Lately...

How does it happen, and at what precise moment do you fall...out of love.
Is it like falling asleep?

You lay in bed, close your eyes, pick at a few wandering thoughts then...
You're out.

Can you catch the exact moment you drift off? Not sure you can. Believe me, I've tried.

Is it Love or is it Lust...that's another one.

Someone once said that Lust is the equivalent of Hate. Hate because, in a moment of lust, the only need you want to satisfy is your own. While when in Love, you think of yourself last.

Makes sense.

I've been making some serious-crazy decisions as of late. The path is beginning to fork. The shelf re-organized. Since early this year my attention has been taken elsewhere. Into a world that few would choose to travel - it's much too dark for many to handle. So why am I headed there?

It's in my nature to help people. My first instinct is to Protect, it's always been that way. But this particular path...I need to go back to school for. Flit the summer away, then hit the books in the Fall. I hope to hunt those that prey on the weak. To look into the eyes of those that walk without a conscience. I'll need a lot of covering. To those that understand what kind of covering I'm speaking of - you know what to do.

But I won't and will never give up the page. The story. The dialogue. Passion lives there.

Lately, more and more I'm hearing people speak of Friendship. True friendship. How that as we age, the numbers sadly dwindle. Is that true? When you have nothing to offer that's bright and shiny, when all you have is what's in your heart, is it enough? My friend D is contemplating such things. Her birthday just passed. Time to re stock. I've known her forever. D has a good heart.

I'm a part of this group. We read scripts and collectively speak of them. I think we all like one another, we're accepting of differences, tolerant of pride, and laugh a heck of a lot. We scream a lot too. I bang the table if I especially like a script we've read. Django was brilliant.  

I'm still waiting for the unicorn. Setting myself up for the impossible. Such fantasies don't exist. Do they...? One afternoon I was having cheesecake with my friend C. We shared how difficult it is to meet men in Toronto. That men in other parts of the world tend to have a larger set of low-hangers when it comes to approaching women. Perhaps men in Toronto just can't speak. That must be it. C is very tall and pretty.

I hope the week ends well. No, not well. Fantastic.

Dear She

She wondered if she was dreaming again. Like the bad nightmare she had many times before. She could feel it coming back to finish off what it started.

side note:  Have you ever had a horrible dream? One so frightening, that when you woke up you were drenched in thin layer of sweat. And even though you're awake, aware of the reality around you, you could still feel the veil of darkness all around you?  

Even though the faces in the dream have changed, the year is no longer 2007 but 2013, the nightmare clings to her like a wandering soul in search of a lonely host. Its hold was even felt in 2009 and 2012. It doesn't know how to let go.  

It finds her in valleys where lonely souls roam, souls who are famished for comfort, food and love. She does all she can to thwart their tangled arms that keep taking her good dreams away.

She knows she cannot give what these wandering souls yearn for, though she understands their needs. And every night She fights again, swearing she'll never allow the nightmare to take over. She continues to fight with all she has - to keep such visions at bay. She hopes a peaceful nights sleep will soon come to stay.

But every morning she awakes to the same empty feeling.

Some days while basking in the daylight, a time when most dreamers are awake, She looks within herself and wonders if she is to blame. Perhaps she is the dreaded author to such  visions...

Now the question remains...why?

Why, dear She, do you allow them to play? In your heart and in your mind, I see you're beginning to fray - your grace is too abundant. Don't let them take all of you away.

http://youtu.be/kbOHumzGEP4

Un-Pretty

I recently watched the Runaways (2nd time), a film about the girl rock band from the 70s called The Runaways.

Side note: Dakota Fanning was amazing in this film. So out of her comfort zone.

Near the end of the film you see Joan Jett, played by Kristen Stewart, strumming, trying to hash out lyrics. She's in a dirty room, on a dirty mattress, dishevelled, worn out and struggling to make the lyrics flow. Make it work.

The scene solidified how awful it can be...the grim process of creating something from nothing. Creating a finished product whether it be a song, a dance, a novel, a script...etc.

It's brutal. Torture. Messy.

You doubt, everyday. But what's the alternative? Settling for a 9-5 job that'll rot your insides, where the banter in the lunchroom is enough to make you want to cut off your own ears? To engage and swap insincere smiles, and happen to catch the latest gossip between the washroom stalls and it's about you?

Then there's that dream - that damn dream you can't let go of, cause if you do, every good and precious thing within you will die. Where after some time you'll conform and become one of them. Them that gossip, tearing through Us Weekly/InStyle/The Newspaper, tearing at anything that is positive or hopeful, cause deep down inside they're terribly unsatisfied, pissed to high-hell that they let go of their dream.

I've been around bitter people. It ain't pretty.

I think the most awful feeling is to know you could do something about it, but you don't. You talk yourself out of your dreams.

Yeah, the road sucks crap, totally. It's covered in broken glass, goopy sludge where for days you feel stuck, as stabby fingers tell you to grow up, all the while a raging storm  hovers above, hellbent in not shedding a glimmer of light. You're broke, alone, and sometimes just plain bored with yourself. Nothing feels like it's moving.

But what's the alternative...

Dancers sweat, bleeding on the dance floor. Just steps away from failure or that big break. Actors, man, actors are a special case. Trapped in the mirror, trying to look and sound the part, hoping the next audition will get them closer to paying their rent and not resort to living in their car (Matthew Perry lived in his car). And then there are writers - yep, the saddest of the lot. It's all in your head, stuck, and it has to come out. Come out making sense. You're always alone, watching life pass you by from within your jail cell (Starbucks), observing the other writers typing away - writers who are probably more successful than you. The blank page, ice cold, looks up, begging you to drop a word, cause you haven't written a thing a for 20 mins.

Or you're at home, not having changed your pyjamas for days, and with that washed your coffee cup. You numbly watch TV, cause at least there's some action going on there, unlike your computer screen. White as snow.

So where's the light at the end of Un-Pretty... ?

Who can say? Not everyone makes it out. Most surrender, becoming a part of the "normal" working world. But a small handful do make it. They're the ones we all know and hear about. They make it look easy, but I betcha it was a damn hard road, continues to be.

Me. I can't accept the alternative just yet.

Wait...I hear someone calling....

Int. Starbucks - Day

It's crazy packed with people. Not a chair in sight, except for a seat next to a group of loud, annoying teenage girls. Damn! Their coffee cups look full.

BARRISTA
What would you like today....Oh, right. Tall Blond, 3 pump white mocha, right?

ME
Yeah, thanks, so cool that you remember.

BARRISTA
Well, you're in here all the time, writing something.

ME
I know, it's sad, isn't it?

Permanent Record

Somewhere, somehow, and sometimes in the strangest places, everything we say, think or speak is jotted down. Whether in the safe house of our mind, in the hands of a loved one, or God's listening ear - You've been recorded.

The satisfaction of sharing your life with world is everywhere, being fed to us by the truckloads in commercials, movies and social networking websites. Even amongst close friends via smart phones or the old fashion game of Broken Telephone, words and images travel within seconds.

Just hit send.

I was speaking to a friend recently of how I missed the rotary phone. She laughed. I shared that through the agony of dialling someones' number, which at times felt like a century, it also gave you a chance to decide whether to go through with it. Unlike now where we just stroke a key - Done.

Actually, it's too easy. So easy in fact that few can handle the warped speed in which it flies. Some of us are sadly, too slow and dim, too excited to see what's about to happen. That such an impulse could later follow you like a menacing shadow for the rest of your life. You see, there are some things we do in life that will never be erased. There are some things that can never be explained away.

You've been recorded. Permanently.

In recent months there's been a disturbing amount of teen suicides. Girls who could see no hand of rescue from their plight, no way out from the quicksand that was trying to snuff them out. The love of family and friends wasn't enough to keep them afloat, because no matter how much love they received, something so precious within them died.

Dignity.

I couldn't imagine the amount of sorrow those girls went through. Their most vulnerable moments, being abused and laughed at, treated like a useless rag, then tossed, and on top of that used as a vehicle for others to parade as a joke or a badge of virility.

There is no joke. Men don't rape. Monsters do.

The carnality of a moment could make someone blind. I almost feel sorry for what those under age perpetrators will go through all their life. Stamped with a permanent record. Every job they apply for, every potential mate they come to marry, even behind the bars of a prison and later within their own heart - they and the world will know of their actions.

Maybe we have media to blame. Or should we blame the parents...NO. Let's blame culture. I don't care who is to blame - I think a re-education is in order. A re-education in morality and ethics. Of humanity and the God given knowledge that you can't have everything you want, in every given moment, no matter how carnal the desire may be.

Whether rape, murder or slander - it's permanent. And most perpetrators commit all three. 

A Lustful Eye

From the whom, through the birth canal, yanked into a room with razor sharp lights that sting and pierce the eyes, we're born.

And in the loving arms of a loved one, nestled close to warm flesh, the constant thump of a heartbeat bringing comfort, slowly, after a few waking blinks, the fuzzy picture before us becomes more clear.

Colours burst, sounds line up with images, and shapes begin to take on texture and temperature. It's crazy how the brain makes everything fit, like an endless puzzle, and the download never ends.

And as most of us are plopped in front of the mad box, flicking through images, ingesting what life should be, our tiny brains begin to sum up the reality of what is. But in this age the Mad Box is not alone...it has a friend. A more private friend.

Even as little as 10 years ago our eyes have seen less, our memories less rotted. At first it was a matter of convenience, where information could travel in seconds. Anyone could partake in the exchange. Not everyone was a part of this world, unlike now, where it's challenging to escape.

With the cyber world at our fingertips, most everything is a mere click away. It's easy to get lost, to wander and explore. I'm not against exploration, education and communication, not at all. But some interests can unearth a more perverse hunger: The interest in skin.

Before cyber porn became accessible to the masses, it was considered a dirty little secret. A lurid place disguised from public view, despite the life-size XXX signs that shielded the world from such adult behaviour. Innocence still had a fighting chance.

Unlike now. When typing in the word "boob" will lead you down the lusty trail to a world where flesh is for sale. Willing or not, someone's making money.

Few want to call it what it is: the seed to an illness. And slowly, where at first you just want to take a peek, it can easily become something more. That's the hook. Candy Man comes, offering up sweet treats, indulging your senses with a deformed idea of sex.

But it's pleasure!?! No one's getting hurt? It's not bad. Right...?

For some it is just a simple pleasure, I guess? Maybe there is no shame in watching it. So then why not discuss it openly, in public, say... at Timmy's 5th Birthday Party, your parents wedding anniversary, a baptism, or freely in the lunchroom at work where your Supervisor hangs out...

It's not just sex. Not that at all. Somewhere in the mix of all the naked images, the gasps, the moans and slapping skin - someone, whether they know it or not, is being victimized. In front of the camera or watching it in the privacy of a bedroom (phone) someone is paying the price.

It makes sickos get sicker, and the healthy run the risk of becoming ill. And it all begins with a titillating peek. Whether a stash of filthy mags hidden in the closet, which I must say, when spoken about with utmost honesty between men and women I know, when they happened to come across it at a tender age - it took away their innocence too soon. 

And it's not like yesterday. Porn shops hardly exist today. It's all online. And with such variety out there, the corruption is endless.

I'm not saying that porn watchers are corrupt, but it does corrupt a perception of reality. It isn't real. It's only there to pleasure the senses. But some watchers take it a step further.   

As a woman I fear for my safety, now more than ever. Never used to be that way. My friends share the same fear. We also notice a change in many men. It's slight, but it's there: The objectification.

If porn nurtures a fantasy, in time, a watcher may wish to take it a step further. And pending their degree of self confidence... that's where the trail of innocent victims pile up. Young, frail, or just going about your business - it happens. We hear about it on the news everyday: a sexual assault on a female.

But no one seems to be getting to the root of the issue.

Even Ted Bundy, the famed serial killer of the 70s confessed that despite his upbringing which was in a loving home, his interest in porn, that later turned to a deviant lust, is what corrupted him. It all started with an innocent peek. 

So, when little Ted was growing up, a time when pornography was a serious no-no. You couldn't get your hands on it without being seen as a pervert. Unlike now... just a mouse click away. No one has to know.

Victims breeding more victims.

...I don't know what else to write, because I don't know how it will end. I don't see an end. Perversion is lucrative.

Most lawmakers are men. Perhaps if we hear of how many men are being raped everyday, at the same rate as women...it would just make more victims.

Perversion is lucrative. 

Watch Me Baby!

It's a game. A race to deliver to the finish.

Victims? Oh, yeah. There are victims.

Butchers? Yup, definitely not for the squeamish.

With body parts scattered along the way. Rape kits covered in dust.

The NYPD, SVU, FBI and Ryan Hardy are on it.

But how many more?

How many more women have to lay victim for the cutting room floor? 

It's getting old. Read old.

I feel sorry for the girls waiting by the phone, hoping with fingers crossed to be Dead Girl #5, Rape Victim 1 or Whore in Red Dress at the end of the day.

Must violence breed entertainment?

I used to enjoy shows like Criminal Minds, but then it got bad a few seasons back, and now it's just too violent. The Following seemed okay, but again, too violent. Just violence.

Perhaps entertainment is just catching up with this world and its fall in humanity. Where people just kill one another for sport, for fun, in a spark of anger. Where the thought or belief in a just God doesn't enter the mind once.

Or perhaps the vice that many share, the need for constant stimuli should aid in helping shift the violent glare with shows that dare to show (I'll say it) love and care for humanity, minus the brutal slaying. Unless it's Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) kicking some Edward Cullen ass - I want something different.

How about The Love Boat. Fantasy Island. The Cosby Show. Night Court. Life Goes On.

I don't know...?

And it's not just violence. It's the over-sexualizing of women and men, teenagers and kids.

Do we need a re-education in humanity, innocence and civility? Cause it's just getting so bad out there.

I grew up in the 80s & 90s where TV shows weren't only about sex and slaying. There were options. You had Family Ties or Miami Vice.

Now there are none. What's going to happen to the innocent eyes of today when they grow up tomorrow?

They've never been given an option. 

An Off Day

I was an angry bird today. Snapping the fingers off many. They bit me. I bit back. I'm usually not one to bite in return. I usually don't address it.

I think it's the hunger. The hunger for what I once knew. What I've been away from. I hear it calling now and then. Like a once beloved friend calling my name. I miss their company.

My writing is...it's like a puzzle right now. All the pieces are there, but the main picture is getting fuzzy. I need to reconsider Gabe's motivation.

It's distressing. Money, it comes and goes. The boys, they come but I want them to go. The men...think I'm jailbait. The ones that desire jailbait, they lose interest fast after swapping words with me. I know how to say "no" and mean it. I may act dim, for fun, cause being serious can feel stuffy, but it's an act.

But not having time to write, and working in a space that kills any creative buzz - it's a slow death. It sucks that there's no one to talk to about the craft. Like, someone that will help you tear a part what's not working. Someone who wants to.

I miss my friends that have gone away. When a mess, a baby, a plane ride or marriage get in the way - friends split. More time to self investigate your inner mess and deny obvious flaws. Medicate with sugar and coffee. Do a good deed to cancel all the wrong. Am I alone here?

Thank God today's almost over.

It's just...

I think there's something off...with me.

I'm reverting back to my childhood these days, refusing to grasp adulthood, whatever that means.

I don't have a filter. No edit point. It is what it is. Zero pretending.

I feel sixteen - caught in a stage of wonder, just waiting for everything to make sense. I don't think it will ever make sense: Life.

I don't mean to flirt with you: man, woman, dog, squirrel, uptight fella who never smiles. I just do. Teasing is fun.

I still believe in that dream, the one I had  8 years ago. That man in black, walking in fields of milky snow. That man who searches for me as much as I search for him...Uh, yeah, I'm here by the way. Hurry up!

Short men frighten me. Angry people turn me off. Yet I seem to attract both, like moths to light. Perhaps if I turn my flirtatious laughter to that of a hellish cry, walking on ten foot stilts, I will attract a worthwhile catch...I'll mull it over.

I think I do have a type. Never thought I did. Hmm...

I never make a promise I won't keep. I take secrets to the grave. I want you to be happy and I'll always have your back. I think you outta know this.

I want to try a smoke, just once, but I'm afraid I'll like it too much. But I'm also allergic.

I don't know if I have an addictive personality. It's possible. I'm stubborn as hell and won't believe anything you tell me. I drink coffee three times a day...Am I addicted to caffeine?

I sometimes fear that man in black is dead, or just tired of looking for me. Like me, tired of the journey.

I want to be gotten.

Broken

Trust.

When it's gone, it's gone forever.
Words have weight, not one syllable light. Never A vowel silent.
Careful who you share your words to.
Some hearts can think of no one else.

The chit-chat, gossip, the undone ramble.
Nerves gone affray, nothing to hold onto.
Intent driven by fear. The need to be wanted. Needed.
Forgive and move on. Learn and move forward.

Broken telephone line. Broken truth.
Childish lips drip, dripping on.
The he said, she said, they said script.
Written by someone untrue. But what's true?

Again, learn and move on. Don't harden your heart.
Pebbles, the mistake, the knots. The dirt.
Truth will unravel in perfect time. Trust that.
Stay sweet, stay you. Don't look back.

Look back to learn, if only that.
People are messy, faults spilling over.
Perfection is perfect only in its spelling.
Again, another word to fight.

When liars sleep, they sleep well.
But their heart thumps fast, afraid of you.
Few will come clean. The adult yet to bloom.
Don't be mean, they just don't know.



Never prove what you already know.

RAGE

And in a pit of rage you wait. Beneath a constant cloud of black. No picture of sun to lead the way. You wait.

Cold wind leaves marks across my face, reminding me of this life that is dang-stank hard, lonely, and damn challenging when you have passion.

Voices pitch and wail, a few hundred smiles change hands, it's another day in sales, and my bones are ever slowly withering away to dust. There is no loyalty - this great big sea is filled with sharks. Even the guppies will claw a mighty bite.

The pavement calls. Miles of it. Seducing to be walked upon. An affair I miss deeply, especially when the weather begins to frost over. Cafes are the best places to hide when it's cold. Bury in a stash of words. Forget troubles.

The men are plenty, but still none hold my gaze. A few passing slow smiles. A few "get to know you" questions. "Yeah, the Peppers rock." "I'd like to write obits." "What's your name?" A subtle wink and half-curled smile.

Ease down, hun. You look like you just graduated - High school.

The end seems long yet not far behind, catching up close, like a speeding train. Another year passes, the faster the speed increases. Where did the year go? 2012 was a mess yet enlightening: I never want to live in LA.

I have much to do today.