2001-06-06 - 1:06 p.m.

i still don't have the final number on my car but i'm guessing the whole ordeal will run 6g's i certainly don't have.

wow

can we all say wow for me?

it's really endearing that my mom has been so supportive. instead of saying, why the hell did you buy it in the 1st place ect. she said that she admired my risk taking in doing it and that as a vice, it's a good one. i really needed to hear that. cuz i slaughter myself when life goes wrong.

slaughter is actually a light word.

i'm getting better, getting gentler. i've actually been pretty calm thro the caos, maybe cuz works too crazy to think twice. but i'll find out about the car today. then i'll decide what to do.

so this is life huh?

i look at this summer ahead and have a craving to simplify and get an easy job so i can surf and then just live i guess. it all seems very complicated right now. i guess i have 'alot going on'. but don't i always? broken heart, broken job, bla bla bla. so i don't think it's anything unique.

and the other day there is this woman, who at first glance looks pregnant. but look closer and you see that she's dying. her bones protruding and her face sucking in. her stomach reaching out to the world because it's so bloated with cancer.

my sponsor also has cancer and she's courageous enough to stay sober and positive about life. so i can too. at least i have my health and a few simple things that make me smile.

one thing that makes me smile is ernie.

ernie is a old phillipino homeless man who lives on the concrete at the edge of the ocean. i first saw him when i saw a figure sweeping the boardwalk and i thought it was a janitor, as i neared him i saw that it was a homeless person. I was amazed that he was cleaning for free. he just believes it keeps him sane and that where he is from, you love your environment and respect it.

novel huh?

and the cops don't kick him out cuz the janitors love him. i give him some money to help me pick up trash on the beach cuz this is something i believe in. opportunities to be of service are right at our feet, well literally. he always uplifts me with his nutty smile, accent and his tales of opening up a religion, where he'll have a lot of followers like the menonites. he protects this other woman, vanessa from being raped or beaten on the streets. they keep their one story cart on the concrete.

one morning i was walking by the beach, early (to go check on my car), I see him, in a salmon colored cotton shirt with an army green backpack. he was turned out toward the ocean, doing the motions of a full orchestral conductor. like he was directing the sounds and motion of the pulse that lives at the beach. i loved it, i believe it.

i know that there is a pulse. i know that i'll be okay.

i was walking on main street crying to myself. to the universe. to damn it for these hard lessons. why is there this insistence that i know myself this well at age 25? why do i need to learn these spiritual lessons about knowing i'm not my man, by loosing him, i'm not my job by loosing it at xmas, no severance, i'm not my fast car, by loosing my car.

i'm naked.

i wasn't ready to learn this. i wasn't ready to let go. i wanted to be my car. i needed it to be apart of my identity. i loved that part.

he made me feel whole. my title has. my car did.

now what, i ask with a clenched throat?

i'm absolutely naked and trying to remain pryed open to the lessons. at the very least so that i don't have to keep relearning them. cuz hot damn babies this is painful.

but i can tell you i am sleeping at night. alone. and i'm totally, utterly okay.