i would've baby-stepped into intimate

i'd like to suggest that this starting over is a success, in the sense that life seems to be softening around the edges, much in the way that it did in new york. it's a slow process, if i remember it well, but it's like how, with grieving (and i read this in a really good book recently) you don't ever stop hurting, you just feel a little less miserable as time goes on.

i'm feeling a little less unsettled as time goes on.

so remember that salad place? sumo salad, to be exact. indeed, i am working there now. yes, according to my morning pages, and maybe even this blog, i don't remember, i swore off food service. and let it be known, i still do not like food service. but i like this job enough to keep it. i work every weekday from 7:30am to 2:00pm, and i'm busy the entire time, and the people i work with, usually, are all nice enough. my manager can be a bit of a dragon lady, but she cools off easily enough. today, her manager was in the shop helping us out, as we've been short-staffed or everyone who works at this location is all relatively new, or i don't know, we're basically half a mess, so here she was to help out. and as someone wisely noted recently, most people who work in these positions are total fucking control freaks. this woman fit that to a t. there was absolutely nothing she could not find something to make comment on or try to correct in some way. for some reason, it didn't really get to me.

i don't know, maybe it's because i know that i'm not going to eclipse in my career as being a manager of a fast food salad chain found in various shopping malls across australia. i'm good enough at my job after only one week, but let's be honest: i never want this to be something i'm 'good at.' i liked that i was good at advertising and sales, and that i'm 'good at' writing or being creative in some way more intellectually stimulating than knowing how much dressing to put on a salad. i'm just here to pay the bills, folks.

i was having a brief chat with this woman today as she asked how long i'd been in australia, and where i was from. "you're from new york, and you came to melbourne?" she asked incredulously.

i smiled. "i know, everyone says that. but it's been nice, doing something different."

she sort of laughed. "but it's not that different! the pace is a little slower, that's all."

wait, i'm sorry, what?

so it should be mentioned, plenty of other people have asked, "why would you leave new york and come here?" with some sort of...well, humility, i guess. melbourne's great, i'm not putting her down at all, but let's not be ridiculous. melbourne and new york are not the same. i wouldn't have come here in the first place if they were the same.

and so probably because this woman was already starting to get on my nerves, and because of this, albeit slowly calming, frenzy of foreign exhaust, and also because i am the only american i see for days, i'm very protective of my home country. tag onto it the whole obama thing, if you want, and the fact that coming to australia only solidified for me that new york is in fact home, and i'm basically the most territorial i've ever been.

i didn't really know what to say to her. i mean, the point of leaving new york was not to go to the outback and, i don't know, dig for root vegetables for nine months. i wasn't looking for the polar opposite. i don't even know what i was looking for anymore.

so i said, "well, i wouldn't want to be out in the country."

earlier, my boss was making some comment about how i didn't hear what she was telling me (it doesn't help that she doesn't actually seem to be addressing me when she's talking to me; she's one of those people you're perennially guessing with), and half-jokingly cried, "damn americans! they don't understand english!"

once again, a bit choked with national pride, i said, "well, it's a different english."

some other guy, somewhat understanding enough, noted, "it's because we talk so fast!"

once again, though, totally off the mark. i can understand you people just fine. and if you insult my country one more time, i'm going to drown you in a bucket of mayonnaise.

i could be a bit ridiculous these days. i talked to both jay and joe on the phone the other day, and it's not so much that their accents resonated with some sort of deep familiarity--i don't even hear accents anymore, to be honest, american or australian--but that sense of 'your own people.' one of my friends here made a point months ago of saying he wouldn't be in a long-term relationship with someone who wasn't australian, because something would be missing, some common history. when he first said it, i thought, "well, that's not fair at all." and i'm not saying, "oh yeah, i totally agree now," because i still don't, but i get it to an extent. there's something to be said for "your kind."

this is not to romanticize america or its people, or to put down australia and its respective inhabitants--i'm quite fond of and totally over any number of folks from either population--but i think wherever we go--and maybe i can only speak for myself here--we crave that sense of familiarity. we want something we can come to intimately know, be that a person, place, or thing.

except, of course, for making salads. i have no interest in intimately knowing how to make salads.

so i'm wearing the shoe till it fits

'sometimes, a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.'

- jerry, 'the zoo story'

'our life's work is to use what we have been given to wake up.'
-pema chodron

'i just have to make this list.'
-virginia, 'hysterical blindness'

as i said...i'm starting over. this is reminiscent of earlier this year, when i decided to start dropping baggage. i spent a fair bit of time just amassing ideas, trying to get a sense of what i was feeling or what exactly needed to be healed. finally, it struck me, the thing to do. make a list. i've recounted this all before. the hiv test, the letter to david, the letter to my father, the clarity petition, it's all here, more or less.

life's been a series of cycles lately. it seems that's all it ever is, lately, until the pattern works itself out or i finally forge on in an entirely new direction. moving to australia, apparently, was not new enough of a direction to move. and that's okay. it's gonna have to be, because as much as i (quite often) want to slip into my running sneakers and haul ass to tullamarine airport, i'm sitting here with it. i'm not running away this time.

take that, you fucking cycle.

so it's time to make a list. what is it i need to do this time? last time, the tasks were fairly tangible. this time, they're more vague, they don't come with such a set of instructions. they're something like:

1) let go
2) be grateful
3) get a job

i'm fairly unsure of what this starting over means. it means today, i applied for half as many jobs as usual, but i put in a concerted effort with each application, and didn't just spambot anything that looked halfway decent. it means when i finish writing this, i'm going to go for a jog. it means that when i walked to the supermarket earlier today, and that thing that's been nagging at me lately started singing again, i didn't shuffle along to its nasty beat. i picked up my head and looked around and thought, "i'm really grateful...i can walk. i'm really grateful...i'm healthy. i'm really...okay, i really don't want to do this, but okay...okay, i'm really grateful..." and it sort of helped.

it means when that soft tone of 'victim' starts to fill my voice, i clear my throat and speak up.

it means i'm taking the trash out, i'm doing those dishes, and i'm making the bed. these little efforts are important.

it means taking a deep breath.

it means when, as i'm writing this, i get a call from this salad place in the city i did a trial shift at, asking if i can work tomorrow at 11:30, i take it thankfully and consider it the universe throwing me a bone.

i guess that's something else i can be grateful for.

and now, of course, it's time i went on that jog. it will be tempting, as i step into those running sneakers, to just keep going and going, but i'm not disappearing. i'm not running away.

i've only just begun here.

we'll start all over and we'll start again

at the beginning of every month, like some sort of lunar cycle, something new happens or comes into my life or begins. i arrived at the beginning of august, i moved into my place the beginning of september, i began the russian roulette of employment opportunities in october, and now it's the beginning of november. i have about two more days for something else to come along and steal the spotlight, but i think i know what the new thing is.

i'm starting over.

jay would read this and think of the treacly melodramatic self-help reality show we watched in junior year together every afternoon, and it is a bit like that, except no vomiting into a bowl of pine cones, getting yelled at by a drill sergeant while i clean a dirty car, or dressing up a mannequin in the attic named miss mabel with all of my symbolic baggage. (it would take much too long to explain, and i'm essentially just beating jay to the punch by saying, "i know, i'm starting over, just like the tv show, 'starting over.'")

i have no other way to put it but to say that i'm starting over. i arrived in australia three foggy months ago, and it's been nothing of what i expected. in some ways, that's been a pleasant surprise, and i don't discredit that at all. but in other ways, it's been a pie in the face.

i say this echoing my sentiments in the last post--i would hate for anyone to think i'm not fine--but i haven't been fine. i haven't been myself these days. i don't know if it's just the money situation. i think it's been bigger than that. but i'm willing to find out. i'm not turning to my old vices to get away from the sadness--the shit i pulled a year ago to get away from my pain still amazes me--and i'm not running.

i'm sitting right here with it. i could pack my bags and book a plane ticket and make a mad dash for america--"when the going gets tough, i get going"--and what a shame, what a loss of an opportunity. and what a mistake. do i really expect i'd feel any more settled moving back in with my parents, and with the remains of my savings, rebuilding a life in new york and telling everyone who asked, "yeah, australia wasn't working for me, so i came home"? what am i going to do when things don't work out 100% in new york? where will i run to then?

so i'm starting over.

i have some sense of what that means, but i'm going to mostly just let it reveal itself to me as i go. it means forgiving these past three months. it means letting go of a lot of ideas of what i think i should be doing, or how this should be working out. it means being open to whatever fate has in store for me, even if it doesn't seem to follow the map, no matter how basic, i wrote up before i got here. it means being grateful for everything i have right now.

i think the reason things finally worked out for me in new york is because i started to be grateful for everything i had. i didn't acquire anything new. i just said, "okay." i just said, "thank you." i stopped resisting new york, hating new york, insisting it wasn't for me. i cleared away my delusions and my fears and my resentments, and i carefully removed all of the blockages that were keeping me from, at the time, leaving for australia with some peace, but actually, were keeping me from living anywhere with some peace.

something got lost in the last three months. and that's okay, because i'm finding it again. the first step is realizing you've lost it. the second step is inevitable.

you just start over.

oh, you won't catch me around here

i've never been so excited about a job that requires me to file for three days. but i've never been paid $21 an hour to file. i guess at times like these, you forget the fact that you're college educated, you're not a shit writer, you once worked for a fairly reputable name in new york, and once you really get your shit together, you're totally going to make something of this name of yours. none of that really matters. you just try to not get too many papercuts throughout the day.

****

this isn't to say i've stopped asking, "why did i come to australia?" and started asking, "why did i leave new york?" it's not really about the questions these days. it's more just this general sense of, "i had no idea it would be like this." the good and the not-good-yet.

****

before i left for australia, in this blog, i said, "for all the yes and all the no of my life. i have no choice but to be incredibly grateful." it's easy to say when you're feeling like you've just conquered mt. everest, and it's important to say it when you just feel you can't keep climbing.

****

i didn't exactly have any expectations of what it would be like when i got to australia. some more grown-up, "saved by the bell: the college years" version of the last time i was here, maybe? much like so much in my life, i romanticize too much.

****

i should be concerned if i don't occasionally feel completely out of sorts, right? maybe it's set in, what everyone else had mentioned at some point and reminded me of in some way. i picked up my entire life and moved to the other side of the world with no plan, only some drive to try something new. i get it now. it sounds fun and exciting and adventurous on paper. i should be doing exotic things, traveling constantly, hop-scotching through this country.

but i'm (quite gratefully!) temping in offices around melbourne, living in a neighborhood so mundane it makes me yearn for the garbage-strewn sidewalks of 159th St, and spending large chunks of my day entirely paralyzed by more than the idea but the cold, hard fact that i don't know what the fuck i'm doing here.

but at least i know where i stand today.

****

i keep thinking i shouldn't be writing this. but if i focus on the positive one more time, i'm going to throw up.

****

but this is probably far more important to be writing about than some drunken night at a sweaty gay club where i pretend my life is a lot more wild and exciting than it's really turned out to be. believe it or not, i'm quite happy to not be drinking or sweating to britney remixes on podiums for a little while.

vodka's devastated; i barely call anymore.

****

maybe it's "the artist's way." i am writing a lot more, to say nothing of the spiritual overhaul this process has done on me. maybe there's no room to be wasted and blathering false sentiments to strangers i hardly connect with on a real level, when i'm spending so much time rediscovering some other part of myself i was probably drinking away that year in new york.

****

but i'd hate for anyone to think i'm not fine.

****

once this nausea passes from positive thinking, i could actually list off a few really good things in my life right now.

****

the truth of the matter is, though, i really am sort of grateful for these foggy, uncertain times. i seriously mean it. i'm quite exhausted from what's been a pretty constant buzz of anxiety for the past few weeks, and to be fair to anyone who's seen or talked to me, i haven't been myself. but i don't believe in the meaninglessness of it. i was doing my morning pages a little late this morning, after my interview at the temp agency, and i wrote: "the light is easier to see when the fog lifts, but the fog requires a deeper faith in it."

****

something to think about while i'm filing for the next three days.

tell me you never wanted more than this

lately, my computer has been having a lot of updates that keep requiring it to start over. about every five minutes, the message pops up letting me know that the changes are ready to be installed, but i must restart. do i want to restart now or later? a progress bar, with five minutes on the clock, creeps forward.

i keep pressing "restart later" because i don't want to stop what i'm doing and let the computer do what it needs to do for these changes, these necessary updates, to take effect.

symbolic much? you better fucking believe it's symbolic.

i've been a well-contained mess this week. short story long, this new job is offering a miserably small amount of hours and a miserable work experience. that harridan of a boss? well, there's something to be said for first impressions. i was discussing this with someone yesterday, but i do not think that, just because you work for someone, that gives them any right whatsoever to speak to you without some respect. i think it's this misconception that our bosses are allowed to yell at us because they are our bosses.

but don't get me started. i think there's a benefit to recognizing the negative, but no one wins when you swim in it. and it doesn't make for pleasant reading. or hell, pleasant living. venting is great, but wallowing is miserable. i've got higher ambitions than misery.

so i've turned to what i know and can rely on: office work. the temp agencies of melbourne, australia, have no way of preparing themselves for the ensuing tidal wave that is "me, on desperation's edge." i know i said i didn't want to end up back in an office--if i wanted to be in an office, i'd stay in new york, blah blah--but let this be one of the important lessons i've learned here in oz: hospitality & food service blow hard. just the sight of a waiter carrying three plates at once gives me a serious panic attack now. this morning, a few of us went out to brunch, and i could barely handle being waited on. i couldn't look at any of the servers, sure that i would spot a deep sadness in their eyes, like cows at the bloody slaughter.

(i don't quite know when i turned into carole from "repulsion," and it's only a matter of time before i'm crawling around on the floor in a nightgown or avoiding hands reaching from the wall to pull at my beautiful but recently unkempt blonde hair.)

and strange, that this is desperation these days. i know i like to talk about my early days in new york the way everyone talks about their early days in new york, particularly if they were challenging in some way. i romanticize the hell out of that time, because it's long over and because i grew so intensely in that period of time, but i think it's fair to say i had to keep moving partially because stopping meant letting the great bear hug of depression move in for a spiritual kill. i like to look back and think, "the universe delivered because i demanded with my entire soul."

i don't know where people find the time, or even the energy, to cry in public at these moments of strife in their lives.

anyway, i think i'm just feeling a bit on the razor's edge because--and this is something i didn't quite expect to experience here--i'm also going through a bit of "foreign exhaustion." this is typical, they tell you when you study abroad. the newness will wear off, the excitement will fade, and you'll grow obnoxiously intolerant of even the smallest difference you spot from what you know back home. i had a minor bout of this earlier in my trip, and i remember when it happened the first time i was here (and passed in maybe two days' time), but it's been pretty full-on lately. and i start to crave new york like a drug.

yesterday, i called my mom, partly because we were due a catch-up, and partly because i think some times in our lives ask for that phone call, to whoever it is knows you best. sure enough:

my mother: "hello?"

me: "hey there, it's me."

my mother: "hi. what's wrong?"

and it wasn't like she was assuming something was. it's the mere fact that all i have to do is say hello, and she knows something's up. i laughed (blinking back a tear or two) and said, "god, how do you know?" she said, "i'll call you back" so i didn't have to pay for the call. which was a nice break so i could pull it together, because one kind word at that point, and i would have absolutely crumbled. i just couldn't bear the idea of crying to my mother from the other side of the world.

it baffles me, really, that i'm so seized by this financial situation. to be honest, i have enough money right now. when i moved to new york, i did not have enough money. but i always need a cushion. being raised (loosely used term here) by my father, a man who made a living of riding by the seat of his pants, and that includes with matters of financially supporting his family, i've run like all hell to the other side of the spectrum, and for my entire life, i've been careful with spending and diligent about saving. and sometimes, pathetically cheap.

i want to say, though, in recognition of seeing the positive of this all--besides the basic point that this is a fantastic learning, growing experience, and in just a few weeks time i will be looking back and sighing and already romanticizing this moment--that without naming names, because i'm bloody awful at compliments, thank you. you've been so kind. there's a couple people that could be said to (including my mother, who thank god is not aware this blog exists), but i know what i mean here.

a little gratitude goes a long way when we think we've got nothing in our grasping, clutching hands.

sometimes, it's just what we need before life's changes can take effect.

fists on up, it looks that easy

i'm playing life by ear until i go deaf from it.

i've never left it all to such chance. the catchphrase of the few months before i left for australia--"i'm just gonna figure it out as i go"--has turned into something entirely more formidable. and say what you will about my signs from, i don't know, the universe--the fact that the shoes i had to wear for the recently-quit job gave me gouge-like blisters and possible nerve damage in one of my big toes; the way that song came on my ipod this morning while i was writing my morning pages, and correlated so frighteningly with what i had just written down; etc and so on--but it seems life is always throwing me a hint that i'm onto something. i suppose it's a comfort.

like, i just started getting into "six feet under" and i've been powering through episodes to get to the series finale which promises to be the most devastating thing i've seen since "away from her," a movie that leaves me puddly-eyed just thinking about it sometimes. and it seems every episode i watch, when i watch it, connects with something i've been thinking about. there are characters in their thirties who have not pursued a career but have merely worked jobs, and claim to be happy at them. and in some strange combination of "artist's way" realigning, living in australia on the seat of my pants, and possibly a good old quarterlife crisis come a few years early, i'm thinking, "could i do that? could i get away with not ever having a career?"

if i don't start saving for retirement now, am i going to be one of those old people living in a dingy apartment somewhere with ugly curtains, old newspapers, and cat food for dinner every night? if i don't hop on a career track now, will i be left answering to these years of wandering and waiting tables until someone takes a chance on me? do i really think being a writer will actually pay some bills?

i suppose these are all rhetorical questions, and being listed for the sheer sake of keeping records. y'know, so i can look back in a few years and say, "boy, was i confused!" (don't be fooled; what i'm doing here is tossing off all these questions as just silly notions, and not the intense self-interrogation i've been doing on the couch all morning as i put off returning overdue library books again.)

oh, as it is friday morning, i should note i ended up not going in for that "dream job" at the cafe in the city, because let's be honest, i don't even know how to make instant coffee, let alone anything more complicated than sanka. on the plus side, the universe tossed me a literal sign in the window of a cafe/bakery in my neighborhood, and after a brief conversation with the harridan of a manager--who, if i get the job, god willing, i'm sure i'll have a hell of a time making like me--i now have a trial shift on monday. it's like a game of hopscotch lately.

so i'm a little "meh" today. i don't know, there's the fun and excitement of a life of uncertainty, of questions not quite answered and possibilities not quite known, and then there's just the fear that you're going to turn one of life's corners and walk into a punch in the face.

i reckon i could do myself some good by listening to my own advice from the last post, in recognizing that things do--or don't--work out for reasons that reveal themselves as the next page turns.

so i'm keeping my ear to the ground till then.

it sure takes its precious time, but it’s got rights and so have i

i once noticed that when my life got to its most interesting, i never made any attempt to chronicle it until sometimes months later. i've been journaling on and off since i was about 9, and there are any number of entries over the years that have begun with me saying, "i'm sorry i took so long to write, i have so much to catch you up on!"

i reckon it has something to do with living in the moment, not wanting to hop back to the sidelines and observe, but rather be the story itself. possibly also, at least recently, because i'm also into week five of "the artist's way," so i have in fact been chronicling my every move with a mandatory three pages of freeform writing a morning (the morning pages, god bless their cotton socks). but no one else will ever read these pages, unless i step in front of a bus tomorrow and someone snoops while packing up my belongings.

so for the record, if i do step in front of a bus tomorrow, and you're the person folding up all of my h&m button down camp shirts and stuffing them in the space bags i brought, i will haunt the living shit out of you if you start reading my morning pages. but do please return the actual "artist's way" book to the public library, it's already overdue and i don't want anymore fines.

all this to say, a lot has been happening since i last wrote my treatise on unhealthy relationships. i reckon that was rather cathartic in a way, and i found that the theme of healthy relationships--with myself and other people--nabbed a bit of the spotlight as of late. ah well, let's be honest, it's been a main character in my neuroses--obsessions, whatever word you want to use--for years. but as i sat on my bed one friday afternoon, with spread cheese, salami, and crackers scattered before me, each labeled with feelings to be eaten, i think i actually cried out, "okay! i have had ENOUGH of this!" and i dashed out of the house and insisted on more.

that's all very vague and requires a fair bit of backstory, so the blunt truth of it, which i think will sum it up nicely, is this: i think i'm done dating guys i don't actually like. i know, who is this person, and where did the old colin go? i don't know, but he's not here. check washington heights, i think he's pouring himself another drink and waiting for some asshole in his forties to call.

i haven't quite given "the artist's way" the credit its due, and i'd happily dedicate the next seven weeks of that process to singing its praises, as i can say quite assuredly that it has changed so much of my life. yes, it's initial intention was to rediscover myself as a writer, to take down the brick wall between me and my creativity, to be the artist i so unabashedly saw myself as when i was maybe twelve, when i was writing books, regardless of their quality, huge books worth of writing! the point was, "i want to be a writer again." but as chekhov said, "if you want to work on your art, work on your life."

let's not even bother rehashing my love of a good self-help tome, if only to say i do believe in it, and doing this twelve-week course is probably the most actively i've tried to reclaim some sense of myself. and truly, it has been work on my life. i think the artistic resuscitation is almost secondhand to the recovery this process offers for your self-esteem, your sense of wholeness, your ability to be honest and compassionate towards yourself as much as others, and really, to discover what you want to be doing in this life.

have i ever mentioned that, sometimes, i would ask the question "what am i doing in australia?" i don't know, i've been really sort of quiet about that in this blog, i know....but seriously, one morning, i was wrapping up my morning pages, and it seemed the answer--in reference to another aspect of my life than my artistic self, as in fact the morning pages are so rarely about my writing--just started to flow out. i'm going to let it marinate for a bit, but i think i've come up with a really good answer to the question.

the point of this all being, it's been a good couple weeks. i got a job--and then quit! and now i have another job that i'll be doing a trial shift at on friday. i thought this post, following the hiatus, would be about the job i got, as a waiter at an upscale french restaurant in the city, and the quirks of it all, but i found, as the week went on, that i just completely made no sense at this job. i think, if i wanted to make the sacrifice, i could have stayed, the money would have been good, but the hours were long, the pressure was high, and my gut was screaming, "honestly, i hate this idea!" so what did i do? i sat down one morning this week, for my pages, and wrote out my "dream job." i did a brief job search before leaving for work, got a couple phone numbers of jobs that sounded like what i was looking for, called one on my break that day, and was told to come in for the trial shift in a week. i don't think this was just luck. i think it's all a matter of putting out what you want in this life and then listening for the opportunities to receive it.

really, lately, there's just been this sense of "this wouldn't have happened if i hadn't come here," that sense of the why, why my heart was so insistent on traveling 10,000 miles away from home, why i had to leave new york despite everything going so well (eventually), why i had to wait until getting here, and getting settled for a month and a half, before finally starting "the artist's way." when things in your present life start falling into place, you realize more fully why things in your past maybe did not, or why they fell into the places they did.

with things going so well, let's see if i can avoid that crosstown bus.