that endless widened mouth

Pic by Mick Murray

My parents came to visit this weekend. I felt like this was the first time they've gotten to see me as a bona fide adult. I even went shopping before they came so mom would have the yogurt she liked in the morning.

Every time I see them now I see more and more where parts of my personality and sense of humor come from. Does it mean you're mature when that doesn't make you resent those parts of yourself?

The Hanged Man

I'm a student! I signed up for my first pre-req last week. I'll be taking abnormal psych this summer, which means I'll be extremely annoying to most of my friends and family, dismissing anything they say that I don't want to hear with zingers like "Stop acting so bipolar!" and "You're just projecting!"

But I feel good about it. I honestly feel better than I have in quite a while. I think if you just know how to listen, you know when you're on the right path or not. When I became really versed in the Tarot I could see the cause-and-effect patterns I was living as they happened. It's like I began to see those patterns again in the past couple of months. I'm starting to feel more connected to the currents around me, without the feeling of jadedness that has traditionally come with these crucible periods in my life - let's just call them The Hanged Man periods, for descriptive simplicity.

Phew. Yoga kicked my ass tonight. I'm freaking exhausted. See you in the morning.

In a characteristically deep text-message exchange with Jess D.B. this morning over coffee and blurb writing, I made the statement "It's okay to grow up. It's not the end of your life, but its beginning, in a way."

She added, "Goddamn society for trying to tell us we're supposed to be slutty rock stars with coke habits."

I don't want to be tortured my whole life. I want to create but I want to be happy at the same time. I can be. I deserve to be.

My friend Angelo is 64, is a successful pathologist, has been married to his wife for over forty years, has two grown children with families of their own, has a beautiful house with an art studio on the top floor, has had his work shown in galleries in New York, bakes bread and makes his own premium wine, and still watches True Blood.

It is completely possible to be an artist without letting it kill you.

declare the pennies on your eyes

Somehow even though my income was well below the poverty level this year, I still owed the government money because a large portion of this was contract labor. Of course this is a symptom of America's failing to foster true individualism, one more kick to those who don't raise their wrists to the corporate tongue. The iconoclastic adolescent in me would have railed and raged over this. I'm just going to shrug and never do that again.

I guess I've reached a point where I have better things to do than fight authority.

Whiskey's good for a sore throat, right?

Cuts through all the phlegm.

Is it okay not to be a football hero, a rock star, a creative genius? Are we still worth something? Are we worth any less at all?

Is time's ultimate erasure its ironic blessing?

Do I need to shut up?

I'm in the Globe!

Here.