Not sure what to think. Not sure how to feel. Isolation? Maybe that is the best bet. On Christmas day I awoke to an empty house. I began the day completely crushed and thought to myself "I will not let this day make me, I will make this day!" I wound up wandering Central Park for hours by myself. I watched all of the couples taking pictures, the families pushing strollers, the tongues wagging in foreign language and accent, the children throwing snowballs, the ice on the pond thickening. A frozen wonderland. Surrounded by so many people but completely at peace in my solitude. The air is cold, the ground is white and wet and there is noise all around me. I find an abandoned path and perch myself on a bench and just wait. Christmas was a good day.

So, when the going gets rough the tough get going. It seems as though the answer is all inside of me. If you are nice enough, I might even let you in on it, but you're going to have to work for it. Trust me, it's worth it.

Bring on the new year.

Incredible nights lead to incredible mornings and those mornings lead to loving everything about your life. Hello last night, you were just what I needed. I said the magic words and reclaimed the magic, in one sense or another. Beginning to settle in to this feeling of being out of control. I'm tired of steering. Let the universe steer, or your dearest friends. You will be happier, you will feel freer, you will enjoy your life. Isn't that what it's all about?

This year I walk away.

One word as the year begins to draw it's curtains, whirlwind. This past year has been the best and worst that I have ever experienced. It's all in the details and how you choose to see it. Some days it's the best and for about a week out each month it seems the worst. I have lost everything and gained so much more. I am finding who I am and finding out even more about everything around me. Time is just a watchdog, a stranger, a companion, time waits for no man. This year has been about seizing the moment and making big decisions and not letting those decisions make you. Liberating. Let go and give in.

I have just signed my lease for the apartment I will be living in for the next year in Brooklyn. Part of me is elated and so excited to be settling into this new life. Another part of me says that in my history this year of letting go and flighting from one place and state of mind to another am I really ready for that kind of commitment? I can barely commit to what outfit to wear out for the evening, what song to play for the moment, and now a written agreement that I won't be going anywhere else for at least another year? I think I'm ready. I hold my breath and close my eyes and sign. I'm in it for the long haul, this bitch isn't going anywhere. Maybe when the snow starts to really fall I will panic and bail, I think. Probably not. Stop looking for excuses for your life to be anything less than extraordinary. It's a terrifying feeling to actually live how you want to instead of how you should but I couldn't ask for anything more. Anything more than this just becomes greedy and silly.

All in good time I will find my bearings as I don't feel that I have quite gotten a hold on them yet. All in good time I will finish writing my opus and be able to share this music with the world instead of shows for 2 or 3 people in a strange living room or bedroom. All in good time I will find a worthwhile companion and have somebody to keep my bed warm at night. All in good time. All in good time. And yes, time is good, very very good. It gives me the tools to learn patience, the power to make things immediate, the opportunity to learn what to want and to make it happen. It will happen.



And more than anything in the world, I miss my dog.

Another birthday has passed and I am another year closer to something I cannot imagine and further away from so much that I cannot forget. It is a quiet and uneasy moment when you realize that the person you are at this very moment is so very far away from what you remember as being familiar. Tonight I am quiet and still. I let the city breathe its frigid breath all around me and I absorb the fact that what once was will never be again. I stare out of freezing windows where I cannot tell if what comes from my mouth is the smoke from my cigarette or the bitter air my breath meets at this opening. The air from the radiator rattles and screams at the top of its lungs to be released from its boiling prison, yet I am calm. Soon we can say it is the dead of winter. Soon the snow will be a blanket upon the ground. All will be buried in it's quiet and cold death and will sleep and wait for the sun to once more show it's kind warmth. And I feel as though I am losing touch like a balloon tied to a string in the hands of a careless and distracted child. At which point do I disappear into the atmosphere or get swallowed by a cloud or maybe just simply burst under the rising pressure. I will want not and I will blow where the wind takes me. I will not be afraid to love or to let go. Live life like water and wind, add the fire, watch it burn, become the earth, feed the soil and watch all things slowly grow as they are fed by the water and spread by the wind.

I am probably the dumbest person I know. Regardless, life is incredible. Since moving to New York, in the short time I have been here, I have learned so many things about myself. I am fully embraced by the magic that I hold in me. The blossom is slowly opening and there is change and beauty all around.

The first snow of the year fell today. As I was walking the streets of Brooklyn the rain slowly started to change to ice under the streetlights. I suddenly felt lost and at the same time at home as if my state of helpless floundering is exactly where I belong in my rain soaked boots and my flimsy umbrella. What is this strange place. Where is this energy coming from. It pulses everywhere around me. It draws me in and chews me up and spits me out only to suck me back in when it's through and start it again. Perhaps this is what it feels like to truly be alive. To actually live your life. I am only sad that I haven't known this feeling until now. Still I will take the good and the bad and everything in between and I will hold it and caress it and love it until it is no more. But until then I will sit in this room and listen to the howling of the wind and hope and wish and pray that everything will be ok. And I know it will be.

I awoke this morning with my eyelids stained by a dream I wish I never had and now wish I could forget. This day was meant to be one of preparation, of cleansing, letting go and moving on. Instead, this day began with my uterus crashing through the flood gates carrying little knives to fight it's way toward freedom. I have no energy, I have no desire but still I am pushing on and trying to get something done. I'm going through boxes and re-evaluating the worth of objects from my past. Then all at once, it hit me.

In a box of various knick knacks and trash lay two envelopes. I recognize the handwriting and the return addresses. I've spent the last hour reading and rereading notes to remind me that for the last 7 years of my life I have wasted and squandered every bit of good in me and have too many times "missed the boat" and am terrified that this time it really is too late. And I feel like the biggest asshole on planet earth. I feel like my heart in breaking into a million pieces with every breath I take and I've felt this way for years but tonight it hits me like a ton of lead bricks. I don't know if there is any way to put it back together again. I don't know who I am or where I am going or what is going to happen next and I don't really know if I care much at all anymore. From this moment to the next to all those that came before life will be and has been and continues to be nothing but a dream upon waking and a nightmare upon sleep. Somebody please come wake me up.

It's official, I have left my heart in New York. Glad to be home to see the few things here that I love but those are the only things that bring me comfort here. Realizing how this city is built on misery and struggle and unhappiness. Phoenix is just a pile of ash where things burn up and dissipate, nothing good is rising from it. I have had a week of magic, energy and excitement. Few times have I traveled somewhere that actually and truly felt like home. Williamsburg is still whispering my name and I can still hear its breath and smell its skin like it was yesterday. Like an old lover it has left every inch of me satisfied and yet yearning for more.

Every moment of my trip was incredible and was filled to the brim with adventure. Met some amazing people and some amazing places. From Serendipity to the Olive Tree, from the Grizzy Pear to the stranger who gave me his guitar and the cupcakes at the bar. From the streets of Manhattan to the rooftops to the waterfront in Brooklyn to the cafes to running late to job interviews to running into familiar faces at a distance in Greenpoint. New York watch out, I'm coming for you.

I am lost in the valley of a soft lull between the peaks of excitement and adventure. All is dark and all is calm and I am waiting. And I hate waiting.

I am in need of a ravisher.

Everything around me is illuminated and everything is aglow with wonderment and possibility. It is amazing the things you can accomplish when you simply sit back and let the Universe do it's thing. Stop fighting it and listen.

When is the last time you stopped and took a conscious unmechanized breath? You let yourself become immersed in a moment of complete and total silence? You took a hard honest look at what is being presented to you? Have you ever stopped to consider the validity of coincidence? Do you believe that everything has a purpose? Do you have the skills you need to put together the pieces and fully understand the signs that are given to you every single day you wake? I am by no means a "master" but the moment you learn to let go and embrace the vastness of infinity you will watch the sea part for you to travel to your destination without any worry. This is the lesson I am learning.

Time is swiftly passing and the skyline of New York is drawing nearer every single day. Every bump in the road is serving to deliver me that much closer to where I need to be. I have made a pact to live every single moment from now until then, whenever "then" may be, as if it is my very last moment. What would I have wanted to say, to do, to feel. Fuck the undertone of cliche, life is too short to let this moment pass us by. I will live fast, strong and hard. I will be delivered into the hands of greatness and all I have to do is to love and to live. The world is at my fingertips and aching for me to reach out and touch the beauty and infinite abyss that is this moment. I am ready.

"To do a dull thing with style-now that's what I call art." - Bukowski

I've never been very good with names but I promise I will treat these well. I am sinking in and giving way to the signs given to me from the Universe. My life is forever changed and continues changing.

My weekend started on Wednesday. A free pass to a beautiful new film always gets me going. Friends, beer, sake, drive, rain. Reluctant trip to the Lost Leaf, wasn't really feeling like it but decided you only live once, why not. I was expecting, well I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe more than a small handful of people and definitely not a band. The music is great but I need a cigarette and venture to the great outdoors. I make an ignored phone call to a friend I'm concerned with, finish my cigarette and attempt to go back indoors but am caught by a friendly smoking face. An unusually friendly greeting and extraordinarily brief conversation, all too strange for this place. "I'll see you in there" he says and I happily return inside to finish my glass of wine. There's a boy at the table and I don't know him. It is revealed that he is in the band that just played, just what I want to talk to right now, another musician. The hour progresses and somewhere in that short time I feel compelled to offer to drive this guy up to Prescott the next day to meet his band for their next show if he would just stay and hang out for the night. What's the worst that can happen? Taking a stranger home I've known for less than a couple hours, so I could wind up killed so I'm half joking and in the spirit of absurdity when I say this and then surprised to get a response of "Are you really serious?" I tell him if he will pay for gas and cigarettes it's a done deal. Moments later and he has his things and the van is driving away outside. Guess I'm going to Prescott tomorrow, what a complete prick I would be if I didn't.

Back to the house, glass of wine and straight into the pool. We get drunk, Melinda brings out her guitar, I've played for people for the first time in I don't know how long. She goes up to bed and we swim and talk. The worst deja vu I've had in a very long time. Things are happening to me in this moment that came to me when I was probably just a small child. Something big is about to happen. This is the hint from the Universe to start paying attention. I am lost in amazing conversation, I am accomodated, I am satisfied. Work the next morning flies by abnormally fast as if I wasn't even supposed to be there and the day is done in 2 hours.

I'm on the road again. A drive through Arcosanti and I feel alive again. Mile marker 45 and I'm afraid for my newfound life as a huge bug invades the car. Ready to tuck and roll, we pull over, cop stops and asks why we're dancing. BUG IN THE CAR! The boy announces he got it out and jumps in and rolls up the window, Melinda follows, I hesitate and jump in the car while thanking the cop for what, I'm not really sure, but thank you.

Prescott. Houses. Views. Cigarettes. Couch. Drinking out of cups. Drive to the venue, we've been invited to stay. Cigarettes. Dancing. Smoking. Stairs. Blur, blur, blur but not really at all. Back to the house with amazing music and smoking until the sky is blurry. I laugh so hard I think I've damaged something inside. It's the best hurt I've felt. An owl comes and watches us and we silently watch back, the beacon of wisdom of the night. Then the sun begins to rise and panic swells. Our time is drawing near. A bed is made a hug is given and that is that and that is the end.

I slip away in the morning, I have to be at work soon. On the drive home everything is illuminated and I am overwhelmed. A decision is made, I am moving to New York with Melinda, just like that. Plans are already in motion. 48 hours can be an entire lifetime and everything that follows can be completely different and will be. Some things are better left unsaid and just done, the only thing that brings change is action.

"I listen to the wind
To the wind of my soul
Where Ill end up well I think,
Only God really knows
Ive sat upon the setting sun
But never, never never never
I never wanted water once
No, never, never, never

I listen to my words but
They fall far below
I let my music take me where
My heart wants to go
I swam upon the devils lake
But never, never never never
Ill never make the same mistake
No, never, never, never"

-Cat Stevens

The moon is full tonight and my skin is absolutely crawling. I have mopped my floor and swept it 3 times, I have dusted and changed the sheets but there are still little remnants everywhere, I cannot make it go away. I need a stiff drink and a serious cuddle.



"We breathe. We pulse. We regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. 37 seconds, well used, is a lifetime." - Mr. Magorium

If you are patient, all things will come. If you are even more patient, all things will eventually go. I am sitting under moonlight while the sky cries buckets on me tonight like God himself is weeping in heaven. I can only hope there is a method to this madness of life. I am staring down the throat into the belly of the beast called nothing. I am awake and I am free. I am everything and I am nothing. I am drowning in the milky way tonight.


"If a thing loves, it is infinite."
-William Blake

I'm saying "fuck you" to this week and bidding it farewell by reading Bukowski, drinking wine, eating burgers and letting myself melt into the hot and moist air outside. An overwhelming and crippling sense of defeat is consuming me. I feel helpless, alone and uncertain. Not a leg to stand on, barely a lung to breathe with. I want the sky to swallow me whole tonight or to dissolve me into the wet dirt in the lawn. These days have been for aching.



“Out of the ash I rise with my red hair
And eat men like air”
-Sylvia Plath



"The most tender place in my heart is for strangers
I know it's unkind but my own blood is much too dangerous
Hangin' round the ceiling half the time
Hangin' round the ceiling half the time

Compared to some I've been around
But I really tried so hard
That echo chorus lied to me with its
"Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on"

In the end I was the mean girl
Or somebody's in-between girl
Now it's the devil I love
And that's as funny as real love
And that's as real as true love

That echo chorus lied to me with its
"Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on""

-Neko Case, "Hold On, Hold On"

then you're the stranger.

I've broken my shackles and I'm on my own again. I'm picking up my guitar and writing myself love songs. Life is a whirlwind, everything has been uprooted and is getting curiouser and curiouser. Further down the rabbit hole we go and I'm trying to find the light. But if you know me at all then you already know all that.

My nose has been to the grindstone and my heart has been somewhere across the oceans. I'm racking up my long distance minutes trying to get in touch with it and beg it to come home so I can feel something real again if only for just a moment, just once. I need something or somebody else to swim in because I'm drowning in myself. Nobody seems to pay much mind though, so I'm not really going to complain. I'm going to sit back and be patient, watch the flowers grow, watch the stars twinkle and the sun rise. After all, life is what you make it, isn't it? You attract what it is that you focus on and eventually it all comes back to you and that's what you become. So I'm going to be beauty and laughter and nurturing and radiance and light even if it means being it alone and nobody pays any attention and in good time all good things will come. It's all going to steer itself. Look ma, no hands. I'm surrendering.