Wallace & Portia

I fell asleep when I got home from work today. I left the TV on loud because my ears are bothering me from my head cold. It played with both my dreams and the spaces inbetween. I half-woke up telling myself I should post a blog. Not just any blog, but one specific to the false sense of security "public places" bring. The example in my mind was involving internet dating. You hear alot, "Let's meet in a public place, so I know you're not going to kill me." Sometimes it's tongue-n-cheek, but sometimes that's the actual reason. There are quadrillions of good reasons to meet someone from the internet in a public place... 1. to see if they've lied about their physical appearance (or taken a shot of boobs and head that doesn't articulately represent them). 2. because if they happen to be complete bastards in a public place, that's a pretty good litmus test. 3. it would atleast facilitate a harder kidnapping scenario.

The list goes on and on. But, my point really is this. We are all delusional in thinking that if we talk to someone...look into their eyes, whatever, that we get some guttural sense of them. This is NOT the case. Now usually, it's benign. It turns out those gentle eyes were lying to you. They were naive. They didn't know what they wanted. But, we all want the best, and sometimes we hope for the best. So, if the intent really is to screen out murderers, look elsewhere. I have no idea what the answer is. Background checks don't help. 48% of murderers aren't caught. And, if they're ballsy enough to meet you online under false pretense, who's to say they can't get coffee and be sane? Not that this is an online-dating thing at all. I mean, you could face the same thing in a club, or at a ball game, or at soccer practice. We need to totally revisit what we idealize as 'safe' and 'unsafe.'

So, I guess when it comes down to it. I'm writing this because I'm miffed at how people can be one thing for awhile and then completely change. I mean completely. It's the recurring nightmare of my life. Sometimes it's over the course of 36 hours, sometimes it's closer to 2304 hours. There are no rules, no real warning signs, just abrupt "I'm-not-that-person-anymore-ness"

Be careful out there.

I'm IMing. I haven't really done it in awhile. When I was in my teens, it was like texting to teens these days. I was addicted, and I was really good at it. I was able to get my point across, be funny, and maybe even enjoy myself. These days it's much more utilitarian. Much like any writing I do. I have to be prodded into it, and even then it's only a shadow of my former voice. Regardless of that. I'm IMing. It's hard for me to talk. Getting over a cold, now compounded with another one. I ordered pizza from the place that lets me order online just so I wouldn't have to talk. And how did the IM end? "I believe in some traditional gender roles." What does that even mean? Subtextually I'm not sure. On the bright side, it's 9PM, and I'm awake. Unusual.

A two-for-one. I can't imagine anything more perfect. 

SIDE ONE: 

Oy. 

It's just after 8pm. My hands are completely caulked. Today was my first experience with it, and I left the top (the top that I fashioned by knifing the upper section off) off, and ended up with a gelatinous goo mound. I took said goo mound and tried to apply it to a beautiful matte print. I don't know the result of that experiment but I'm not too optimistic. The earlier project with caulk has much more potential. All in all, a good day. 

In what may be the most interesting news of September, Wallace finds himself motivated, irrational, level-headed, and myriad conflicting, non-conflicting adjectives. He's somewhat smug and pleased. Things lacking from his usual repertoire. 3.4 hours of troubleshooting a CSS padding issue dealing with the newer release of Firefox, and the "a-ha" 1.4 second moment of discovery pleased him to no end. One part for others, one part for himself. Small things like this have been building up, and exploding in azure-sky non-fireworks.

Every time Wallace blinks it seems as though he falls into a dream. The blinks are no longer than usual, but the majesty and wonder of the moments is elongated into a symphony of hope. Perhaps soon he won't have to sleep.

My latest foray into obtuse illustrator art.

getting out, i felt better. i came home and started this: carbonmade site.

I also started twittering. I linked it to my cell phone, so i can txt updates. this will be interesting at work most certainly.

all of the motivation dropped off around 2pm. i fell asleep. woke up bewildered and not hungry. i still want to see hamlet2

OK, so here's the thing. No matter who I read, they all say the same thing. It's just regurgitated with a few new phrases for the same things thrown in. I'm serious. Read a few books about life in the Now. Being Present. Whatever you wish to call it... I'm telling you, it's all the same.

But maybe there's a good reason for that.

Maybe it's because, as my Dad likes to say and probably several hundred self-help books, the present is all we've got.

I'm down with that. Especially the "not-over-thinking-everything" thing.

Like this past weekend at the beach. Body surfing in a strong current means a) great waves and b) the distinct possibility of drowning in an undertow. You have to pay attention. You have to focus on the job, or in this case the play, at hand.

I was in the Present Moment. It was all surf and salt air and feeling for the tide and seeing the dragonflies every where. It was the cold water of the deeper ocean mingling in with the warmer waters of the shoreline. It was being turned ass over tea kettle in the crashing waves and tossed up against the shrapnel of razor-sharp shells that covered the coastline. I came up for air with scratches, the odd bruise and the exhilaration of feeling Alive.

When you can be that focused, you can't think about anything else. None of the things that plague your mind during the hours of your "regular" life... things like career, living up to your potential, your choice of a mate or lack of a mate, your bad haircut, wondering if you should've been a doctor, afterall. Stuff like that.

So, maybe all these people have to tell you the same thing over and over because we just don't hear what is said. Yet, we still have the desire or need to reach that place of peace.

I found it at the beach last weekend, but I would guess, if all these self-help gurus are correct, that you can find it anywhere you happen to be. It's a choice. It's a place you go in your head and heart.

I'm going to try it more often. If you do, way to go. Good luck with that.

Jacksonville 40 out of 40

Marriage is honorable but whoremongers God will judge - Hebrews 13

"In hell you never sleep, rest or find a quiet moment. No rest from the torments, the screams, the fear, the thirst, the lack of breath, the stench, the heat, the hopelessness. You are isolated from contact with any other people."

- Bill Wiese – Book: 23 Minutes in Hell

"Now, O body, you are paying the price of the delights you granted yourself!...and you did it of your own free will I saw several souls fall into Hell, and among them was a child of fifteen, cursing her parents for not having taught her to fear God nor that there was a Hell. Her life had been a short one, she said, but full of sin, for she had given in to all that her body and passions demanded in the way of satisfaction"

-Sister Josefa Menendez - From the book Way of Divine Love - 1923

"I'm a surgical nurse at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. We have lots of near-death cases there, and almost all of them are the negative kind. You know what I mean people who wind up in hell!"

- P.M.H.Atwateer (Journal of Near-Death Studies Vol.10)

REM sleep aside, dreams are the stuff futures are made of.

If you got a dream, and a hammer like Sir Wallace-stir there- you can build a tomorrow. Otherwise, you are likely going to stay put.

One day, Wallace and Portia started emailing and writing haikus and practicing random synchronized inversely proportional mood swings and that led to the dreaming.

I think that's what this is all about. Putting one foot in front of the other, through leaves, over bridges (a vague Kurt Vonnegut reference) until we get where ever it is we're going.

How about you? Are you dreaming? Or are you wide awake?
Either will do and either will get you where you're going. Just start down the path and have fun with it. What else, after all, is there?

I don't remember where Portia and I saw her. Or perhaps Portia didn't, although I remember talk of the technique. Notwithstanding, I stumbled across her work recently on the interweb and love it all over again. See my favourite for yourself here.

In other news, I've been hammering pellets into wood for what seems like an eternity, building something that belongs in a funeral home. And it lives in my living room. I really should leave this sort of thing to the professionals.

My thoughts exactly. 

Her Portianess said:

I was browsing through some flickr Designer slash Artists and I kept coming across these fantastic creations, all emanating from the apparent same brain. 

Wallace here, transitioning from third to first-person. Also, in parallel, switching my eye patch from right to left eye. Tonight, it occurred to me, while sifting through ephemera scattered around my artspace (read: living room carpet), that I'm indeed a member of the mundane-majority. Like another rock star desperate for acting fame, like another high school jock sweltering at the thought of being No. 1 math geek, I'm a graphic designer exploring my personal style as pseudo-artist. Real art is this. A few other examples come to mind, but that's the only one that currently matters. 

Wallace checking in and out. 

Well, I can only speak for myself. And the answer is- drumroll, please- I don't know. I think I know what I am NOT. But what I am remains to be seen. I know what I think I hope to be.

Someone asked me recently who I am and I said:

• Writer
• Teller of Stories
  Mostly real; Some imagined (or quite possible real in another dimension)
• Artist
• Create-or
• Maker

To which that certain someone said, "I can change you."

Wow.

I spent all this time trying to figure out and "own" the above parts of who I might be only to find someone who wants to change me.

Let's make sure I know for sure who I am first, shall we?

I'm Portia.
The international super spy, creative hipster and often sardonic alter ego of someone far less super spy and far more introspective lost soul. Geez. What is one to do?

In the meantime, enjoy a little poetry, a little creative messing about and whatever whatnots there are to enjoy here.

Speaking for myself and The Wall... we're glad you're here.

No, really... not being sarcastic or sardonic. Just keepin' it real.
(O.K. that last part was sardonic... but what did you expect?)