new blog

hey everyone--

i've started a new blog, so head on over to 'authentic life'

"write about the depravity of the human condition"

The killed him on the table. Metal tables, dentist trays, even stethoscopes, things designed to save people's lives. All metal in hospitals is cold, it retains the cold, it is the cold. The coldness of death, perhaps. Blue lips, a loss of color in the cheeks. Even though the table he laid upon had a cushion, it was cold. They killed him on the table.

There was metal and plastic everywhere. Blades, tubes, wires, plugs, tongs, tweezers, tools, and needles. Electricity pulsed across the screen, and through the machine except for the line, long and lean. His chest lay open, a cavernous chest split apart and cracked. They went to work on him, fusing his organic flesh and blood and life with their metal and plastic and electricity. And then they killed him on the table.

Mind you, the machine is man made and so is the man, I know, made by a man and a woman to be natural, warm-blooded and alive. Was he made with faults, though? Are we humans flawed? Is it enough for us to be killed or kill ourseves? Nevermind our moral upsets and mistakes, although the soul and body are connected, and we do not have a soul, we are one soul with a body but I'll need a new pen for that image. Nevermind that the soul of the man they killed on the table was flawed by his own actions and that of Adam. His heart was flawed. It wasn't strong enough. And so they killed him on the table.

It doesn't seem fair that a man not only has to worry about the condition and the health of his soul, when we are all so soiled to begin with and it's not our fault. No, we have to worry about our bodies, bodies that are forms we live in but cannot always control, and we carry organs we cannot touch or maintain with a socket wrench or car wax or a piano tuner. The man they killed couldn't open his own chest and floss the plaque from his arteries or pick up a toothpick on his way out of a restaurant after eating a savory, saucy steak with dripping fat, and pick out the blockages like he wouldn't lettuce from his canines. It doesn't seem fair that this poor man should suffer coldly for that which he could not hardly help.

The killed him on the table.

long time no blog

The Wailin' Jennys - "Beautiful Dawn"


Take me to the breaking of a beautiful dawn
Take me to the place where we come from
Take me to the end so I can see the start
There's only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me to the place where I don't feel so small
Take me where I don't need to stand so tall
Take me to the edge so I can fall apart
There's only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me where love isn't up for sale
Take me where our hearts are not so frail
Take me where the fire still owns its spark
There's only one way to mend a broken heart

Teach me how to see when I close my eyes
Teach me to forgive and to apologize
Show me how to love in the darkest dark
There's only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me where the angels are close at hand
Take me where the ocean meets the sky and the land
Show me to the wisdom of the evening star
There's only one way to mend a broken heart

Take me to the place where I feel no shame
Take me where the courage doesn't need a name
Learning how to cry is the hardest part
There's only one way to mend a broken heart

---

"Exodus"
» Bethany Dillon
Come, come fallen ones
Dance in the healing stream
He has faithfully kept you
Brought you out of captivity

Rejoice, rejoice with all your hearts
Sing Him a new song
That’s heard high on the windswept mountains
It will resound

Lead, Lord, with unfailing love
Those that You have ransomed
And we will sing out as we go on
Our God is faithful
Our God is faithful

Reflect, reflect on all your days
You weren’t so free then
Once you were all called slaves
But now, blessed children

Move, move your feet
Dance before the Lord
On to the Promised Land
On to your reward, sing

Lead, Lord, with unfailing love
Those that You have ransomed
And we will sing out as we go on
Our God is faithful
Our God is faithful

Our enemies are at the bottom of the sea, our enemies
Our enemies are at the bottom of the sea, our enemies

Lead, Lord, with unfailing love
Those that You have ransomed
And we will sing out as we go on
Our God is faithful
Lead, Lord, with unfailing love
Those that You have ransomed
And we will sing out as we go on
Our God is faithful
Our God is faithful
Our God is faithful (our God is faithful)
Our God is faithful

Lois Lane

As the countdown begins and the remaining seconds, days, weeks, moments left of summer tick by until I bid this beautiful state adieu, I am wrapping up jobs and commitments that have truly defined the time that I've been home. (Obviously, I didn't learn about how to cut down my run-on sentences.)

I battled my last deadline yesterday, turning in my article with a half-hour or so to spare, and took my official photograph for the column I'll continue throughout the school year. I never would have thought when I was pouting outside a graduation party in May about my boring summer (I had been home for a week) that I would be a published reporter by August. I never would have been able to imagine when I started my blog in February that I would have my own column with my own 12" to share my thoughts with Tri-Town readers. And part of me still thinks that no one actually reads my words every other Tuesday, but I think they do! I have to hope that they do...

We are so completely unaware of the changes that will occur in our lives when we wake up each day and greet the morning. And whether or not we greet that rising sun with a smile and an earnest handshake, or a frown and a slap in the face, we will learn, we will experience, we will change.

And sometimes things are so comfy-cozy, am I right? Sometimes, where we live currently is as wonderful as nustling into a warm blanket in front of a fire when it's snowing outside and your signficant other is whispering sweet nothings in your ear. (I love Christmas.) And we are driving down our life's highway, and we see this road sign and it tells us that "change" is coming our way in 100!, 70!, 30!, 0! miles and we screech on the breaks because, holy moly, we don't want to leave our paradise!

I think the biggest leap you can take is keeping your hope alive that when your foot steps on that accelerator again and you take the exit for "change," that you will enter into a more wonderful experience than before. And for me that would be a warm blanket to nustle into, a roaring fire, my signifcant other and Frank Sinatra crooning while I eat Godiva Rasberry Chocolate Truffle ice cream and don't gain a single holiday pound.

Put that on my Christmas list.

And you can just call me Lois Lane, what with all the reports I've been reporting, but don't you think that the real challenge in leaping to "change" is putting your foot on that accelerator? If I'm Miss Lane, where is my Superman? And I'm not falling from buildings, but I need some help putting the pedal to the metal. Jesus, my Superman (how cheesy can I get?), give me strength to have a lead foot!

The day just seems brighter, folks.
And I think it's because the mileage for "change" on my road signs are decreasing and decreasing, slowly but surely. I'll be heading back east, I'll turn my back on my sweet Rocky Mountain Paradise for a few months, and I'll greet the new New England days with open arms, a warm smile, and an earnest handshake.

The Chronicles of Marijuana

I mean.. Narnia... I mean.. crap!

No, I did not flub up the title. I meant to insert the word marijuana into the title box. And don't judge me because I did!

Once upon a time, last semester, I wrote a research essay on the effects of marijuana and why it should not be legalized to benefit our youthful generation, and those generations to come. And all of the words that were gathered together to make up this essay were ones that I thought purposeful because I've seen friends come and go, and where they've gone is a land filled with smoke and no sense of valuable life. And I've got the shakes just thinking about the people I love in life who run the risk of ruining their reality all for the sake of a good high.

And maybe I've got the shakes because I forgot to eat lunch, too.
I don't have the munchies today, it seems.

I come from a land filled with weed and hippies, tree-huggers and vegans. Where most spend their whole paycheck's at Whole Foods because everyone here knows that organic food will make you immortal much like the worship of crystals will. And a lot of people here only wear Birkenstocks, and I bet you anything that a lot of them did acid in the 60s. This land is called Boulder, Colorado. And I just don't know how I fit into all of this.

I've never been high, I really have no interest in being high (unless my travels take me to Amsterdam...just kidding...am I kidding?) , and I doubt that I ever will be higher than 35,000 feet whilst riding an airplane to and from Massachusetts or elsewehere in this big, fat world.

But where does that put me into relation to all of the people I know who regularly smoke or get baked from eating baked goods filled with their beloved Mary Jane? Will I forever be excluded? Does it even matter?

I believe it does matter. Because at the end of the day, we all have a need for human contact and relational love, and whether or not I am able to breach the gap between the drugged and the sober, and still connect with my friends and loved ones... I will push those boundaries, build that bridge to the other side where I can still BE with my people who I care so much about that I won't let marijuana come between us.

patty griffin

She sees him laying in the bed alone tonight
The only thing a touching him is a crack of light
Pieces of her hair are wrapped around and 'round his fingers
And he reaches for her side, for any sign of her that lingers

And she says you are not alone
Laying in the light
Put out the fire in your head
And lay with me tonight

One of them bullets went straight for the jugular vein
There were people running , a flash of light
Then everything changed
Nothing really matters in the end you know
All the worrys sever
Don't be afraid for me my friend, one day we all fall down forever




She says you are not alone
Laying in the light
Put out the fire in your head
And lay with me tonight

The wedding date was June just like any other bride
She loved him like no one before and it was good to be alive
But sometimes that can slip away as fast
As any fingers through your hands
So you let time forgive the past and go and make some other plans

You are not alone
Laying in the light
Put out the fire in your head
And lay with me tonight
You are not alone
Laying in the light
Put out the fire in your head
And lay with me tonight

Attempt at a column... take two...

I actually longed for my own business card today. I daydreamed about donning a fancy suit. It is safe to say that I have entered the era of life where I desire a career, and I am not even sure what it means.

My first exposure to the idea of a career was watching my father sign receipts in his office at a major brokerage firm when I was only a few years old. I didn’t understand the meaning of his signature nor the numbers running across the ticker tape on the bottom of his office stock-tracking television. Somehow, though, I was able to grasp the concept of what it meant to go to an office everyday, wear a suit and shake hands with a firm and steady grip. It was about identity.

As my father’s daughter, I traveled from city to city, grasping the hand of a financial powerhouse. Through airports, meetings and luncheons, I had a front row seat watching the leading man in my life, my dearest Dad, wrap the brokerage business around his little finger.

Described to me years later as a constant game of Russian Roulette where there was always at least one bullet, he went to work everyday in one of the most stressful and intense careers an individual can choose. He walked the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, ran numbers in his head faster than I could type them on my calculator, and kept the offices he managed in glistening condition. This was his career.

But what happens when that career disappears, when the show is over? What happens when your health fails, when the business you invested so much time in slips out of your firm and steady hand? Do you lose your identity, and what about a second chance?

Are careers dream-jobs or desks we are chained to? I would hope that I am entering a work force where I am not bound to just one. I’d rather dip my feet into many pools of choice and creativity, until one suits my fancy and I can take a swim until my fingers get all pruney.

Whether it’s trading stocks or typing words into a column, this young dreamer hopes that careers are more than just suits and paychecks. An identity should not rest on a resume or a diploma, but rather on the understanding that life is about rolling with the punches and the quality of it concerns picking yourself up when the bells rings.

If careers are like plays and the identity found in it like playing a part in a show, I’d have to say that when the curtains close on one career, shedding tears during the final bow is perfectly understandable. But for goodness sake, a career as a human being isn’t over. Gather your roses, sign a few autographs, and move on to the next stage in life.

Your fans are waiting.