Adele - Rolling In The Deep

I am in love with this album. Adele 21 is my new life soundtrack. Do yourself a favor and skip over to itunes and add this to your collection. Love Love Love

missed.

 

I found this picture on MOONCATS of my friends in MPLS dancing their faces off dressed as cowboys and indians. I miss you guys, love you guys, and wish I were there more often than not. 

24.5

Today I am twenty four and half and I will transition from being ruled by the moon to being ruled by the sun. For more clarification on what this means visit my post earlier this month titled Full Moon Finale in which I more in depth explain the nature of this specific astrological shift in my life. But for today I would like to ask all of you to celebrate with me. Say hello to the sun, and if there is no sun for you to say hello to do a few sun salutations in your living room to give praise to the almighty sunshine. Spend a little time letting some light and love into your life today and send me off into this next phase of my life with all the good will and wishes we can muster. With so much love from my universe to yours. Have a lovely day. xoxo. Let your sun shine!

E.E Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

-E.E Cummings

Bed Time.

 

Bed Time. I hope I drift off to a place like this... I wonder what I'll see and who will be there. 

Sweet Dreams. 

"While mona lisas and mad hatters
Sons of bankers, sons of lawyers
Turn around and say good morning to the night
For unless they see the sky
But they can't and that is why
They know not if it's dark outside or light."

-Elton John

Right Now.

 

Pick A Place. Pick Any Place in the Entire World. Where Would You Go, Right Now, If You Could Be Anywhere. ?

Monday Monday

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise.

A discovery for myself. Through the woods and over the hill I walked in the drizzling rain with three smart ladies to a bar just on the other side of my apartment complex. Sitting down everyone orders a drink and I cannot take my eyes off this bottle of beer sitting atop the shelf. Clearly marketed for the likes of myself I had to order it. I am not even a beer drinker. I like a Stella every now and then or a Corona on a hot summer day, but the language of beer is as foreign as Latin to me. I certainly would never order a heavy Belgian style beer, but the marketing got to me. The bartender told me if I finished the beer I could take the bottle home with me. I accepted his challenge, and to my delight it was delicious. It was dark and heavy but sweetened with distinctive chocolate and caramel flavors and cherry, there was no mistaking the presence of cherry in my new beer. It took the better part of the evening for me to drink it, in fact it was the only drink I had. What a wonderful discovery on a dark rainy evening. However as I wake up this morning, the Three Philosophers do not have me feeling healthy, wealthy, or wise.

The Four Winds

Even inside these heavy glass doors I can feel the rain falling in sheets outside, whipping against the pavement of my apartment complex. I’ve been thinking again and it always brings me back to the same places. Always brings me further from you. Shouldn’t be allowed to think so much on such an empty stomach. I’m telling you again that these rains mean something. They have intentions just like everyone else. I asked the four winds who had blown them in just what we were in for. They all answered in their usual way, reminding me why there are four to begin with.

The North wind told me, "clearly it’s a matter of science and things move in cycles." Told me that, “all things that move and breathe with toil and sound are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.” Because he too reads Shelly I have always respected the North wind, we hold that common ground. 

The Western wind told me that if I continue to think myself in such circles that one day I will be too dizzy to see straight, and that is when we are the most vulnerable. She said that it isn’t a matter of science but a matter of living. The only thing we have is this life and the sooner I give it up, the quicker I will live more. I try always to emulate her laid back nature and it is she who reminds me in frenzied moments to slow down and take a deep breath. Even the rough moments are still moments.

When the South wind came to visit me we had tea near the window and she looked thinner than ever. She told me it wasn’t a matter of science and it wasn’t a matter of living, she said “this my friend is a matter of the heart.” She looked into her tea when she told me as if she was worried about how I would take the news. She was sure I had left my heart somewhere and generally worried as to how and when I may get it back. I told her it was okay, I may never get it back if that’s the case. When she left that afternoon I had a feeling things may never be the same after these rains.

It wasn’t until the Eastern wind came that I felt I truly needed the advice. Things had been spread thin and I was becomingly increasingly agitated by the circles I was drawing across the room. He showed up just in time. I told him and pleaded for a good solid answer; to tell me something the other winds hadn’t told me. I wanted him to tell me why everything is the way it is, and why it always happened to be this way. What wasn’t I seeing? The Eastern wind looked me in the eyes with his strong stare and broad smile. He told me it wasn't about science and it wasn't about living and it wasn't about my heart. He told me, like I thought he would, that there are no answers. He told me that the rain meant nothing. That it was simply rain. And then he kissed me softly before leaving the door open on his way out. I don't know who to believe.

Back Bay Blues.

Looking for a little light in these gray late February days. 

But to be honest there is none to be found. 

 Things look a lot like they never did before. 

 And you got me thinking nothing ever happened. 

Like maybe I made it all up in my head. 

Bieber Fever

Such a wide range of moments and topics addressed here I feel in no way out of line by bringing this up. Nisan this is written especially for you because I know how much it will boost my street cred. Unless you have been dead or living in an ashram for the past year you have been unwillingly exposed to Justin Bieber. This kid seems to be literally everywhere. I have done an incredible job of not catching Bieber fever because I don't have t.v and I never listen to the radio and I try to stay far far away from all panic inducing teen sensations. However my luck has run out these past few days as he and his coiffed hair and million dollar smile are everywhere I turn. The Glee episode this week was centered around Bieber, he performed at the Grammys, I looked up at the t.v last night at work and there he was playing the celebrity portion of the MVP game, and finally when I came home last night and got the mail there he was on the cover of Rolling Stone giving me that smoldering sixteen something stare. I couldn't take it anymore. I went inside poured a glass of scotch and sat down to read his interview. I think a part of me is so flabbergasted because I wont lie, I'm interested. A part of me, a very secret part of me loves Justin Bieber. I can't help but dance around a bit when "oh baby" comes over the speakers in Forever 21. And this fact only makes me more crazy and furious over his crooning and sweet dance moves. The interview in Rolling Stone is a remarkable depiction of some kid shot into super stardom rolling in a Range Rover and wearing black diamonds only several months after receiving his drivers licence. A part of me feels this kid is seriously estranged from reality and will only become more isolated as his fame grows. In some countries his mere presence has induced riots and stampedes of young girls. He is no longer allowed to play arenas without seats because the girls will literally climb over each other to get to him. WHAT?! Throughout the piece he speaks with a Midwestern "cool kid" Ebonics slang in which he attaches "swag" to the end of every sentence. The point of all this is that this kid is like a fucking supernova; a production of the media and the world in which we now live and have in part helped create. He lived in the basement of a government housing complex with his mother in Canada. His mother put videos of him on YouTube where he was seen, discovered, and plucked out of obscurity and into super stardom in less than four years. Only today, this could only happen today. Now he is everywhere I turn and I accidentally spent an hour last night watching YouTube videos of him! I have caught Bieber fever. I don't know what it is about him that has women of every age around the world in such a frenzy. Is it because he gives young girls the hope of that first boyfriend and reminds us older women of the same simpler time in our lives. What is it it? Is it the hair? And how is it possible that on a Saturday morning I have now spent the better part of twenty minutes writing a synopsis on The Bieber. He got me again. Fuck.

Full Moon Finale

Tonight's full moon is a particularly special full moon for myself because it will be the last full moon that rules me. If you know me well, or not so well I suppose, then you know how serious I am about the lunar cycles. This is because I was born with a cancer rising sign and have since the beginning of my life been ruled heavily by the moon. My moods, my relationships, my life, my plans all flux as the tides and I have always felt a close kinship to the ever-watchful moon. 

For those of us that were born in the evening hours, such as myself, something special happens right around twenty four and a half years in our celestial rulings. For me twenty four and a half years is happening right now, well on the twenty fourth to be exact. I will no longer be ruled by the moon, I will now be ruled by the sun. 

I find this incredibly interesting because this year on my twenty fourth birthday on the twenty fourth of August there was a full moon. I know all this because my mother has seriously studied astrology for as long as I can remember and the phone seems to ring whenever shit hits the fan. Sure enough, every time it is my mother on the other end unknowingly offering advice and solace by telling me that mercury is in retrograde or Jupiter has fallen out of time, always explaining the current predicament with frightening accuracy. Believe in whatever you want, I believe in the stars. I don't know what this will mean for me, and I don't know what it means for us, or for you. All I know is that my mother called and told me to hold on tight because nothing will ever be the same. Some sort of force will or has recently entered my life that will irrevocably change the course of it forever. I can look foreword to a more 'me' centered universe, (which I find terrifying.) All I can hope for is that the sun will be as good to me as the moon has been. A part of me feels like I am loosing a dear friend, but the future looks bright, very, very bright. 

Dirty Gold - California Sunrise

I love this video because it reminds me of why I live here, why I love here, and why at the end of the day I don't want to be anywhere else. Long live this life, summer moments are just around the corner. Bust out the bikinis and board shorts. Cheers to fine looking men and a long long summer... stay cool.

thanks Sonia.

I just signed onto facebook and got this message from someone I went to high school with:

"hey you were a real bitch in high school. I happened to be surfing through facebook and came along your page. You ended up in a cool state, you look alot cooler which may depict a nicer personality from your photos. Southern California is home of the flakes and fakes. San Francisco is better. Hope you're doing well and treating people with respect."

Thanks Sonia. Well said. If I could have a cocktail now with Sonia I would tell her this: "Sonia I am so sorry, and despite my sarcastic tone, a part of me really means that. You probably think I was a bitch because I never spoke to you and chances are we had class together for years. You probably thought I thought I was too good for you and everyone else I never spoke to. Funny thing is, I was just too stoned out of my mind to speak to anyone in high school. And that's the truth."

I'll have the Linguine

The way that I am allows me to believe in everything if I choose to do so. More often than not I find a hidden, truer meaning in the most mundane of moments as if those tell us something. Tell us something about that big picture. That big picture that we will never see so long as we are still living or something close to it. So what makes me say all of this to you is that it rained again. It isn't a real rain I would say. It's a sexually confused sort of rain that falls sporadically and in patches so nothing ever really stays wet. It is the kind of rain that allows you to forget it is rain at all. It makes the city shiny on dark corners where street lights make fiestas. I stopped to buy a bottle of wine because it's only the beginning of the week and I am already feeling the unrelenting urge to drink. Better not fight it, better just give in to begin with. It makes me feel like more of a team player and less of a bitch. But I think we all know. There are no teams anymore. It's a one for one sort of system we run and certainly never an all for one. I like to write slow stories about times like that in which the main characters most serious problem is how he is going to get the crop harvested before the winter frost. he is genuinely trouble by this. and so am I. So, when I pour the bottle of wine I talk to myself out loud because everyone else in the house has long since gone to sleep and my cat, although beautiful, is not much of a conversationalist. I tell her about this horribly unhappy couple I had to serve dinner to during my shift this evening at work. Funny thing is they weren't even supposed to be my table. Every time I asked them a question they answered so completely opposite that they didn't even notice, only I noticed. Or maybe they had been at odds for so long that these sorts of things just normally go unnoticed. When he spoke she bit her lip and when she spoke he rolled his eyes. I see couples all the time, this wasn't annoyed been married twenty thirty years type shit. This was seething hatred. I could feel it radiating from their table, it was exhausting just to be around them. I never once saw them speak to each other when I wasn't at the table pulling teeth to get their order. I watched them more then I watch most people, because most people although unhappy, are also quite boring. This to me was somehow sadistically fascinating. They made me feel angry because I wanted to tell them, "hello? do you know you are still alive? you are not dead yet. just checking, I thought someone should tell you." And then at the same time I felt really sad because maybe one day they had loved each other but were now so lost in this hatred they couldn't see straight. And then I got scared. I got scared of ever ending up like them. Funny thing was, they both ordered the linguine. Were they so alike in nature that they wanted the same thing, and had they known without speaking a word the other would order linguine. Why didn't they just share and try something else, or did they truly have no idea what the other would order and this was all just a mere coincidence. But like I told you in the start I choose to believe in everything sometimes. And this is one of those times. I don't know what the rain and the wine and the unhappy couple with linguine all have to do with each other, but they do have something to do with each other. Definitely something.

Grieves & Budo - "Pack It Up"

A little post Valentines Day post love. Thanks boys.

with love.

Happy Valentines Day.  

 Me and You.

?

 

Where Did You GO?

Chalkway.

 

I love this. Danielle and I were just talking the other day of painting a wall in the hallway with chalkboard paint. This Sunday's project for sure. And imagine all the fun and possibly wonderful things that will be written down that may have passed in nowhere without this chalkboard hallway. Chalkway. 

Time Traveler

I told him, “no matter the time,” 

and he told me, “no matter the place,

the universe gives you the bed that we make.”

I’ve traveled the world

for diamonds and drinks,

But he traveled through time to give me this ring.

They say that these choices 

don’t grow on these trees,

but I beg to differ

I change with ease.

I saw him last month at a motel with lights

we spent the whole evening escaping the night.

When there’s looks there are dreams

When there’s dreams there are dares

When there’s dares there are downfalls

And right to be scared.

There’s twice on the way to the person you’ve been

when you’ll pass an old place, and they wont let you in.

You will knock, you will plea, you will offer them gold

but the young can’t go back to a home that is old.

The memories weathered 

the climate has changed

the names and the faces are all rearranged.

He was worried of running but scared to stay still

cause the wheel of fortune doesn’t spin at your will

I taught him to listen

he taught me to breathe

I laid out the cards on the bed by his feet.

The six of the swords and the tower lay flat

they told him to leave and to never look back.

I said, “I’ll sleep on my stomach,

you sleep on your side,

we’ll know when they’re coming,

we’ll know when to hide.”

He is the only one to undo whats been done

Who can stop and start time, who can outrun the sun

 written on what else, but cocktail napkins at work. 

the words of this poem have been lifted and worked into the first song

of a very long project. 

enjoy.

foxes

As a testament to just how true my previous post is, I cannot help myself with this one. With a serious deadline looming as the sun goes down I found myself browsing images of foxes. Seriously Erin? Foxes. I happen to  love foxes so it's not all that far fetched. I don't know why but I have been fascinated by them my entire life. Foxes are my totem animal and growing up in Minnesota there was a certain red fox that used to follow me around and appear on the sides of the dark empty roads on my way home at night. Now you probably think I am weirder than you did five minutes ago. That's okay too. I also dream about foxes more than anything else. I love foxes.

nature

It is a part of my nature, as I believe it is with most people, to do what we are told not to do. This translates into my writing on a daily basis. I find myself sitting at the computer ready to write, with time to write, with an assignment to write, and yet I never write. I find myself reading blogs and strange wikipedia entries on gemstones. Then when I am doing anything besides writing all I can do is write. Most of what I write is initially transcribed on cocktail napkins over lunch while the other person stares at their tuna melt wondering why they hangout with me when all I seem to do is write. I write in the car at stop lights, I write on checks between serving tables and waiting for the shrimp linguini to come off the line, I write in the middle of almost any situation in which I should not be writing. I am not one to complain and that is far from what I am doing. I feel blessed when I write at all because I go through periods where nothing comes at all. There are times when I wonder whole heartedly if I will ever write something worth anything ever again, but then I do. Hemingway told me once that, "you have written before, you will write again." Thanks Ernest. You are always there for me when I need someone.

get thirsty.

I have tentatively decided that I will, for sure, go back to school next fall at the University of California Irvine to get my teaching credentials in high school English and if I am feeling bold continue on the following summer to finish up with a masters in English. I think I would rather have an MFA from Irvine or the University of Washington but that will all be contingent upon weather or not I get accepted next fall. Either way, I was doing the math and I will have to serve roughly twenty thousand cocktails to pay for this adventure, and that's me banking on twenty percent tips. So come one people, get thirsty!!

First Aid Kit - Hard Believer

First Aid-Kit a sister duo from Sweden. I love them, and I love the video, and I love how slightly creepy it is. I want my music to follow somewhat in this vein. Writing lyrics right now is a troubling and incredibly humbling experience for me. I posted this video, and it is dedicated it to my little sister. I love you and all will be well. The universe works in the most mysterious of ways my little rebel yellow. xoxo.

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day. I like it because as far as ridiculous holidays goes this one takes the cake for me. How it has survived so long and still appears on calenders is just a testament to how strange humans are and how we search for "a sign" really anywhere we can get one. According to folklore groundhog day works like this: today, February second when "the groundhog" (not sure how one becomes dubbed the almighty groundhog) ventures out of his hole, no excuse me, his burrow... when said groundhog ventures from said burrow if it is cloudy he will continue his exit and thus signifying the end of winter, but if it is sunny the groundhog will see it's shadow and retreat back into his burrow indicating another six weeks of winter. Funny thing is that it's sunny today so my groundhog has most likely seen his shadow but I highly doubt if we see anything close to a winter in the next six weeks. On the other hand for my good friends scattered across this country, namingly in Minnesnowta, it is most likely cloudy there today. Shadow or no shadow their winter will last at least six more grueling weeks of snow and ice and negative windchill. (not trying to rub it in.) So all in all although I love to be a believer just as much as the next ex-catholic semi Jewish by association gypsy out there, I just can't get in on this one. Sorry groundhog your cute and all, but I think I'll take my weather advice from that hot guy on the morning news. 

Firsts

 

There's something special about the first of anything...

The first time I saw you.

The first time you kissed me.

The first time I failed.

and the first time I passed. 

My first publication.

My first plane ride.

First broken hearts.

First dreams and wishes.

First things that come true.

First child.

First death.

First night in a new house. 

The first time we said goodbye.

The first time you saw me for the second time tonight. 

Your first love.

Your first song.

Your first show.

My first book. 

Our first date.

Our first laugh.

Our first life. 

after saying it so many times, first has become as strange a word as any. so strange that I just googled to see if it really is even a word. 

the first time I googled you. 

:) have a good first of the month.