Signs

A few days ago I bought tickets to see "Twilight" screen at the Castro Theater with live hilarious commentary by Doug Benson, Greg Behrendt, Michael Ian Black, Zach Galifianakis, & Patton Oswalt. When I mentioned it to my mom, she said she was proud of me for going alone. I hadn't really thought of being publicly alone as something especially brave. I just wanted a good laugh at the end of a long week.

And, as I may or may not have mentioned here in my sporadic posts, I do most things alone out here. In some ways it makes me feel very independent. In some ways it makes me feel a little odd. But having fun alone is not really something I use to define a person as brave.

Today, though... Yeah, it was too much. I cabbed over to the Castro, & the line out the theater was wrapped around the entire fucking building. It was completely bonkers. But I stood in the will call line nonetheless, listening to girls on the phone, voicing their displeasure with the length of the wait all too loudly. It was a mass gathering of people making the same joke over and over about being confused about which will call line was the right line.

Maybe I was just in the wrong mood. I usually love being out and about in the city, people-watching. But after this past week, I think today I was meant to be a house cat. 

Still, I went inside the theater & looked for a seat. It was completely packed, roaring loud, barely lit. I resorted to checking the balcony for seats. I asked one woman if the seat beside her was taken. She said it was empty but it was broken. She kept talking to me, making some joke about the seat, but... I think it was at that point that I decided to bail. 

One thing I've been really struggling with this month in San Francisco is loneliness. For the first few months after I moved out here, it was really good to be alone. I needed to clear my head. I needed to move away from the past. I needed to get out of the familiar. 
But to quote the eternal wisdom of the Spice Girls: "Too much of something is bad enough... and too much of nothing is just as tough." 
Ever since the beginning of 2013, I've found myself wishing I just had friends out here to blow off steam with... people here to remind me that a bad day can get better. I've gotten pretty good at picking myself up when I'm low, but that doesn't change the fact that having compadres out here would be a welcome support beam.

Part of the reason why I just put my notice in at my job is that I have no social life out here. I work full time & have an hour commute home. I barely get any writing done, let alone engage in activities where I could actually meet people or interact with non-family members. 

I spoke briefly with one of my co-workers about this. She told me that it's not unusual in our line of work to lose a social life completely. The main difference between her & me, though, is that she's actually working toward a career that she wants. Me? I don't want to be administrative assistant for the rest of my life. I don't mind doing it, but not at the expense of creative endeavors. I didn't move out here just to lose myself the same way I did in Texas.

So, I was standing in the Castro, waiting for my bus in the cold. The sunset was actually really beautiful. The bittersweet part - the reason I'm not really complaining here - is that I do live in a majestically beautiful city. I just can't shake the feeling that I'm completely getting this wrong. That I'm repeating the same mistakes over and over. Moving in circles instead of moving forward. I felt like Joel in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," without the comfort of knowing my general confusion is the direct result of recently having my memory erased.

I ditched work today. Took a train out to Montauk. I don't know why. I'm not an impulsive person. I guess I just woke up in a funk this morning. It's goddamned freezing on this beach. Montauk in February. Brilliant, Joel. 

Haight Street was just as packed with people at the Castro area had been, but at least it's very close to home. I walked into the Booksmith (which is no Half Price Books, but it's my go-to bookstore out here). To me, bookstores have the calming, comforting effect of churches or yoga studios. Just being in there grounded me.

While browsing, I came across a book called Everything Is Its Own Reward by Paul Madonna. Apparently he's this cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and from what I can tell, his work is really remarkable. Being that I just blew a chunk of change on a movie event I didn't even sit through this weekend, I felt compelled to put the book back on the shelf after seeing that it costs nearly $30.00. That's SF for you.
Still... His images of San Francisco paired with the simple poetry on the pages... I don't know. I guess I saw my own San Francisco experience on those pages.
Actually, I may fork over the cash and grab that book for myself after all. Writing about it is talking me into it.

When I got home, I finished the movie I had started this morning: "Jeff, Who Lives at Home." I'd never heard of this movie before today, and I just sort of selected it on Netflix at random. I didn't even read the description.
I liked it well enough. It's not a particularly exceptional movie. But it was the right movie for me to see today of all days.

It got me thinking about my own "Kevin." Since the move to SF, Prince has come up over and over in my life. Prince is everywhere. Prince's song showed up on a license plate right in front of me. Prince came up when I went to see Amanda Palmer at the Fillmore. Prince showed up on a carousel horse on my way to work. Prince came out with a new song recently. Prince Prince Prince. What does it mean? I don't know. Haven't the foggiest.

There were also some very strange coincidences with James Blake this past week.

All of my synchronous occurrences appear to be music-related.

I've been having really vivid, sort of haunting dreams, too, about real people and real situations.

Oh! Also - Come to think of it, the other day I watched "I Heart Huckabees," which is of course along those same lines of signs & coincidences & synchronicity. I'm definitely somewhere between the reluctant belief in "universal interconnectivity" and Caterine Vauban's resolve into chaotic meaninglessness.

To sum it up - I guess I'm experiencing some growing pains. I at least feel that I'm getting back on track, slowly but surely.

Hopefully by the end of next month I'll have some very good news.

xoxo - Amanda Rachel

The Zen of Sports

from December 9, 2012
 
I had a bit of a wake-up call yesterday. 
I needed something new. Something different. Something small to shake up the routine.

I put on my running shoes & headed out into a very chilly morning. After about the three-minute sprint it took for me to get out of the familiarity of my neighborhood, I was compelled to slow down and start walking. Taking the MUNI is a great way to see more of the city, but I realized today how much I have been missing.

My earbud headphones crapped out on me a month ago, and there's no use in trying to keep my big, clunky headphones on while I run. The concept of jogging without music is new to me. I never understood how people got through treadmill sessions without music to make it less awful. 

But the thing is, to me, treadmills are awful. Tracks are awful. They're awfully boring. Even walking the same beautiful, tree-lined trails with the dog every day got to be boring.

Jogging/walking for the sake of exploring was what turned my little 20-minute plan into an hour-long adventure.

Being alone with myself was exactly what I needed. I love music, and I try to listen to as much of it as I possibly can on any given day. Nevertheless, sometimes I need to not have other peoples' great poetry in my head. Especially when I'm ugly and sweaty and people in cars are gawking.

On foot, I didn't actually end up very far from home. But it was the best thing I could have done for myself. 

Julia Cameron talks some in The Artist's Way about the zen of sports. She says, "The goal is to connect to a world outside of us, to lose the obsessive self-focus of self-exploration and, simply, explore... Exercise teaches the rewards of process. It teaches the sense of satisfaction over small tasks well done."

A lot of this is taught through yoga as well - The idea that moving through yoga poses teaches a person how to endure uncomfortable or difficult situations in life off the mat. 

More from Julia: "We learn by going where we have to go. Exercise is often the going that moves us from stagnation to inspiration, from problem to solution, from self-pity to self-respect. We do learn by going. We learn we are stronger than we thought. We learn to look at things with new perspective. We learn to solve our problems by tapping our own inner resources and listening for inspiration, not only from others but from ourselves. Seemingly without effort, our answers come while we swim or stride or ride or run."

xoxo - Amanda Rachel
December 9, 2012