Now

My thoughts of late have included, in no particular order: #1. Boyz II Men

#2. Everything I want is here. Now. I love the words here and now. They are sort of magical. Like, there is here and then there is here here. and so on, all the way to ... my heart? Or where I'm at (as opposed to where I am)? That's cool, because where I'm at may not be where I am. Therefore, the concept of here is simple, yet elusive. Which brings me to another thought:

#3. Last week I realized that I love things that are simultaneously simple and awesome. Like The Beatles. And here. I don't love things that are embellished, unless they are also simple and awesome, because then you can just clear away the razzmatazz. Things that are not simple but are awesome are OK, but things that are not simple and not awesome are largely annoying.

#4. Sometime in my 20s I started to feel a vague kinship with everyone I went to high school with, even people with whom I'd barely been acquainted. All our lives had been touched by Melba Vallas in one way or another. Then, after living in Tucson awhile, I started to feel like anyone who'd ever lived in the greater Phx area was, by association, my friend. Remember when Piestewa became Piestewa? Exactly. Then, particularly after I had been living in Charlotte a few months, I began to recognize everyone who had lived in the southwestern part of the U.S. as my soulmate. You're from California? Awesome, 60 degrees is cold! And now, after associating mainly with people who are 12 years younger than I for the last 5 years or so, I feel intimately involved with anyone between the ages of 28 and 45. "Ow! My nose!" "Gee, Beav!" "Can you hear me now?""I'm dope on the floor and I'm magic on the mic ..." I could go on.

#5. I wish I could see Paul McCartney and Paul Simon in concert. It wouldn't have to be at the same time. I also would like to see the Rolling Stones.

#6. I wish my stomach wouldn't hurt. This afternoon I went to yoga and felt great for the whole hour. I will try to go every day from now on. I love yoga. When I do it every day it opens parts of me so that I can see things that I didn't know were there. Like #2; I think if I want something that I don't have, I merely have to radically adjust my vision, and then I have it. Completely.

OK bye.

moving on

Neil and I have been going through cupboards and drawers, dividing things into keep, Goodwill and garbage. Last week I was overwhelmed with a bunch of letters from recent years.

Glancing through the letters was a rather painful experience. People had taken the time in February 2006 to sit down and write their thoughts or express congratulations or whatever, and now that moment was gone forever. So I could keep the card as a relic of the moment, but the moment I'd just had was that it was painful that what had passed was no more. So ... the card would be a relic of the pain associated with the distance between February 2006 (or whatever date) and now. And it's not even pain, exactly -- just the bittersweet tic-toc of mortality.

Moving makes everything seem suddenly less meaningful. Forests become trees. Like there's a family photograph on our living room table, and I was cleaning recently and put it flat, thinking, "We're not even 'living' in this room anymore, no need for the decorative charade." And then an expression of life became a photo and I had to sit down and think about that for a minute.

But I digress. I was anxious about sorting through all these letters because they seemed to be little more than "emotional baggage." But then I would think, "Well, they're reminders of who these people are (because they're going to die someday)." And then I would think, "What was that that you just thought in parentheses? That's messed up, Diana! Everybody's going to die someday! Nobody cares if you keep these stupid letters or not. Nobody cares. You will never look back on this birthday card from 2007 and be so happy you kept it. Throw it the freak away. Throw it all away."

So I did, mostly, and immediately felt more calm. Some of the stuff I looked through bore record of events over which I had expended much anxiety and heartache at one time, and I was a trifle shocked to note that, while I recalled said intense feelings, I cared not a jot now.

Which brings me to a second musing: Last week I saw online a quote from Jonathan Safran Foer that said something like, "The only thing worse than being sad is letting others know you're sad." The next morning I read about a memoir that some woman is publishing about how she dated Steven Tyler in the 1970s and he wanted her to have an abortion and he went to the hospital when she did it and snorted coke during the procedure. My initial responses were, "He's a rock star, what do you want?" and "What do I care about your story?" Then I thought about why my reaction was so unsympathetic and I looked at her story through Foer's quote on sadness.

I think the reason it is good and healthy for people to "move on" is because the universe is moving on anyway. Before I saw moving on as putting away old dreams, taking a match to them maybe, and forging on, hoping a new life would eventually assemble itself. But that's the thing: a new life will assemble itself. That's the nature of the earth turning and bloody wounds becoming scabs, then scars, and flowers growing. After thinking about the quote and the woman's memoir, I think "moving on" is important because everything else reliably is going to move on. It's a law of nature. And everybody has a personal set of scars to show for it.

That said, I wonder if I can move on from thinking about the bittersweet tic-toc of mortality, because it's kind of a downer. What does the scar look like for that?

We are all made of stars

I have a fantasy where I don't need to delete 2 applications from my circa '97 mac every time I want to download an mp3.


Neil gives really good hugs.



My friend Beth just introduced me to the moth it is so cool.


I have this other fantasy where Neil and I buy a house and then buy a record player. And then play records. Like I listened to a Christian McBride story on the moth and now I want to buy a house + record player + Freddy Hubbard record.
So cool.
OK I totally gotta go because Dancing With the Stars is halfway over.
Goodbye.