God Comix

The Umlauts of Renunciation

So lately, I've been reading the work of various spiritual teachers. First and foremost, I've been reading some books by Pema Chödrön, a Tibetan nun.

But then she quotes other spiritual teachers, like Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and Machik Labdrön.

Which leads me to wonder.

What's with all the umlauts?

So you've giving up your old life, your material belongings, sex, etc...

...Do you get umlauts as an award?

...Are they like epaulets? Do you get more umlauts the more enlightened you are?

...Are they like belts in karate? If you're a black belt enlightened person, is your whole named covered in umlauts?

...Or maybe once your are truly enlightened, your name is reduced down to its essential being:

Hi, my name is " ¨ ".

This would, of course, be unprounceable, and provide a much-needed meditation on the illusory nature of of names, words, and so forth.

With love,
Pöllÿ.

Training

When I was a teenager, I was in training. Mind training. Academic training.

Training to be a neurotic striver.

I went to class for 4 or 5 hours a day. I went to a sport. I went to choir practice.

Then I studied for 3 or 4 or 5 hours a night, every night except weekends.

I averaged between 6 and 6.5 hours of sleep a night, sometimes less -- 4 or 5 hours -- and once in a while, a heavenly 7 hours of sleep.

---

The Grades were paramount.

All semester long, I thought about my grades. People at Andover were stressed, but I was more stressed than most. Something about me lived or died by grades.

It was a combination of things. My mother was not full of warmth and approval, but when I got good grades, she sang it to the 7 hills.

In contrast, one time when I was 6, she picked me up at school with a scowl on her face. She told me she was angry because I had made bad marks on my report card. I wasn't applying myself to my potential.

I was confused. What's a report card?

So, it was capricious approval. I was only as good as my most recent report card.

I hope when I have children, I will praise them for their efforts, and congratulate them for their successes. I also want to praise them for their other qualities; helpfulness; disposition, and so on and so forth. Yes, I heard these things at home, but they were also-ran's. What was really important was my massive, throbbing brain.

...anyways...

When I was at Andover, I knew how to work. And then work harder. And work harder still. I knew how to work around a problem, through a problem, work when tired, work while suffering, all of it.

I knew how to nudge and coax and yell at myself to put out effort until I succeeded.

What I didn't know was how to love and accept myself, even if all of my efforts failed.

When I got to Harvard, it happened; all of my efforts failed. Inside, I had a judge that was now finding me wanting. Outside, on the faces of my classmates and teachers, I encountered many more judges of the same type.

At a place like Harvard, most people are like I was -- working in response to a horrible internalized martinet. This taskmaster says, "No! Not good enough! No! Not good enough!" ad infinitum.

It makes people tough to get along with. Worse, when they see you struggling, they kind of step aside and leave you to drown. Not because they want you to suffer, but they are working in a worldview: If I work hard enough, it will all come out ok. When they see that not being true for you, they are terrified. It might be catching. So they leave you alone and try to block out that truth.

I did the same thing to others, when I was at Andover. But then I *was* "others," and I couldn't ignore the truth anymore.

When I left Harvard, I had two choices: I could accept this judgment -- in which case, I was a total and abject failure and should die. Or, I could look at life in a new way. I had failed; Congratulations. Welcome to the human race.

I went the other way. I developed compassion towards myself. I accepted and loved myself in my failure. When I returned to college, I didn't even look at my grades. I was halfway through my third semester before I noticed I had a 3.976 average.

Yes, I could be loving to myself, in the midst of failure. But, sometimes I kept myself in a state of failure. If trying so hard had brought me such pain and such a fall from grace, if reaching for external goals was such a fool's gold, then why try at all? Better not to try.

Now, I am trying. Tomorrow, I go into the studio to record my first big-budget project -- a recording of my new song Nickel and Dime. Moreover, there will be a film crew there, and the footage may be used in a documentary.

I've been fucking nuts all week.

Part of it is, I know how to treat myself with compassion and love, now, in failure. But when I start getting back into "success" -- i.e., Things Other People Think are Cool -- I get into the same old mindsets I had when I was 16. Rigidity, judgment, high anxiety, and a sense that what I've brought to the table isn't good enough.

My goal for myself is to be as compassionate and loving towards myself in striving for success as I have been in missing my goals. After all, people need models of people being compassionate towards themselves, in all situations, including success.

amen.

BedMagnet

I have, for the last 6 weeks, had a very hard time getting out of bed.

The first week after I broke up with Chi Gong Trucker, I stayed in bed and cried.

Then, I went to a friend's wedding. The wedding was awesome, and super powerful, and at a Buddhist retreat to boot -- what a great place to be during a post-breakup malaise!

...but, I got a cold.

So, I came back home and slept off my cold.

Then another round of loud construction started. The rumbling would begin at 5 am; so, I would go to bed around dusk, so that I could get enough sleep.

Then I had a problem where I felt cold all the time. My bed was the only place warm enough to be.

As far as I can tell, it's like this:

- Chi Gong Trucker and I made love in this bed

- I'm going to wait in this bed until the love comes good and back

- Goddammit, see if I don't

We also broke up in this bed. So, I'm sleeping in, as it were, the scene of the crime.

I've done some space clearing of my bed, but clearly, I need to do...more.

Then, there are some logistical concerns: my house is large and big on space, but small on cozy comforts. The couches are uncomfortable IKEA affairs, the chairs, same. If I had a cozy smushy chair, I could move my X-Treme bed lounging to semi-extreme chair lounging.

I feel stuck to my bed like a magnet.

Must...leave...bed...

Bom-Chicka-Bow-Wow...

As many of you know -- or could guess from some of my blog entries -- I've always been very interested, in, well...sex.

Yes, even when I was a young girl, it was a great interest of mine. I liked for Ken and Barbie to get it on (well...the actual consummation left something to be desired...).

I thought about sex all the time. Joked about it. And, later, wrote about it.

What I didn't do was...actually have sex.

---

I'll leave discussions of why for other entries. Suffice it to say, there were issues.

Over the years, I've worked through many of them. And finally, last Christmastime, I had what I like to think of as my First Real Lover. That is, he was not the first person I have had sex with, or my first boyfriend...but he was the first person I had sex with, where I felt confident, and owning my own power. Where I felt like a grown woman.

That's why, in part, it was so painful for me to break up with him.

Anyways. In the meantime, during the experimental, somewhat celibate-but-fooling-around-with-dudes-occasionally period of my last 2 years, I've also become more and more involved in comedy, performing, and singing racy songs. This is all good. People come up to me afterwards and say, How funny, how sexy, etc. etc. I have friends in a great, funny burlesque troupe, and I've performed songs with them (note: I sang, did not strip). Still, it was a great, fulfilling experience.

Then, I decided, wouldn't it be funny to have a band made up entirely of porn cliches? We could have a pizza delivery guy, a Swedish exchange student, and I would be -- of course -- the naughty librarian.

It was funny, and everyone I described it to, laughed super hard. But then something strange happened.

When I started to rehearse, and make it a reality, I started to feel uncomfortable.

Like, uncomfortable in the pit of my stomach uncomfortable. Scared. Laughing that hard little laugh where things are funny but kind of making you feel weird at the same time...sort of like when you're watching Borat.

Then, I found, I kept putting barriers up for myself. Losing my keys, cancelling rehearsals. I'm like, WTF?

We have our first performance tonight. I think I've figured out some of what's been going on...although I'm still working on it.

Sexuality is an adult feeling, but there's still a child-like component to it for me....the part of the little kid who, for whatever reason, got so scared of sex that she cut it out of her life completely.

Now I've been exploring this part of myself, finally finally, and it's been very gentle, and with lots of care. I've been holding the hand of that child, letting her know it'll be ok, while also coming into myself as a grown woman.

Doing something so over-the-top right now -- so vaudevillian and burlesque -- wouldn't have bothered me before, because that part of me was super protected. And it probably won't bother me in a year or two, because that part of me will be experienced and feeling strong and capable. But right now, that part of me is new, exposed, and vulnerable. So performing in public with an over the top sexuality feels inappropriate and weird.

I've figured it out.

Now I'm going to have a little talk with myself, to try and let that part of me know it's safe through all of this.

Man.

---

Here's one thing I've noticed, though, over all of this ...

I used to be hung up on two things. I was hung up on the fact that I wasn't having sex, and then I was also hung up about how "abnormal" I was.

I had a story in my mind of a "normal" sex life. It went like this: you lose your virginity in high school, or maybe college. You go to lots of parties. You spend your 20's having a few serious boyfriends, and then in between you also have a few (or a lot) of hookups.

You are carefree about sex, careful but unconcerned, open to adventure, etc. etc.

Then, after a few "real" relationships, you find "the one," and settle down in your late 20's / early 30's.

I felt like an oddball. But now, I see, I have lots of company.

There are plenty of people who remain virgins long past the "usual" age -- whatever that means.

There are people who don't realize that they're gay until their late 20's...or their 30's...or beyond.

There are people who marry very young, and have only had sex and relationship with one person. Those people often envy single people, and feel like they haven't had all the experience that "normal" people do.

Some people become widowed, and stay single and celibate for a long time. Some people choose to be celibate because: they are getting over a breakup, they are recreating themselves, they want to do other things.

The old ideal of virginity until marriage has changed, but the societal judgment of other people's sex lives has not.

Ultimately, when you finally come into your own sexuality is not as important as the doing of it. Whenever it is, there is with it a flowering and a new spring and a wonder.

Also, it's my birthday!

Hey, I'm 33! Woo hoo!

:-)

A New 'Problem with No Name'

When Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, she described the ennui and disappointment of suburban, educated women as "The Problem with No Name." Later, the name appeared -- sexism. And a word to combat that problem: feminism.

Now there is a different problem: we live in a totalitarian society. Well...sort of. That is to say: the thugs have taken over the country, voting is rigged, we are involved in pointless wars, etc....but it is not like totalitarianism of old.

In the olden days, people starved. Now, citizens are fed abundantly, on processed junk food. We have people who are both malnourished and overweight.

There are no bread lines, no rations. We have a surfeit of entertainment (most of it bad), a surfeit of fatty, sugary food (ditto). Pornography is everywhere, chocolatey snacks, high fructose corn syrup, and that high fructose corn syrup of the mind, television.

They torture, but they do not torture in secret, as they did in the past. No, they go on tv, and say, "Of course, we torture! What's wrong with that?"

Afterwards, the talking heads go on tv and say, "Yes, yes! What is so wrong about torture?" And then right afterwards, a discussion on some movie starlet's alcoholism. As if to say, gossip and movie stars...and the fact that our country tortures openly...these are equivalent, the torture is nothing, it's just entertainment, it's just another show, move along, there's nothing to see, new breathless gossip at 7:30, just after we discuss what "waterboarding" is.

The problem is that the new totalitarianism is now brought to you by the people who invented Hollywood.

They know that appearance is everything. So, if you're eating gruel and standing in breadlines and can't buy anything, you think, "My life is drab and grey, and my government is horrible. I want change."

But if you're eating The Latest New Thing! Creamy Mouth Feel! and you're watching The Latest New Thing! And you have some shiny new gadget -- no health insurance or savings, but at least one shiny fancy new etc. -- then it takes a lot longer for you to realize you are miserable.

Totalitarianism 2.0 has perfected many of the errors of the original totalitarianism,

Just as before, the oppression of the masses is not a bug, but a feature.

What to call this new society? Where we are oppressed, but constantly entertained, our sense dulled, everything reduced to complacently staring at one little box? And the dream of the day is to get a larger box? What to call this new society?

Success.

Processing...

I am reluctant to post these thoughts, these deep private thoughts about the close of a relationship. But perhaps it will help someone else out there, somehow. So I'll try.

Today, I've been in a great, weird coffee shop called Bouldin Creek Cafe. After a few hours, my friend E. walked in.

E. got married at the Kerrville Folk Festival last summer. That's like the pinnacle of hippie bliss, and I suspect it's a little dream of everyone who goes there. Just like, when I went to Andover, all of us sort of thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to get married at Cochran Chapel?"

Anyways, I asked him for some love advice. Here were some of my questions, and his replies:

Me: I just broke up with Chi Gong Trucker. A few years before that, I dated another man, Sam.

I really enjoyed being with Chi Gong Trucker, and there was a lot of passion there. But, I remember my time with Sam, some of the happiest times for me were when we were doing nothing at all. When we were just...washing the dishes, or something. I felt like, this is happiness, this is why I was born.

Then I said, 'I never felt that with Chi Gong Trucker. We did a lot of simple, domestic things -- and I really enjoyed talking with him -- but I didn't feel at peace, at rest. I always felt off-kilter, off-balance.'

My question was, does that mean one is the "right" kind of relationship? That, the kind where you feel great doing just nothing together is "the one," whereas the other, isn't?

E. said:

...he said, well, it depends.

He said that, it depends on what you want, what you need. "For me," he said, "that ability to just be with someone, and do nothing, and feel serene, is very important to me. But, while you weren't getting that from him, there were probably other places in your life where you were meeting, where things worked better than they worked with that other guy."

...A light went off for me. It was like, I had been thinking there was One Rule. The One Rule is not:
-- he's the right guy when you can just do nothing, and feel filled with a simple joy about it.
-- he's the right guy when you simply love the way he smells.
-- he's the right guy when you can have a great, witty conversation.

There is no One Rule. There is only your preference, your choice. What do you absolutely need in a partner? What are you content to get elsewhere? Perhaps you can get that pleasant stillness from your friend Sally, or from time by yourself. It all depends.

'You know those songs, you are my everything?' continued E. 'Nuh-uh. No one is your everything. And if you need someone to be your everything...then you need to develop a better relationship with yourself.'

I don't remember what prompted his second comment, but he also said, 'No two relationships are the same. You are your own, constantly changing universe, all the time! And so is everyone else. And we are all these universes, constantly bumping up against each other. And we've all got parts that are sharp and don't work together, but that's an opportunity to maybe work on those parts. "Hey, this is kind of pointy -- what's that about?" '

Again, I had an epiphany. For me, the great problem that developed between me and Chi Gong Trucker was that I told him I loved him, and he closed up.

Some things between us fit very well -- our senses of humor, our chemistry, our life journeys and stories. But this love / not-love thing, this tension without release, this felt like a failure. This was the pointy part, the not-fit that occurred.

But according to E's explanation, that not-fit was the place of greatest opportunity. On my end, for example, there has always been a near hysterical fear of not being worthy of love, that I did not have it and never will. Each time I am treated well, with sweet, simple consideration by a lover, I swell and grow and move and sometimes crash, like a wave. Like a wave that is erratic and joyful and scared to find that the moon has returned after all. The beloved moon.

So in love, I am terrified. But once I make it through, I find that terror is really the mirror of a desperate need couple with too many times of giving up.

Then when the love pulls away, it feels, for the short term, worse than ever. Like this: 'See? Ha, you thought you were going to have love -- psych! Just kidding. Loser. Can't believe you fell for it this time.'

And Chi Gong Trucker? What was going on for him? I don't really know. I do know that, previous to me, he was in a four-year relationship, with someone he'd hoped to marry. He didn't tell me about his fears, but surely that kind of heartbreak could give him some fears about love.

But, it goes back to two things:

1. There's no perfect love. So what do I need? And what am I willing to compromise on?

2. Show up every day.

boys, iterative properties thereof

I've now dated three incarnations of the same boy.

The first one was in high school, the second when I was 29, and the third was Chi Gong Trucker.

They all seem to have started out in the world super sensitive, very smart, extremely shy in social situations, and with a predisposition to alcoholism.

It's interesting to see what each one came up with, starting with some similar ingredients.

Guy number one started off extremely analytical. He created rules for everything. He was very disciplined, even as a young man. He was also very critical.

He eventually went to U Chicago -- super analytical head-people school. Then he became a music and pop culture critic, and a pretty well-respected one at that. He works in computers for his day job.

Guy number two also worked in computers. Guy number two had a huge number of rules for his life. He was also extremely uncomfortable in social situations -- until he took a drink. In fact, at a party, he seemed like a super together guy -- just lightly toasted, and smart, funny...etc.

Guy Number Two was probably an alcoholic, in that he drank often, and needed the alcohol to get through things. I didn't know that at the time, because he didn't drink when he was around me.

Guy Number Two had this critical, rule-thing that made things hard between us once we became a couple. I remember once he said about a song of mine, with something like anger, "I don't understand! It doesn't follow the rules! In music theory, it shouldn't work!

me: But, it sounds fine, doesn't it?

GNT: I know! That's what I don't understand! It's not supposed to work!

I didn't know theory; I just liked the way it sounded.

Guy Number Three was an alcoholic in recovery. He had made an art of studying Chinese practices such as qi gong and tai chi. He had rules about what to eat (macrobiotic, vegan); how to practice (chi gong every day, even while traveling); even how to shop for food.

I tend to think of rules as constricting, but for him, they were freeing. His life practices had allowed him to give up beer and cigarettes, and live in a balanced way.

I realized a few things from this:

1. Everyone's path is different. This seems obvious, but it's not. Pema Chodron, the Buddhist nun, says that everyone's meditation practice is different -- if you're naturally free, something regimented works for you. If you're too strict with yourself, a freeform approach is best. It's all about what puts you into balance.

Surely, the same can be said of life? I was brought up in an extremely hard, critical, regimented environment. And I was highly disciplined as a student. That's why I love being in places like Austin, and the Kerrville Folk Festival...come-as-you-are, everything's all right kinds of places.

But I did not spend my 20's smoking, drinking, etc. etc. Chi Gong Trucker did. So now he is very disciplined in his approach.

The funny thing is that from the outside, the results look the same. We live similarly frugal lifestyles, make economic goals and save for the future. We eat similar diets, are similarly chemical-free.

Still, there were times when I would think, "Could I possibly live with this man long-term? He is so methodical that it takes him 2 hours to cook dinner. When it's done, it's a masterpiece -- but 2 hours! Every time!"

I worried that I would be throwing off one set of rules, only to take on Chi Gong Trucker's.

2. I seem to end up in long-term relationships with men who are very controlled, methodical, and strict with themselves.

I grew up in chaos, and although I did not see violence, the threat of it was always there. ("Don't upset your father when he comes to town...you know what he's like, you never know what he might do.") So I'm drawn to men who are very in control of their emotions. Men who would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever so much as show anger.

These men make me feel safe and secure. At last, I let go with them. But then, that same control becomes an obstacle to further intimacy.


3. Men are attracted to my whimsical nature, but often critical of it, too.

The first two times, my boyfriend would be attracted to my free spirit, but then criticize it. He was trying to solve an argument in his head, the argument between control and whimsy. He did this by acting out one side -- control -- then dating whimsy, and then criticizing whimsy to see if she could fight back. But being part of someone else's internal fight is no fun.

This part of the cycle was broken with Chi Gong Trucker. He was always super positive about my music, and my ability to shine in social settings.

Chi Gong Trucker found this very attractive in me -- perhaps I was so not-shy that I helped him; I could be be not-shy for the both of us.

4. Could it be that the right partner for me is another type of man?

Perhaps now that I've had 3 relationships with this sort of man, I can feel that I am safe with many different men. And perhaps a more 'flawed' man -- without that same level of control -- would be a better partner for me, over the long run.

Hrmm. We'll see!