gust the wind is blowing, the leaves are falling, pumpkin pies are baking, and grocery stores are packed. welcome to my favorite time of year.
however, i say that at the changing of every season. the first bird chirps of spring, the delicate morph of spring into summer, the long balmy evenings of late-summer's rendesvous with fall, and now, this peak of fall. other regions call this the beginning of winter, but we still have green leaves on the trees here in southern california. but really, it's not the seasons i love, it's the promises they bring at their onset. it's the hope of something fresh, something different.
i don't love fall. i love seasons. really, i love change.
[by julia 10:11 AM]
11.19.2002
meteors there must be another term for an indian summer when it stretches well into november. i feel trapped in a seasonal purgatory, unable to wear either pastel springy clothes or wooly snuggly fall ware... unable to feel anticipation for the holidays... unable to shake the feeling that the 4th of july was only a few weeks ago... unable to fathom the freezing rain and snow storms but a few states away. this time last year, we drove miles and miles east and braved sub 30° F temperatures in the middle of the night to watch the "last spectacular leonid meteor shower we'll see until almost a century from now." surreal. beautiful. freezing. west-bound traffic jams, 5am, sunday morning. hour long wait at denny's.
yesterday: no wait! this year is going to be even better! bundle up! head to the mountains! peak is at 2:30am! perfectly clear skies! unobstructed view of the leonids! next showing this spectacular will be in 2099!
afraid of missing the this-time-we're-serious last spectactular meteor shower, we set an alarm and drove east, just in time for the peak. i saw two or three really beautiful, lingering tails. we had maybe 5 separate instances where we had more than one meteor in a minute. mostly, i was amazed at the moon. the full moon, in all of it's uncooperative glory. the perfect clear sky, the perfect meteor shower, but the moon so bright we could read.
i would like to do this more often, without the lure of some astronomical event. without the promise of something spectacular. without purpose. oh, to just park the car, follow some trails until the yellow rings around streetlights can no longer find me, until the red flashing lights on the radio towers are specks in the distance, in a different world, until it's so silent that i'm afraid.
next november, indian summer or not, i'll head out for the beginning of 96 years' worth of unspectacular leonid visits, and have this 2am silence to myself.
[by julia 2:07 PM]
11.14.2002
completeness i firmly believe that the whole jerry maguire/austin powers "you complete me" spiel is a crock. a remarkable woman and friend, heidi k., was talking about this recently, and i fully credit her for the movie allusion. i am the only person that can complete me. i am the only person i need to be around, other than the constant presence of god for my spiritual and mental sustanance. having a soul mate is different from being complete.
recall in Say Anything... diane court comes to visit lloyd dobbler, post-break-up, at his kickboxing studio. lloyd is shocked to see her, lloyd gets kicked in the nose, director creates an amazing scene with hugs and tears and bloody noses. anyway, diane tells lloyd, "lloyd, i need you." lloyd is stoked. they hug for a moment, but he pulls away. he asks her, "wait. do you need me, or do you just need anybody?" and then tells her to forget it, because he doesn't want to know the answer.
i had always been disturbed by this. (nobody messes with my john cusack!).
real life. the cast: girl, boy. the scene: the 3 month hiatus after a broken 2 year relationship. the mood: needy.
i spent that summer in a rollercoaster of freedom and loneliness. of happily dating and resenting my involved friends. of hating to go out to dinner by myself...
i did not go back to Boy because i wanted to be with him. i needed him. i needed someone. i needed not to be lonely. major mistake #8 in julia's life.
it was only a month later when i would break his heart again.
i didn't allow myself to fall back into the cycle of loneliness. i kept myself busy and surrounded myself with wonderful friends. then i met erik. my life quickly became more amazing than nutella crepes or that discontinued cheesecake factory white chocolate lemon-raspberry swirl cheesecake. i had found my soul mate.
it was a sad day when i realized that i didn't need to be near erik constantly. i was 21 years old at the time. i remember wondering, "does this mean that i don't need him? does this mean that i don't love him?" i knew back then that i was going to spend the rest of my life with him, so perhaps you can imagine my sense of alarm. it took me a few days to realize that at that very moment, i grew up. i was no longer a clingy, needy girl that used people. i became my own person. i realize now that i want and choose to be around erik constantly. i want and choose to spend the rest of my life with him, and i know that my life's trajectory will be incomplete without him. my life would suck without erik, but the only thing i really need is the air that god breathes into my body.
i hope that other people can make this realization and ask with confidence! for that Table for One before they commit themselves to marriage. before they take that insane next step with someone who might only be a comfort from loneliness... from someone who might not mesh with the New Me, the Power Lloyd... Iceman.
i am so lucky for erik's presence in my life. i am so thankful that i am not just comfortable with him, and that we allow each other to be our own selves. dependent and complementary, but not reliant and parasitic.
[by julia 3:54 PM]
11.13.2002
folkin' hell so i thought i'd never see a love song with the phrase, "jumpin' jesus, holy cow" in it.
peace it just doesn't seem so possible.
today i feel like the only person capable of a deep meditative peace is me. (capability being notably different from actuality.)
nonetheless, i feel alone in a need for calm and forgiveness. by no means have i found that grail, but i think accepting the need and the task is by far a greater achievement. i want every person to feel a spiritual sense of oneness and satiation. i want every nation to feel part of the brotherhood and sisterhood and motherhood and fatherhood of all nations, of all beings, of all essence. the connection that transcends all separateness - separateness from differences of mind, body, element. the connection that lends itself to peace.
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.
--gaelic rune
primary school. love. a memory. first love? hardly. but i had a crush on you from the day we met until the day i left. did you move in late, from newcastle? memory fails me there. but i remember. from second grade until even a little after i moved away for good in 7th grade, you were really the only boy i even thought about. there was that brief stint with someone else in 7th grade...... my friends told his friends (you. oh the irony) that i liked him, and you told my friends that he liked me, and that was the end of it.
but you. remember in mrs. blight's class... i had short hair at this point, and just got glasses. (this was even before the brief, failed attempt at correcting my imbalanced vision with an eye patch.) you said, direct quote burned into my history: "you look like an alien."
you were always the first to make fun of me. come to think of it, we spent a lot of time together, with our mums leading girl guides and you and i, too young (or too male) to participate would play stupid games and crack each other up underneath tables and you had no idea what it really meant to me.
but when you would tease me, i didn't see it as the playful reciprocated flirting. but, strangely enough for me, i didn't cry about it. i just laughed with you.
but do you remember the time you ran away? it was after swimming lessons. i noticed before we even got on the bus to go back to school, but i was too scared to tell anyone. i was scared that someone would figure me out. "why were you watching him anyway?" i remember lining up to go into lunch and worrying more. lost in the vast depths of egremont while everyone else, oblivious, went on with their daily duties of lining up outside the slippery wood-floored assembly room several miles away. the collective oblivion may have fed your loneliness, or whatever inspired you to run that day. if only i could have told you then that i noticed. that i was sad and frustrated at my incapacity. i had no idea where you had gone, but at that moment i was afraid of never having a chance with you.
but then it was my fault. the whole thing in 7th grade. chris simcock. what a fiasco. i was too scared to even speak to him. was the whole thing - me following through on my petty attraction to the boy with big ears and unfortunate last name - because you had a girlfriend who wasn't me?
but going to wyndham changed us. no more gallivanting around the mission during girl guides. no more interaction. i don't even remember telling you i was about to move. i remember feeling the jealous reward of retaliation, picturing someone mentioning that i was gone, and wondering what thought would cross your mind... whether your heart would skip a beat maybe, or you'd swallow hard and try to calmly change the subject so nobody would notice that you missed me even just a little.
the people i remember most vividly from thornhill are emma, nicola, and you. emma with fondness, nicola with resentment and a little fear still, and you - you with a glimpse of that giddy young obsession, wondering if i really ever knew you at all.
[by julia 11:13 PM]
did we just have a moment? me=blackbean-eating rubios-goer
her=cashier at rubios with a cool whaletail pendant
the conversation:
me: i'd like a bean and cheese burrito, but with black beans instead of pinto beans, whole wheat tortilla instead of flour, and no salsa.
her: okay
me: i love your necklace.
her: i love your burrito.
[by julia 1:31 PM]
careful where you stand what is it with politics that leaves me thoroughly dissatisfied? also, why can't i ever be bothered to look up the correct spelling of dissatisfied? two s's? one? does it matter? good.
so, politics... voting day is tomorrow. and, as i try not to disclose too often, i will be painfully impotent tomorrow. a resident alien, an in-valid. it's fine being a loyal Subject of the Queen 364 days out of the year, just not tomorrow. i feel like my impassioned pleas for radical social change and environmental focus end up being just this side of hypocritical, because i can't do anything about it. the letters, the arguments in which i participate with friends, the boycotts, the lifestyle... all of it distills to the fact that i'm not a constituent of any of those folk in the capitol, so how can i be incensed when nothing goes my way?
but i remind myself that most real i-voted-for-ya constituents live their lives mostly unnoticed by their elected representatives. letters are read and responded to, but special interests are the way to a politician's heart. or, stomach? wait, i'm getting my proverbial sayings jumbled. or am i just being unfathomably witty and charming?
so maybe i'm no less impotent than the next guy. (hahahahahahaha, okay, i'll find a new word). in the end, our dollar is our strongest vote. i don't mean giving the dollars to the politician. that can be pointless, unless you have an extra 10 million of them to compete with the Massive Corporate Donors. i mean, using it wisely. don't like Massive Corporate Donors? don't give them your money. don't like the starbucks evil empire? don't give them your money. don't like the fast food industry? don't give them your money. we'd all probably save money and weigh less if we were more concientious about what we spend and where we spend it.
don't forget to vote tomorrow. i'm not saying that voting is useless. (although sometimes my internal defense mechanisms get that way). voting is the essence of democracy, and if we can choose between a candidate who puts their own needs (and the corporations' needs who paid their way to the elected seat) ahead of the nation and the people OR someone who will make a difference, or maybe someone who doesn't accept corporate funding, then we are suddenly very powerful. we can't elect someone as a "representative" unless they're really going to represent us.
okay, enough out of my impotent limey gob.
[by julia 11:49 AM]
11.01.2002
better living through chemistry so i'm sick. i'm on the verge, which is enough for me. it will inevitably get worse. the sore throat usually takes a good two weeks to turn into a full-fledged cold. then, i'm sniffly and hoarse and achy for a week or so, and then deal with the sexy phlegm and residual sore throat for another two weeks, until i gradually recover.
but i am armed with the marvels or ancient medicine. echinaccea tea and elderberry extract. echinaccea tea is soothing and tasty, and *apparantly* boosts the old immune system. but we're not allowed to be quoted on that. elderberry extract, on the other hand, is putrid. "your mother is a hamster and your father smells like elderberries" was infact a horrid insult not unique to british people impersonating french guards.
do these herbal remedies really help? can we quantify it? not really. can we believe in it? sure. i believe.
i wonder if this belief is the same as the belief i have in ghosts and/or aliens. it all boils down to the fact that i'm afraid to say either one doesn't exist, so i say i don't not believe in them.
i'm a little afraid of doing absolutely nothing here, so i'll plug my nose and swallow that foul elixer, washing it down with a nice steaming henna patterned mug of echinaccea tea. hmmm, and maybe a spoonful of honey. you know, they say honey is nature's antibiotic....
11.26.2002
