Better than Sleep

* salsa dancing to Beyonce
* watching from afar while lovers throw flower into a pond
* praying I don’t get poison oak while I act like cupid
* cutting up the rug
* Mozzarella, tomato, basil and balsamic vinegar
* Reviving old inside jokes (WM)
* Kitchen conversations containing enthusiastic head nods, hand waves
* Growing pains (when I was about 12 years old I would get these pains just above my knees. They were dull aches in a place I could not stretch or massage; I could only try to breath into them. My mom called them growing pains. As I sat on the couch observing the transition of life; people my age were no longer the flower girls or ring bearers, but the best man, the maid of honor and even the bride and groom. My heart felt stretched and achey. Something that could be described as growing pains).
* My heart is a balloon that has so much to give. It tried to explode in my chest as I sat on cement stair in the backyard looking into the cloudy, dark night sky full of crisp night air. I sang, sang out loud as she strummed and hummed melodies to the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth.
* My heart is a balloon that desires to swallow the world whole. It tried to inhale the scene from Coolidge Drive: the town full of little buildings and big trees, that foreign blue substance: the bay blending with the sky.
* Waking up early for coffee banter and joining the waking routines of friendly old faces.
* Driving over the 17: the green of the forest filling my eyes, tales of Malawi filling my ears; both let me know hope is everywhere.
* Sourdough pancakes and bites of Mike’s Mess.
* Smelling the redwoods
* Each word and hug from each friend I have not seen in so long.
* Getting addicted to a new book.

A Comic (thanks Rosa)

Shuffle: The remix

I wrote two versions of this...and i posted the "wrong" one. Here is the 'alternate ending,' if you will:

could buy that pair of shoes. You know those low heels, with rounded toes and cute little accents or something like this and it would not stop my from walking to the right, but/yet/and I don’t need them. And even though it would be useful and even fun, I don’t need them. And maybe shoes are a good way to start practicing the different between need and want.

No one will notice if I do not buy them and no one will notice if do, beyond a few potential comments: what cute shoes! For some reason this is the stuff of life. Like the stuffing of the insides of Raggedy-Anne. I wonder what the effects of my soles have on my soul.

At 4 am, in Manila, I once ran through the streets with a rag-tag group of boys from the slums and the pastor of the church. We ran about 2 or 3 miles, before the sun rose and too many jeepneys were on the streets. They mostly ran in sandals. One boy’s flip flop broke at the place between the toes that holds it all together. He continued running, either bare foot, or with the broken sandal, so he was shuffling. When me passed the Malacanang Palace (the white house equivalent of the phillipines) we counted the windows, because such a thing was much more impressive than anything else. “That is my parents house” one boy joked, “I just chose to live by the riles instead”

Shuffle

Today, in an unmarked interoffice envelope an IPOD shuffle came to my Sales Rep. He is on vacation for the next week and a half. I could have put the ipod shuffle in my purse, the envelope in the shredder and no one would have noticed. Things get lost in interoffice mail all the time, including a $22,000 check I once sent to Home Office (this is a place I have never seen, only heard of, like Oz or alien life). So obviously it would have been stealing, and obviously I would have sweated and acted guilty and and put it on the sales rep’s desk the day before his vacation was over. But I want you to know because I had the choice. I am trying to be satisfied with the unglamorous. All the things I have been choosing lately are far from sequins and diamond studded sunglasses. I look left and I see a road of clean streets, green yards, beautifully painted houses, and a golden retriever. I look right, and I see cardboard boxes, aluminum cans being collected in shopping carts, urine stained streets and pigeons. I look left and I see job promotions, Starbucks Frappaccinos, rock-operas and yoga classes in fresh air. I look right and I see pride swallowing, checks in the mail for NGOs, hanging out with 15 year olds, and walking to the graffiti-colored, smoggy bus stop.

When I was in Manila, I met a man named Attorney Chu. He was a middle class Chinese man living in Manila, who followed Viv Grigg to the slums. Lived for three weeks in a shanty apartment. Packed his bags and went to law school. Now he spends 10 days a month working as a lawyer and 20 days a month working pro-bono for the land rights of the poor, underrepresented, neglected and unloved. He said to me, “Thank you for visiting, it means so much to us. When you work in the slums its like walking towards oblivion.” You become a nobody, forgotten by most of civilization (and a hero to a handful of other forgotten-nobodies).

Viv Grigg recently stopped by Southern California, and among other things he said (something like): The cutting edge of the Kingdom of God are nothing to the rest of the world; they are the gutters. There is nothing to look forward to or take pride in in the slums that are growing larger and more malnourished each day, other than the presence of God.

As I sit on the street corner, choosing between comfort and oblivion, I think about these things. The choosing between A and B when A is fireworks and B is one step further down the road. I am not always sitting and looking. I am shuffling, two steps the right, one to the left. Two more the left, one to the right. I believe there can be satisfaction without fireworks, but sometimes it tastes like uncooked tofu with no soy sauce or any other flavoring.

Gratitude

Friendship, sunlight, answered prayers and a place to park. Good food and good conversation.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.

Thanks for being born Joy and giving us to a chance to celebrate.

Amen

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.

Line

_ _ _ _ is the four letter word I promised to never say. I wear shirts made out of its color and in the margins of my notebook I draw on its face. I stare out the window and dream of it. I think about blindness and wings. The radio tortures it. Half a hand shake makes traffic unbearable. Closed exits and detours on a freeway at midnight. I have paid 65 dollars for a fixer upper. A friend said there are two ways to cause pain: one, to take a knife and stab it in their stomachs; or, to see a knife in their stomachs and to pull it out. In ninth grade I did a quick write on it and I said _ _ _ _ is a u turn. I wrote it on a pink thing that folds in half and my teacher put it on the bulletin board. Once I said it is like the soft of the belly asking please don't hurt me. My mom replied that'’s why she does sit ups. Alina was saving herself, she said so in the 8th grade locker room that was never well lit enough to feel like anything beyond a dungeon. She had shaved her head before anyone else had and between every jumping jack she touched her hair to see how much it had grown. A man on the bus today smelled of urine. So strongly that strangers made eye contact to feel less alone as they covered their mouths and noses, swallowing any intention of breathing on their way to work. In the two hour meeting with a stack of forms in front of me that I needed to learn how to use I thought about _ _ _ _ and shoulders and headaches. And how they are all related and if I ever would again know that again. Emily Dickinson said

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all."”

And I think that is true, because _ _ _ _ could also be a thing with feathers, but I takes naps from time to time and then get distracted and forget to sing. I witness it like a person on a subway watching the signs go by, listening to the conductor say broken words over a broken loud speaker system. Some people have shiny things to prove it. In some places they trade spoons. Some people use it like bouncy ball. Aimee Mann once said, (before she got famous), "I'm a superball, you bounce me once and I'll ricoquette." Another good line from a band before they got famous is "You're a human magic marker, won't you please surprise my eyes." (that's from incubas, an OG album before they became palitable for the radio)

Seasons

much of my journey in Los Angeles, has been a search for beauty. Tonight I discovered or rediscovered a beauty in los angeles. Twilight. There may not be seasons in los angeles, when the leaves turn bright colors, or crocuses bloom through the snow that make you realize that you are on a celestial ball whose life is dependent on the distance and angle of the sun. But we do have twilight, where the sun sinks lower, and the sky deepens in shades of red and orange and lavender and then deep deep purple, twilight where I saw the almost full moon rise.

Usually when i run around the track at usc i always imagining the ucsc track and how there can not be a more beautiful place on earth than that. But tonight, i just enjoyed how each time i turned around the track the moon was a bit higher and brighter, the sky a bit darker. The palm tree stood as silouhettes. It reminded me of what is bigger than me, and that is the sky and the one who paints the sky these gradients of color that change minute for minute.

I got a runner's high, and inspired by sweat I ran one extra lap at a faster pace. Breathing and flying, almost.

Waiting in line.

Waiting in line. This is something you just have to do some times, especially when you live in a large crowded city and you need services. This is something i have an aquired skill in. As a child my mom would tell me, "only boring people can be bored." a threat like that made me delve into my imaginations. We had to wait in line a lot. In parking structures, I would sing a song to keep my mom sane as she looked for an open spot. Just wait, there will be a spot, everything will be okay. I think in these moments, i was my mother's jiminey cricket reminding her of hope. We would also have to wait in welfare lines. In these moments, i was an extra bag that would try to hang on her arms. But unlike her purse, i would also squirm around. Then i would remember that threat of my mother's and I would come up with a game like counting the tiles on the floor, or counting how many people had blue on, or i would silently stare at the other kids who were also hanging on their mothers arms and wonder about their lives. Or I would take each item out of my mother's purse and then put each item back, after giving it a good shake, of course. Waiting in line at the grocery store was the worse, because there would be so many shiny things like snickers and kit kats and i could not have any of them. And heaven forbid, i should run into any people who went to my school.

Today I also realized I was human. One could say that I have been waiting to figure this out. but i think one would only say that because the title of this blog is "waiting in line". I am human because when I work out at the gym I sweat. Ani Difranco has a song that says,"i used to be a superhero no one could touch me not even myself you are like a phone booth i somehow stumbled into and now look at me i am just like everybody else". Yeah so i was never actually a super hero... but i saw the way civilians lived, their toils and trials, and i told myself i was born immune. the troubles i dealt with were like cryptonite, and i would carry it around and show off the shiny green rock that made me melt. But today i realized, that rock was just a pebble in my shoe, the kind everyone gets from walking on this dusty planet, the kind that is small, but causes sores and blisters so that you cant walk right any more. Now, that I realized, i am a civilian, wearing shoes and not boots, tights and a cape, i gotta figure out how to get this rock out my shoe. I'm tired of limping.

I'm not tired yet of waiting in line, you just got to sing yourself that song about how the line is not going to get the best of you, that song about how its all going to be okay. I am adding a new verse about this sweaty, dusty rock in the shoe, that also wont get the best of me. James says to consider it pure joy my brothers..pure joy.

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Aren't you glad i dont usually blog live... I mean i am sitting here actually writing randomness, rather than some quickwrite at work... okay goodnight.