculously changed. However, I was fortunate enough to be able to vent about certain frustrations in an email to a friend. No doubt that my friend now thinks I’m clinically insane and way too "emo" as he would put it...but still, putting down some of my most important thoughts in an email for someone else to read felt really good. So today, I feel invigorated. I feel the blood rushing through my veins. Suddenly life in the city is that much more exciting as are the things that lie ahead of me. My heart, which had felt stifled these past few weeks, suddenly feels free to do it's own thing...to live in the here and the now. I feel like myself again, with any emotional or mental changes that have taken place in recent months adding to the foundation of who I already was.

It's a wonderful feeling!!

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point

A good friend shot me this quote in an email that I read today. It's from Pascal. Its highly philosophical and therefore very thought provoking. Its quite deep, and I don't like it!!

See, I seek to apply such statements as medicine to an illness...although perhaps therein lies the problem. I expect to read something like this and to see what wounds, what scars, what ailments it is applicable to. In a way, I look to strong philosophical statements for wisdom from which I can derive answers. However, in reading this i'm left with more questions than I am answers.

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.- Translation: The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of

WHAT?! Thanks Pascal!! I could have told you that one!

If anything, this reminds me of just how many reasons my heart has which my reasoning knows nothing of! And that, my friends, is the complexity of emotion. We can control our thoughts and our actions, but feelings are often all together different animals. I myself have often said "emotions suck". I say it humorously and it usually gets a laugh from both myself and the hearer...but I often wonder if people realize how much I mean what i'm saying. I don't say it in jest, nor do I say it to be morose. I say it because it's how I truly feel.

The pain of wanting something for yourself, that no matter how noble, you can never have. The sorrow in watching someone you love struggle to survive and loose that battle. The hurt and anger in being taken advantage of and the questions that ensue as to what YOU could have done differently. The ache of caring for someone deeply who does not feel quite the same, and moreover, who you cannot see, hear, or touch. The awkwardness of caring what others think in spite of all attempts not to. The hurt of being rejected because of who you are and what you believe. Gosh..i could go on and on.

This is no picnic Pascal! But somehow I feel that you knew that, and perhaps it is from that knowledge that your statement was spawned. I will ponder over this a little more...

I am grateful to my friend for sharing this though. After all, the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of...

Thoughts on a subway car

If you know me then you know that my commute home on the train, while most often frustrating, can also provide me with a time of reflection, contemplation, and resolution. In those moments, as I listen to the music in my ipod...closed off to a world that would otherwise force its way in…I pray, I ponder, I laugh, I cry (inside at least), and I dream. The sounds and the smells of the underground become sweet music and pungent incense…ushering me into yet another world of deep thought and introspection.

Today, I stand tall in the center isle, quite proud of my gray Calvin Klein scarf wrapped loosely around my neck and decorating the ever popular green Armani blazer, clinging tightly to the bar in front of me. Wedged between at least 10 people, I think about the fact that were I to loose my grip..which at the time was quite possible..I would not fall. Sure, the startle of loosing my grip would be, well…startling. But yet, pinned between those bodies I am secure in knowing that those firm walls of flesh would not fail me, they would not/could not, let me fall. And in those few moments I am amazed at the striking similarities between my physical circumstance in that subway car, and the spiritual circumstances that exist in my world today.

Today, I stand in a world where I cling tightly to those things I thought I knew. The things I thought I wanted, the life I thought I desired and God desired of me, and the friends and the family that I would have changed myself to maintain. I hold onto them tightly, all the while knowing that my grip grows weaker and weaker with each passing day. I cry out to God, a plea to understand how this can be when I know He is with me, as though these things are out of His control and not part of my process. And in my heart I hear him say…

..“when all else falls away…hold onto me…for I will not let you fall.”

And in that moment…I close my eyes…knowing that although my world is changing, my hopes and my dreams morphing into something all together different…through all of this..He is working.

I suppose that part of “becoming” is letting go of our own expectations and realizing that great change is just that…change. And while the letting go can seem risky, and be all too painful…doing so to grab hold of Him, that I might be all He desires for me to be, is worth the risk and the pain. Not sometimes, but every time.

So, I let go….