I have had a bug in my pants all day. I felt small and insecure, a little bitter, defensive and tired. I got dressed up for work. Heels and all to show off my new found woman. Me. Again. I try to find her every morning even though I'd like to stay in bed most mornings. But today I had a good outfit. A good costume. One I liked, felt confident in and everything about it was my terms. My feet hurt now but I held on to some pride while standing a little taller today. Literally. And totally worth it I think.

"What's a little pain when you are ALIVE!" - Six Feet Under

Greg has been asking me since the phone rang at 2:18am last night if I am OK. I've nodded yes and shaken no, I've rolled my eyes, I've almost cried, I've almost yelled and I almost gave in completely to those old, nasty, pointless feelings. Feelings that invoke actual senses. Smells that are dark red and stained yellow. Skin crawling brushes on the back of your armpit. Like velvet gloves that have one finger made out of the boy-side of Velcro. Tastes like blood and lemons and dirty ice and eggs. Sights like the orangish, yellowish, redishness of the insides of your eyelids with firework flashes of light and then into focus the shadows on a white popcorn ceiling that make you blink shut again to the safety of the orangish, yellowish, redishness. I asked Greg if we could sleep with the light on and I woke this morning deciding I don't have to acknowledge any of the night before. Even though I plotted hate-filled revenge up until I finally fell into a version of sleep.

Greg is studying Buddhism and often shares what he is learning with me. I've attended a couple of lectures and read the beginnings of many of the books he's given me. We've been discussing it often lately and tonight he was sharing certain thoughts with me. I was so very moved by his enthusiasm and absolutely took away from Part I of the conversation: A New Outlook. Another amazing lesson. Awesome.

And then I just...well...challenged him.

While I WHOLEHEARTEDLY believe Buddhism is an absolutely beautiful tool for 'enlightenment', 'happiness', the-utopia-we-all-want-to-have-and-give-full-circle-and-no-word-ever-seems-to-describe-it...[love?]....thing, I felt compelled to challenge him. At first I thought I was getting defensive. Greg is so much more book-smart than I. Me. Who. Whom. Moose. Moosen. Most. He is VERY smart. Runs on all cylinders smart. I'm just happy I can focus enough to complete a senten......

Seriously folks.... Part I, I bit through my silly, insecure tongue and listened. And learned. He was sharing with me wisdom of the ages. Literally. I am living with walking Cliff Notes.

Then Part II. I found myself asking, 'why' a few too many times. Like when I was a kid. Wondering why a dog was considered less important than a human when it seemed unfair that we humans were the ones deciding that. Dissecting layer by layer. He said I was speaking philosophy. Not Buddhism. So I asked what Buddhism was. Then I asked why it wasn't a religion. Then I asked if it is to obtain this place where there are no rules, why are there rules to get there? And can you obtain 'enlightenment' without Buddhism....is anyone just born that way? And so on. Like a little brat you want to smack because maybe he has a point. At least I thought I had a point. Maybe you just want to smack him because he won't shut up and let you talk.

I recall the time when I was going through an 'I am my own person' [...ehem...brat.] phase and my father almost punched me in the face when I answered him for the fourth time that my life's plan for the following year was that I had no plan. The challenge paid off. He made his point without my needing reconstructive surgery and I resigned that the bohemian artist's life was something I missed the boat on before my birth. And I like new shoes.

Politics. I just can't help but think, "Is ANYBODY really fooled by ANY of this anymore?" I don't understand how we can all rally around a group of 'analysts' going on and on for hours and hours telling us 'predictions' of outcomes based on RACE. Why in the world are we still even talking about RACE anymore?! Does NO ONE understand that we all look at what gets pointed to? Great power...great responsibility and all that. Can we stop pointing at Reality Television about home renovations and maybe point at the WAR or CANCER or Billy Joel? The color of some one's skin ideally has nothing to do with how he or she does his or her job unless we say it does. Like when the giant marsh mellow man came to destroy New York City - you simply cannot NOT think of something by thinking of something.

And yet...

...this is all so beautiful. Really. We are only human. And our faults are part of our beauty. And what is a fault anyway? I can choose that. I can spin my thoughts and feelings like we spin information every day.

I'm the first grader who had a Mud Stand on our street and tried to sell little Dixie cups full of top soil and water to people in my neighborhood. I told them it was 'hole filler' for their yards. I found it in my yard for nothing. 100% profit. Brilliant! A man in a pick up pulled over, listened to my pitch and then asked if I had any lemonade. You can't spin desire I suppose. Supply and DEMAND! Ahhh!

I did a science fair project in the eighth grade showing how one can manipulate information. Again, I thought this was ground breaking. I remember looking in our history book at a pie graph and thinking, "my eye is drawn to the big pink slice because somebody wanted me to think the big pink slice was more important". Visual manipulation of factual information. [I think it is a song from Grease 2.] So paranoid! So skeptical! What a Devil's Advocate! Freshly spun: What if the opposite of what we learn is the real truth? Or what if there is no truth? I should have been a Wachowski brother, or Fox Mulder....or just built a darn volcano instead of continually trying to reinvent a wheel. In the eighth grade. And without ANY research. My bibliography had pictures of me.

This rage and hate I've dug into after last night's [prank?] call....the same disgust I felt after listening to a late night phone message he left me last year [I dropped the phone, my heart pounding outside of my chest...like Freddie Kruger...'Is there no end??! He keeps coming back!!']....the same fist-clenching, gut-tightening anger I felt when the first night I agreed to stay under their roof after all these years he just...opens the door...while I am sleeping. I bolt up ready to yell "Fire!"...he literally laughed and patted me on the head. These black, hateful feelings are just that...and like the random woman who called me a 'C$%T' out of her car window last night...maybe I have no business making myself a part of whatever gets thrown at me....agreeing to it by reacting to it. He might just be a really bad comedian. REALLY bad. Or working up to Mud sales.

I thought all this time what I needed to do was spin my past into thoughtful choices. Or train my senses to forget the red and yellows.

But perhaps the Buddhist in my house is showing me this:

The present is here. And it is alive! I will pause as long as I need to stay here....and here....and here....and here....and so on.....