hit musical identification for 10 points -- anyone?

In NYC for the next few days, gallavanting around with Paxus and causing some trouble. Today it's just been cultivating the intense love between us, groping each other in the subway station and waiting in line at restraunts. Working on the "You two are the happiest people I've ever seen" vibe -- quote from a student at East Carolina University a few months ago when we spoke there about alternatives to mainstream life.

Tonight we started planning a street theatre piece we want to perform in Washington Square Park and Times Square, called "These Boobs Weren't Made For Gawking". It's supposedly legal for women to be topless here... but no one does it. We're gonna see if it's really true, and how people react when someone (yours truly) actually does it.

any advice, all you New Yorkers... out there? Is there anything we should be sure to do/see while we're in the city? (we're here till Thursday)

"Are any boundaries natural?" asked the Californian in the back seat.

oh... ah... and then we talked about how the only boundaries that exist are the ones we create for ourselves, and if they are constructed they can be deconstructed... so what does it mean to be natural and/or artificial?

The conversation faded into the darkness as Bjork played on the tapedeck, and I reminded myself to write the questions on my blog. So there it is... what's the word hummingbirds?

I had a hard conversation this afternoon, with someone who I've had friction with for about a year. We've put a lot of energy into trying to resolve things between us, but about 4 months ago we stopped talking altogether and since then it's been pretty uncomfortable to interact. Which is really difficult to hold in a small community like this. We see each other every day and our lives intersect more than most peoples'.

So this afternoon, finally, after a few months of trying to negotiate an appropriate stand-by mediator and then finding a time that fit all of our schedules, we talked. Face to face, sitting on the floor of a small room with pastel walls and big windows looking out to trees, we talked. I was terrified, and the fear was ambiguous. It wasn't fear of something specific or fear of some unwanted outcome... I was afraid because I didn't know what would happen. I couldn't prepare myself, or study like for an exam. I had to trust that the "answers", the right things to say, were simply my Truth, what i really thought and felt... and I'm sad that it's so hard for me to trust myself in that. I'd rather be able to work it all out ahead of time and make sure it makes sense.

I don't want to hash it all out on the blog. What I really want to write about is my amazement and awe at the power of communication. It's not like we became friends after an hour of talking, but I see her as more of a real person now. Again. When we weren't talking, I built up an image of her in my mind, and since i didn't have any input negating that, that's who she became to me. I'd see her from across the room and see her as I had constructed her. I assumed she was judging me and then got mad at her for it. And while we were talking today, she became much more real, three dimensional (maybe even four or five) instead of the single facets I was allowing her in my interpretation. My experience of her expanded, like a sponge absorbing water. Content, context... "con"... isn't that with in Spanish? Chile con queso... And really, that's it: my experience of her became a "with" experience instead of an "against" experience. We were communicating with each other instead of pitting our defensive selves against each other. I had been coming from a competitive place in our interactions... "it's either you or me", "one of us is right and one of us is wrong, and I know I'm not wrong", "if I give you what you need, then I loose". That's the very ideology I'm wanting to dissolve on a large scale! How did I let it have so much power in my personal life? We've both been struggling this winter, and the main reason for our struggles seems to be rooted in this competitive mindset. When we finally came together to talk, we were able to be mutually supportive and understanding. It wasn't "one or the other", I didn't "loose" because I was compassionate about her struggles, and I didn't "win" because I spoke what was true for me. We came to a place where we both felt more comfortable with each other, and we're still both in a lot of pain.

I'm sad and angry that the competitive mindset has such strong roots in me. Social Darwinists would argue that it's been necessary in order for survival -- I have to put my interests before yours so I can sustain my own life. But that's simply, yes - simply, not true. Survival depends on collaboration. The root of Life is collaboration, essentially. One person alone can not create life... i.e. it takes two to tango. The Scientific Reduction Principle states that all things can be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces and still retain the properties of that thing -- except for Life. There comes a point where a living thing, broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, is no longer alive. A living cell requires the collaboration of all the rhibosomeomes and mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (I wish I could say I remembered all of that from biology class, but I really had to look it up on google).

Moral of the story: collaboration = the essential nature of Life.

and if you disagree with me, just remember that I'm right and you're wrong.

oh fuck, I don't want to declare it publicly. It's true. I've got "Mom Stuff."

sound effect: the downward chord progression that happens after you've revealed incriminating information -- "dunh dunh dunh...."

Since becoming more self-aware and doing some processing through my inner shit, I"ve known I've had "Dad Stuff." That's always been blatantly obvious. My need to be Perfect (in order to please him), my lack of faith in myself (because I was never good enough for him)... blah blah blah and I write the blahs not because it's insignificant but because I've been working on all that for YEARS. It's old news. TickledSpirit's a perfectionist. WhoopDeeDoo, call the Associated Press.

I've spent all this time and energy focused on healing my "Dad Stuff", and all the while I thought my relationship with my mom was the foil to all that. She was my Goddess Queen Mother Theresa, my confessor(ess?), my solace. I've heard that everyone has a fucked up relationship with one parent and a fine relationship with their other parent. So my dad was my fucked up relationship and my mom was my great relationship.

Not that easy. Of course. I do have a great relationship with my mom. No doubt about that. She's fantastic and we connect in some wonderful ways. AND I realized tonight that I'm carrying "stuff" about her that accumulated for most of my childhood. "Stuff" about the way she is in the world, the way she presents herself to other people, and my embarrassment and anger about that. Yikes. Mostly "yikes" because I never acknowledged it -- never even noticed it -- until tonight.

busting out the journal, time for some major self-reflection. I'll share eventually...