Happy Halloweed :-)

B, B, K & Me
(Potheads & The Devil Unite)

10.29.05

Dwell In Possibility: Some Things Are Easier Said Than Done.

"Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility."

Oprah once said that. And besides the fact that she totally stole the last part from Emily Dickinson, it’s a brilliant thought that deserves deeper interrogation.

Possibility is the draw for millions to this huge apple (that seems to be getting smaller every day), and it’s here! But that “possibility” is often times overshadowed by the harshness of reality. A problem that I (and I believe many others choose to) deal with is that there is too much possibility, an overwhelming quantity of choices, and no one of anything.

Enter a quote from one of my favorite books (Wesley Gibson’s You Are Here):

“There’s a saying in New York that if you’re one in a million there are still ten more just like you. And that’s exactly right. It isn’t so much that there’s too much of everything, though there certainly that, it’s that there’s no one of anything. That may seem like a hairsplitting distinction, but it’s not. One of something is an oasis for the senses, even though everything else may be kaleidoscoping around it. One of something is a rest stop for the mind, however fleeting. When there’s never one of anything, then there really is too much of everything. It’s a twenty-four/seven shift with no coffee break, no lunch, no refreshing trips to the watercooler…It’s too much of muchness.”

Although I totally love and agree with this passage, I assume it’s the liberty and possibility which accompanies this unlimited smorgasbord that keeps me (and million others) on the edge of our subway-car seats anxiously awaiting the next random encounter, the next crazy story, and the next big thing.

In a city of millions of near-misses per day, it’s the once-in-a-blue-moon break (coupled with the intoxicating aroma of possibility) that keeps New Yorkers begging for more. More of the same, more of the unfamiliar, just more of everything this city has to offer.

“I thought this truly seemed like a city where you might meet John Kennedy Jr., then marry him.” (once again Wesley Gibson) Although that won’t be happening to anyone here in the future for obvious reasons, JFK Jr.’s name could be replaced with any high-profile celebrity and the point would be just as clear. I am definitely dwelling in possibility, or at least in the land of it!!

While I was at it, I explored the possibility of including other “possibility” quotes on this post. And then it became reality:

"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."
~ Golda Meir

"A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility."
~ Aristotle

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential -- for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never."
~ Soren Kierkegaard

"If there exists no possibility of failure, then victory is meaningless."
~ Robert H. Schuller

Alright, kiddies. Let’s collectively get off our asses and make something happen. More To Do, More To Be. Kick Some Ass, Take Names. Claim the Victory. Represent.

And most importantly, TRUST (your gut, that is)!!

Done and Done

Carrie Bradshaw’s Final Narration on Sex and the City:

Later that day, I got to thinking about relationships.
There are those that open you up to something new & exotic,
Those that are old & familiar,
Those that bring up lots of questions,
Those that bring you somewhere unexpected,
Those that bring you far from where you started,
But the most exciting, challenging, & significant relationship of all
Is the one you have with yourself.
And if you find someone to love the you you love…
Well, that’s just fabulous.

(Can we say Versace Couture?! She's floating in it!)

This Whole Adaptation Thing Really Sucks!

My allergies are currently adjusting to the changing seasons and cooler weather. These are the days when a Benadryl-induced coma is welcomed with open nasal passages! Unfortunately, I’m also reacting to an evolving mindset toward men, New York, and life in general. It’s all a bit overwhelming and I’m continuously seeking outside perspective.

One of my favorite websites of 2005 is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia!!

According to Wiki, “organisms that are not suitably adapted to their environment will either have to move out of the habitat or die out.” (I completely concur!) “One common form of adaptation involves acclimatization, the special ways a particular organism behaves to survive in its natural habitat. Acclimatization generally refers to the ability of living things to adjust to changes in climate. It usually occurs in a short time, within the organism's lifetime.” (That’s reassuring *smirk*)

“Many plants, such as maple trees, irises, and tomatoes, can survive freezing temperatures if the temperature gradually drops lower and lower each night over a period of days or weeks. The same drop might kill them if it occurred suddenly. Animals acclimatize in many ways. Sheep grow very thick wool in cold, damp, climates. Most human beings become short of breath and tire easily when they move to higher altitudes. After the body adjusts to the new altitude, the symptoms disappear.”

My current symptoms include sore throat, runny nose, sneezing, itchy, watery eyes, not to mention the headaches, heartaches and manifested insecurities. But, as promised by universal record, these particular symptoms will eventually disappear. And when that happens, I will either find myself fully adapted, being forced to move out, or facing the dying out process! Let’s hope for the former.

Catching a Case of the Nostalgia

So, this song has been stuck in my brain NON-STOP for several days now:

Alanis Morissette
Unsent

dear matthew, I like you a lot
I realize you're in a relationship
with someone right now and I respect that
I would like you to know that if you're ever single in the future
and you want to come visit me in california
I would be open to spending time with you
and finding out how old you were when you wrote your first song

dear jonathan, I liked you too much
I used to be attracted to boys who would lie to me
and think solely about themselves
and you were plenty self-destructive for my taste at the time
I used to say the more tragic the better
the truth is whenever I think of the early 90's
your face comes up with a vengeance like it was yesterday

dear terrance, I love you muchly
you've been nothing but open hearted and emotionally available and supportive
and nurturing and consummately there for me
I kept drawing you in
and pushing you away
I remember how beautiful it was to fall asleep
on your couch and cry in front of you for the first time
you were the best platform from which to jump beyond myself
what was wrong with me?

dear marcus, you rocked my world
you had a charismatic way about you with the women
and you got me seriously thinking about spirituality
and you wouldn't let me get away with kicking my own ass
but I could never really feel relaxed
and looked out for around you though
and that stopped us from going any further than we did
and it's kinda too bad because we could've had much more fun

dear lou, we learned so much
I realize we won't be able to talk for some time
and I understand that as I do you
the long distance thing was the hardest
and we did as well as we could
we were together during a very tumultuous time in our lives
I will always have your back and be curious about you
about your career, your whereabouts

Thanks, RCB, for first introducing me to this incredible track. I still refuse to let you get away with kicking your own ass :-) That’s my job!!

Reality Check: Summer's Way Over

“Live each season as it passes;

breathe the air,

drink the drink,

taste the fruit,

and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

-Henry David Thoreau-

Mormons, My Girl Tori, & Acceptance :-)

I’m not exactly sure what it means when, in the same day, you pick up the latest Newsweek with “The Making of the Mormons” as the cover story AND find 2 real-life Mormon missionaries at your door. Sorry Mormons, you are a fucked up cult that needs to stay in Utah where you came from. THAT’S ALL I’M SAYIN’!

Now that I got that out of the way, check out my girl V.M.’s MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/sweetori
(not that she’s Mormon, but she is a kick-ass Christian!)

And if you’re like, “MySpace, what?!”, you’re a moron (and I’m not sure how much longer we can be friends). THAT’S ALL I’M SAYIN’! ;-)

On a completely unrelated (but perfectly random) note, who’s heard of the band Acceptance?! I HEART their song Different. It resonates with me on numerous level these days. Check it out on iTunes.

Here are the lyrics (but you SO need to hear it):

Acceptance
Different

Tell myself, on the ride home.
Getting tired, hating all I've known.
Holding on, like it's all I have.
Count me out, when it's clear that
I find it hard to say.
And you, find it hard to care.

I wanted to see something that's different,
something you said would change in me.
Wanted to be, anything different,
everything you would change in me.

Got this way, upfront but never true.
God I'm wrong, it's just the way I am.
Crashing down, any chance you hear.
Caving in, any chance that you,
could see inside of me.
And I don't know what to say,
It's fine.
This isn't Hollywood.
So fine, getting in your way.

I wanted to see something that's different,
something you said would change in me.
Wanted to be, anything different,
everything you would change in me.

I'm taking a chance, this could be different.
This could be all I'm waiting for.
Taking a chance, this could be different.
This could be all I'm waiting for.

A Poem Inspired by Closer

Closer - "A witty, romantic, and very dangerous love story about chance meetings, instant attractions, and casual betrayals."

Just tell me the truth,
I’m addicted to it.
Tell me you don’t love me,
And I’ll walk out of your life forever.
You’re sorry? Irrelevant.
There’s always a moment when you can give into it or walk away.
Too bad we didn’t both just walk away,
And acknowledge our ever meeting as a fluke.
I’m wonderful? Don’t ever forget it.
Pathetic love always keeps you around longer than you should be.
I’m disgusting.
How do I manage to give you up?
Deep inner strength.
Is he better? Different.
Did you ever love me? Silence.
Thank you sincerely for your honesty,
Now fuck off and die.

(if you think i'm deeply disturbed, i can neither confirm nor deny that!)

Sorry, Nicky!!

I've just found a new love on the WB's Everwood...Justin Baldoni :-)

Congrats...

...& Props to my boi Nick Lazzarini, winner of So You Think You Can Dance!! I have your "prize" waiting if you ever call me, biatch!

Holding my breath ;-) ,

D

The Mysteries of [insert city name here]

One of my favorite novels to date (and there aren’t many that I’ve read due to my issues with works of fiction) is Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It’s a brilliant account of a guy’s first post-graduation summer of growing up and making love. I discovered this read during my first summer out of college, while coming to terms with my geographically-forbidden sexuality and struggling with the question of what was next for me in life. Although there are obvious differences between the narrator of this story and I, his writing definitely moves me enough to feature it on my blog.

This passage comes from the last chapter, entitled “Xanadu”:

Among the few things I took with me—clothes, passport, Swiss Army knife, three thousand ancient, inviolate bar mitzvah dollars converted into slick, ethereal blue traveler’s checks—were a photograph of Phlox, and a gold lame sock that she left in my bathroom, sometime in July. I have often thought, since, that I know I loved Cleveland and Arthur, because they changed me; I know that Arthur lies behind the kindly, absent distance I maintain from other people, that behind each sudden, shocking breach of it lies Cleveland; I have from them my vocabulary, my dress, my love of idle talk. I find in myself no ready trace of Phlox, however; no habit, hobby, fashion, or phrase, and for a long time I wondered if I had loved her or not. But as I have found that I may fall quite completely in love with a man—kiss, weep, give gifts—I have also discovered the trace a woman leaves, that Phlox left, and it is better than a man’s.

My father I will never see again, Cleveland is dead, Arthur is now, I believe, on Majorca. But because I can find them so easily in myself, I no longer—say, Bechstein—I no longer need them. One can learn, for instance, to father oneself. But I can never learn to be a world, as Phlox was a world, with her own flora and physics, atmosphere and birds. I am left, as Coleridge was his useless dream poem, with a glittering sock and a memory, a garbled account of my visit to her planet, uncertain of what transpired there and of why precisely I couldn’t stay. To say that I loved Phlox imples no lesson, no need or lack of need for her. She is a world I gained and lost. I have this picture, this stocking, and that is all. I wish that I had seen her one last time.

In any case, it is not love, but friendship, that truly eludes you.

One word…BRILLIANT.

For me, the summer of 2003 included much reflection and mental maturation. It was the last summer spent in my native Mobile. And it was the first summer that I became good at being silent and alone…not because I had to be, but because I realized those two characteristics are key in obtaining & maintaining clarity (which is so important in this crazy city (& world) that we live in!

I’ll conclude this post with the last line of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (one of my favorites):

No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.

I’ve never been to Pittsburgh, but I think we can all relate to Chabon’s account by drawing from the mysteries that lie within every city we’ve called home.

Insanity vs. Stupidity

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. “

A narrowly-known bloke by the name of Albert Einstein stated this simple, yet profound, fact…and now it’s on the wall as I enter the agency each morning. Successful advertising often entails finding new ways to tell old stories , finding new answers to old problems , discovering fresh ideas regarding stale dogmas.

As humans, many times we get used to the same routines, the same answers, and the same ideologies. We go about doing things in the way that feels most comfortable and takes the least amount of energy. Many of us go about our daily lives expecting things to change for the better without consciously doing something to catalyze that change.

And while it’s one thing to genuinely expect different results, it’s another thing completely if you don’t expect anything different and only keep doing the same thing(s) out of convenience, comfort, or because it feels good at the time. That is what I call stupidity.

We all do stupid things sometimes. Likewise, we all create drama for ourselves that ultimately makes our lives more complicated than they already are. I would say that the majority of those things (and that drama) are done (and/or created) sub-consciously; however, there is always a point where a choice is made for the good, bad or ugly. If we stay indifferent to these choices, we unfortunately will find ourselves making bad choices a substantial amount of the time.

Do I make bad choices?! Yes. That’s just another point of developmental focus for me. I’m still growing up, but aren’t we all?!