"Why waste my time here on this planet barely scratching the surface of the human experience?"
So you may already know... I'm dead. Well, not in the literal sense of the word but in an ephemeral internet sense. Personal blogging is dead. At least that's what I heard on YouTube. It's been taken over by self-monetizing, google ads ridden, affiliate, passive income blogging. So if you're reading this (and apparently 1004 humans did last month) then you should definitely know I'm dead. Well, at least my blog is. In a way, I was never really alive since I never gave in to the adsense nonsense anyway.

My days have been consumed by learning lately. I'm not sure where it's coming from but I'm devouring information like a starved animal. I'm submerged in tutorials, books on psychology and design, podcasts, and my own creative work these days. I'm a fucking sponge. Information enters my brain and gets violently regurgitated on paper as abstract …

I taught myself how to lucid dream around the age of ten years old. I would often sneak into my brother's room to steal his Omni science magazines and then devour them secretly in my own bedroom. There was a particular issue that had a thorough step-by-step guide on how to train yourself to become aware mid-dream that, in fact, you were dreaming. I studied this article and practiced the steps every single night. Eventually, (actually I think it took months or maybe even a year) I could drop into lucid dreams by setting up my thoughts before I fell asleep. I would make up little plays and dramas in my head just before sleep at night and then wake up mid-dream with the ability to actually orchestrate, control, and remember these custom-made dream-scapes.

I didn't actually begin to document and record my dreams until I got into college. As I got older I had fewer lucid dreams but still wanted direct access to my nightly adventures in order to remember them and dissect their subc…

There are days when I'm inspired to write and there are the days when I HAVE to write. I'm not talking about the "have to write" like it's a real job, I'm talking about the "have to write" because I need to get shit off my chest. Well this is most definitely the latter.

One of the things that I miss most about being married and sharing a business is the fact that there was another human occupying the same space where I lived and worked almost 24/7. Ok. Well maybe the 24/7 pushed that relationship a tad over the edge but the point is there was always a sounding board potentially available to listen to my shit at any given point during the day. My crazy idea shit, my I-did-something-stupid-shit, my dreams-and-goals shit, my anxious the-sky-is-falling shit... all of it. Knowing that someone was just listening was so critical for me. In fact, I've learned that being heard is, for me, a very deep layer that gets triggered in strange ways. I actively…

Life has been chaotic to say the least. I just moved my mom into a new memory care facility, I'm currently engaged in actively filling out divorce paperwork, and my oldest kid is a teenager. Just being a single mom of a teenager is chaos enough let alone the added bonus of all the other life stuff. I've never had a teenager before. Life is teaching me many things. My brain is full.
I've been working on quieting that busy voice in my head lately, but this morning it kept saying "The kids are gone, the place is quiet, you have a moment to yourself... WRITE."
And so I am.
I've been feeling changes and shifts in my whole body the last few months. Lately my circadian rhythm has been reinventing itself. It seems I rediscovered my youth over the last few years and was easily able to burn the candle late into the night. But different changes are taking place and now I'm ready to crash by 9pm usually waking around 4:16am every morning by what feels like an intern…

The car I bought when I was eighteen was cheap, used, and manual transmission. It was the only vehicle I could afford that would drive my ass to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend university. It was also a pale yellow and I had given it the endearing name of Banana-Mobile. I had no idea how to drive a stick. My Dad taught me how to drive this car and I spent countless hours with him seated in the passenger seat sputtering around an empty parking lot launching forward, killing the engine, and restarting again. It was so difficult to learn how to get the hang of the push-pull of using the gas pedal and the clutch simultaneously. I remember being infinitely frustrated because I still needed a car to get around so I often ended up borrowing the family car (an automatic transmission) before I left for college and practiced the "feeling" of using the clutch while driving by mimicking the movements, "pretending" to shift just so I could train myself.

It took me a while…

I've been spending the last couple years trimming the frayed edges. I've had to mend a few holes and there's still parts of this beautiful tapestry that is me, that are thin, worn out, and barely there. I'm working on mending that. I've been doing so much work on this that it depletes me sometimes. I've embraced meditation, visualization, and internal work even more than I ever have and have seen parts of me that frankly have surprised and scared me. There's a shit ton of layers I've discovered, pulled back, and examined every little thread of. There's also a shit ton of layers that still sit in a fog below all of that, barely reachable, edges illuminated just enough so I know they are there, and then, just like that, they vaporize. Who knows if those will ever rise above the fog again.

It's a strange thing to be back in the pool of dating. Especially now. With all the years that have gone by. I'm not even quite sure I'm ready for this …

Is this mic on? Can you hear me?

It may have been nearly a year since the last time I posted in this blog, but that doesn't mean I haven't stopped writing. Oh HELL NO. In fact, despite my eagerness to get back to writing in this little space of the webosphere, I have been making a point to indulge in the real deal daily - pen and paper, which consequently, I'm extremely particular about. So much so that I will not even ATTEMPT to write unless I have my beloved Precise V5 Extra Fine Point Rolling Ballpoint pen in hand. This one has a peek-a-boo window that looks into the cartridge, (which reminds me of my calligraphy days), where I can see just how much ink I have left. I keep one pen saving my place in each journal I write in. I sorta have multiple love affairs simultaneously happening although, I think my pens are jealous of my keyboard. My keyboard sees way more action, especially at work.

So these multiple love affairs with pen and ink and journals are very much my sac…

Summer is almost gone. It's been one year since I left the life I knew. In fact, I celebrated my Independence Day last week at a blues club downtown. It was a sorta "date night" with myself. I found a club with a band I wanted to see, got "date" ready, and while having to be designated driver was a pain in the ass, the conversation that night (at least in my head) was never dull. Actually, I'm a damn good date. I will definitely be asking myself out again. Who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky next time.

So this "date night" with myself was an act of self love. The last few months have been challenging for me. My life decisions have begun to settle and cure, and I haven't the courage to pull away the forms supporting them yet. I'm waiting until my heart can handle the permanence. I've been experiencing some not so fun anxiety side affects and am having to find ways to cope. While self love has been difficult at times I'm grateful to …

Well, "HELLO" Colorado! There's something about being REALLY high that makes me REALLY happy and I'm not talking time warping, catatonic, zombie-like state of high (although that's fun too), I'm talking hard work, earn-that-360-degree-view, high altitude high.

You know that stoke list I've been working on? Well, Colorado happened to be on it.

For years I've been wanting to visit Colorado, and even more specifically, Leadville, after reading about the notorious 100 miler in the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougal. But as a skiier, I've been even more intrigued by stories of the prized airy, fresh powder which, I've been told, is a contrast to our "Sierra Cement" which I am so used to.

My trip to Colorado was inspired by my newfound realizations that life is something to be lived and not suffered through. I'm done suffering. I'm done crying. I'm done feeling helpless. I'm ready to feed my soul and I want to feed it…

It's dark and all I see are steps below me.
Railings protect me from falling deep into the cold earth. Each step is deliberate. A meditation that takes me deeper into the internal. Each step pulls deeper into the next leaving doubt, fear, and hurt behind me. I pause halfway down to see a small cave to my left. I look into the darkness and see a body barely visible. Sobbing, regret, and pain fill that dark space. There's movement. I walk closer to peer into the black, fighting the darkness to see the person, a man, who is crouched in the space. I see months and years past hidden in there. I feel sick. My stomach is in knots. I'm in a state of anxiousness that is too familiar. My mind is racing with worry. Am I enough? Am I loved? Have I made the right decision? I'm sucked into the pain of that heavy space and although every fiber of my being is screaming to get out, I find myself longing to run and jump into the arms of the soft black space and to be held in it's da…

I am reinventing myself again.
About a month ago I began to feel a sense of freedom that I haven't felt in a long time. A REAL long time. I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized I was feeding a cycle of hurt that was holding me back. I finally decided to man the fuck up and do something about it. I quit the cycle. It's funny how we like to nurture our pain. But when you constantly feed the pain the wound is always weeping. You will never heal in that state. Salt in the wounds feels so good but sometimes you gotta learn to let it go.
Looking Forward I had to make a conscious effort to look beyond the hurt and start making better decisions for myself. It's a very tough decision, but you will never make it to the other side if you never take the leap. The other side can be scary and something completely estranged from what you know, but that's because you haven't jumped. Once you're there, it's all you know.
The shock and awe of my life decisions are settling …