Samira

Please support my fundraising efforts for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network

Kelly lost her father to pancreatic cancer 2 weeks ago. He had been diagnosed only 4 months ago. Think about that for a moment: 4 months. 4 months is a flash. Many of us have been unemployed for longer periods than that, have traveled for longer periods than that. Think about a semester in college. We’re talking a very short period of time.

I can’t even imagine what Kelly, Brad and Emily have gone through these past months, having to say goodbye to their dad in such a short amount of time. I’ll be joining Kelly on her birthday for a fundraiser walk, in memory of her father: Mike Blanchard.
Please stop by my fundraiser page & join us if you want to, donate if you can.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Much love

sam

i'm about to go to bed, and i'm still wearing my shoes. my 34 years have finally caught up with me & i'm really scared, because every last part of me wants to run away so fast right now. but i'm not giving up. i know i have to learn this lesson.

i must learn to trust that not every relationship ends in abandonment.

when i was approaching the tollbooths, i kid you not, about 20 cop cars with blinding reds and blues, sirens, were swarming around at very high speeds, all heading towards my general direction…

it was like a wild goose chase. there were cops coming from the bridge, from oakland, from behind me. it seemed like something i’d imagine as some strange version of bumper cars at burning man.

the vehicle that was being chased was careening towards me, swerving every direction before it dove into the space where the two freeways merge, a ditch of some kind, still going the wrong direction.

the vehicle must have made it out, because as we were coming back, those 20 cop cars were parked on the 80 east, all still with lights on. phillip said he had thought i exaggerated when i said “20 cop cars”. then he looked and his jaw dropped. he said there were at least 20 cop cars.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_11485074

yup. good old east bay.
just where you think you can have a quick trip over the bridge at 2.30am:

the excitement never stops.

(meme, picked up while roaming tribe)

& how else to withstand the enormity of such burden,
the burden of sight, but to believe
that there can only be the grace of others?

Danetta & Belen made me smile this week.
so here you go:
reply to this blog & i’ll tell you
why you make my world a better place to live.

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you’re permitted to copy, distribute, display and perform the contents
of this blog entry, as well as make derivative works based on it.
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today i am grateful for:

• recognizing that it is important to articulate my gratitude.
• seeing Lisa absolutely shine on opening night in an incredible play.
• going for margaritas with Luscious and David after the play.
• having a 3 day weekend after a relentless work week but, much more importantly: Martin Luther King
• 2 gigs coming up next week.
• a heartfelt email from Todd.
• seeing Todd tomorrow.
• my friendship with Kelly.
• my beautiful kitten.
• purple lipstick.
• finally replacing one of my most treasured records, which i lost in 2003 at a party in Austin playing a 12 hour 2×4 set (Thanks, Addictech!)

Immodest creature, you do not want
a woman who will accept your faults,
you want one who pretends
that you are faultless–one who will
caress the hand that strikes her
and kiss the lips that lie to her.

George Sand, Intimate Journal, 1834

From Mateo’s album:

I wonder what the sorry was behind this… it was in a plastic bag I removed. Dropped or thrown on the street? Was it dramatic?…was it forgetful? Perhaps it was ordinary…or not so ordinary….A brief moment captured on the street scape.

this picture speaks to me on so many levels.

but for me, its most important message is the fact that you posted it.
that you captured it in the midst of yet another 80+ work week.

i’ve been watching you burn the candle at both ends for months now:
even living with you, all i mostly see is that you leave for work & you go to sleep.

this snapshot signifies your perseverance and strength: even at the height of this crazy rat-race, sacrificing yet another saturday to the firm, you saw a thing of intrigue. you stopped. you captured it. you shared it.

i’m impressed. and i’m smiling.

love you

Excerpts from a letter to my step-father, 12/29/1997

words accost me when i need them most. words strangle me when i want to be unstrangled. untangled. words silence when i wish to speak. the rest gets played out in metaphors. (history relies upon dissonance, upon discontinued familiarity, a fading into metaphors: the substitution of book for body, the colors that remind of him, the sounds that have become her)

metaphor: to substitute one thing for another. something vanishes from your life, and thus you fill the empty space with symbols. like a song that reminds you of someone, or a street name, a number, a certain time of day. things that are important to some, not to others. arbitrary concrete signifiers, with which we attempt to fill the vacancies in our lives.

they are not the things themselves, but rather the empty spaces, the feelings, they represent.

i struggle with words, because i cannot trust them. i know how unreliable language is; i speak too many of them to still believe in some absolute truth. culture shapes language. experience shapes language. also, language shapes us. the reason why i ran into your bedroom, crying, nearly 8 years ago, is not because i didn’t know how to write. it was because i couldn’t find the words to express what i meant to say.

it was because language betrayed me. over and over again, i wrote down sentences and phrases, somehow trying to capture thoughts and feelings with words, and my experience seemed cheapened. it was another falling into consciousness. another heart-break.

i have learned that language itself is not truth. i have learned that everything outside of language is truth. and this is what liberated me. finally. it has taken me years, and sometimes i still hate the fact that language cannot be pure. i hate that words are untrustworthy, yet i rely on them so much.

metaphor: to substitute one thing for another.

i see language as one of the most pervasive metaphors in my life. i substitute language for all the sacred things in my life that i cannot express. like love. like sadness. and this is why i write.

you see, i did not shave my head to shock the world. metaphor: to substitute one thing for another. hair is very symbolic, very metaphorical. hair signifies so many different things–it is beauty, sex, power, and it is feminine. i used to resent people for identifying me with my hair, for seeing me as the girl with the beautiful hair.

you know what i realized? i realized that, more than other people identifying me with my hair, i identified myself with my hair. my hair was my own metaphor; it symbolized something that was missing. once i understood this, i became very afraid. i couldn’t imagine my life without hair; i couldn’t separate my own identity from it. the thought of having it all gone was so frightening, i had no other option but to shave it all off. i had to get rid of it in order to know that there was still a person underneath it all once it was not there anymore.

about a month after i shaved it all away i had a panic attack. i cried and mourned over all my beautiful hair that is now gone. and i have to say that it has made me stronger. i had to learn how to love myself, how to face the person i am inside, not the image and the representation of the woman with the beautiful hair.

even if i grow it back to its original length, at least i am certain now that i carry some inherent truth within. i had to know for sure.

this week has had an overtone of bitter-sweet, and undertow of memories screaming both tremendous joy as well as sorrow. it wasn’t until last night that it finally hit me, Paul:
Happy Birthday.

6 of your birthdays. 6 of mine.

we even met at your birthday party:
no wonder these past few days have been so wrought with emotion.

realizing that this is the first time in 6 years
that we are not spending our birthdays together
missing that part of the relationship
having a home with someone
thinking of all the ways in which we spent those days together
4th of july fireworks from the couch
playing records in the sun
going on road trips
and other stuff
like how broke we were
and how we’d just have each other
and as much as that was the bad
it was also the good
and i miss that
i miss having my friend, my partner
my touch stone
somebody to come home to
thinking about taking Little Bit to the vet
and it made me think about you and Little Bit
& how much you love her
& how you probably would have taken her today
because that’s the kind of relationship you had with her.

this is not a story of regret, for i am too proud of you.
and i am proud of me, too.

and today, on your 38th birthday, Paul,
i want to thank you for our journey together,
for everything that we’ve endured & felt & tried & forsaken,
for everything that we’ve taken away & learned,
forgotten & remembered,
become enraged for, beaten ourselves up over, forgiven.

thank you for our bicycle ride,
for that rubik’s cube, and that one good record, too.

i am so incredibly proud of you.

i love you.

i realized yesterday that taking photos of cats with my antenna pulled out, is kind of like saying “1-2-3-Smile!” to people.

i also realized that i’ve developed a bit of new obsession since aquiring my cellphone (thanks a lot, Kelly), which is that i can’t seem to stop taking pictures of the cats in my life. See, here are some more of Oscar:

so i’ve created a new category, called Kittens, which i may end up moving off the front page to prevent any potential cute-overload ;-)