The Social Experiment

THIS IS VULGAR AND RUDE And angry, you've been warned.

                   So, why conform? Why do it? Only dull, conformists do nothing. I am not meant to blend in, nor do I wish to. 

                   I am consumed in anger this day. I did not need this anger, and I plan to write it right out of my system right now!

            

                   So, here we are, chilling at the local IKEA, getting breakfast, and sadly the IKEA has become one of our regular haunts, so much so that some of my friends have started joking that this is our big blue mansion. Now, please note, that when we add up all the receipts of purchases made at this exact IKEA since our homeless reign began 4 months ago, we have spent approximately $680.00 between bedding, storage gear and food. Just make note of that. I KEEP MY DAMN RECIEPTS BITCHES!!!! Challenge me, I dare you, I will take this shit to court! Having been an employee of IKEA, I know some of their dirty secrets and guess what, their treatment of people is very sad. Now, for the most part, my family and I do not LOOK homeless, and unless we state that we are to you, you wouldn't know it. We shower and wear clean clothes, go to work still and take care of our business, its just a great deal more complicated now. But back to the story...

                   IKEA, sells pizza in its smaller café, note this too, with your IKEA card you can buy a large cheese pie for $7, its decent actually, but apparently the people upstairs in the main restaurant are unaware of the fact that IKEA sells pizza. So a few days ago, while I was at work, the managers started harassing my family about having a pizza in the main restaurant and into today as well. I was just buying 4 breakfasts, and coffees and while in line the store manager came over and harassed my family yet again about "having outside food" but when we explained the pizza was from downstairs, in their own café... its like a wall showed up. I just bought us breakfast and they are harassing us. They are stupid because EVERY PURCHASE MADE ON YOUR IKEA CARD IS REGISTERED! so every purchase has a record for up to or longer than 1 full year. They are judging us for being homeless even though we are paying customers. I so tired of being judge by people. FUCK ALL OF YA'LL that think you are better than your fellow brother or sister next to you, if you don't know WHY, WHAT, WHERE AND HOW shit went down then you don't have a right to judge people on their circumstances. It's assholes like you that make people get so low they decide death is better. YOU SHOULD NEVER HIT A PERSON WHEN THEY ARE ALREADY DOWN, fake ass Christians and do gooders….especially when people are trying o get back up, we aren't drug users, we aren't alcoholics, we aren't exactly poor...we just don't have enough to get back into a place yet. I HAD CANCER, WE LOST EVERYTHING. That's the end of the damn story...real simple. 

I AM GONNA GO LISTEN TO HAMILTON AND GET INSPIRED. I need to chill and have a good cuppa.

The place where you begin...a poem of someone

              A random thought, a moment in passing, a dream, a song on the radio, something I see and wish we could share. I  find you are always there. Somewhere in my shadows. Some place beautiful , a world I have painted you into. A stranger with the power of a million stars, and a hundred oceans, you solidify my soul and bring me down to earth. . .all while elevating me to a higher belief. A skyscraper filled with my souls' most inner desires. You are the place where I begin. I feel it every time you are near.

             How strange to have such a feeling when someone else is so near. But what am I to you? You are so brilliant and shocking, so closed off and reflective,  I can't always see where you begin. I can't see what joy is in your soul or where your hopes and laughter come from. I long to wonder into the bless that is you, to walk with your hand in mine again , and to feel your touch, so that I can once again remember the place where I begin.

              But where are you in the mirror? Where is the place you begin? All I see of you is photographs of memories lost in a time where we laughed at passing trains and awkward cities. The mirror broke, then shattered that day you disappeared. That day our music faded. The arenas' glow stained in doubt and sadness. Can you rescue a dying celebration and bring it back to its glory days? I think the place you have gone to, I think there, that is the place where miracles can happen, and now that you are there, I think that that palace you now reside in, that is the place where you now begin.

            'Til we meet again, my dearest friend... I hope you know that you are still where I began.

GOAL!!!!!!

                  Few things can bring a city together the way a sports team can. There is a special power and comradery to sports that can bring out the best and worst out in all of us. Can you imagine if the world could come together the way it does when the Olympics are on? Or if we all treated each other as equals , how we all treat each other when our favorite team wins...we all become one, no longer "them and us", its all of us that won!

                 There is a pride that comes when these strangers take you by the edge of your seat and score one for the good of us all. It is like falling in love with the perfect person, floating on air and living on cloud nine, because its better than a shopping spree or the best hit of your favorite vice...that score is like a sounding trumpet from an angel … it brings us back to life. It overpowers all that has been bad and negative and takes our souls for a journey back to the bright side of the road. 


What a beautiful super power our athletes have.


               They can bring the world closer together, and make us all feel powerful and equal. Strong, and amazing. They give us a story of real life that can be better. They show us we can come from nothing and make a world of difference. It doesn't matter what sport you have an affinity for, or in what venue it may be in. It doesn't matter the team or the reason you are a fan, at the end of a day, an athlete, a team, can make us all feel like we have a solid home. A place of our own and a group that will protect this home we have built. 


            So, for this day, I have a strong "Thank You" to our athletes, and to all those have brought us all inspiration and hope, even in the darkest times. You are all amazing.


                   

                 

The day the fog came down the mountains and into the desert valley

Have you ever spent a few weeks trying to improve your world with an idea and then realise you have destroyed that idea of happiness because you talk too much? I have! Far too often than I care to admit, but at least I know who I am. This has been my last month.  On the 8th of December 2018, I started talking to someone that I really enjoyed talking to, but I feel I may have ruined those chances because I can't seem to ever get out of my own head. My demons rear their heads and my insecurities break me down, no matter how hard I try to stave them off. So this leads me into my current day...

After a night of prolific texting on an ancient cell phone, I have decided to not talk at all. It's been like walking into a fog. Then this morning broke upon me and the irony in it stole my eyes to the hills. The clouds were touching to desert floor, rolling down from Mt. Charleston and across the painted hills of Red Rocks Canyon, until the misty pillows of grey and white cotton tapped into the Las Vegas lights.

Now, I don't know if you have seen this phenomenon with your own eyes, but it's actually very rare to see fog in the desert. Rain happens, strikingly, very often, but fog normally only happens high in the hills, not often in the valley. As the world begins to warm up and the sun shines down beams of glistening heat in patches throughout the city, the darkness of the nights'  fog begins to lift back up to the abyss of the sea above us. The rains still tap dancing along the outer canyons , after having washed this Sin City of its sins so we can all start anew. A brand new day dawns and the city seems a bit more empty again today.

But, as I have so many times before, and with the inner strength of a hundred Native American women who have struggled with the world before me, I will take my gypsy soul for a new ride, and keep my open heart wide open and my eyes set on the bigger goals, like My Gramercy Goal, or getting back into the sports world, I was most proud of my accomplishments when I worked within the Olympics Training Center, and one never really knows when fortune will smile. More often than not, fortune smiles down on you when you least expect it to, so maybe today will be that day, the day when the sun beams down on me and mine.


           STAY POSITIVE, STAY FOCUSED
                 ALL THINGS WILL WORK OUT IN THE END, AT LEAST THATS WHAT THEY ALWAYS SAY.

When the Monsters rear the heads and cast their shadows

We all have them, the demons and ghosts in the closet. Sometimes they call to you in the night and tear at your dreams and your hopes. Sometimes they sneak in, in ways you never knew they could. Those dangerous creatures can cause you to outcry in pain, or to retreat in terror. They can cause you to make bad decisions or they can teach you a valuable lesson. 

Have you ever stopped and just walked up to your monsters and asked them "WHY? Why do you torture me, how do I get you to work on my behalf and make me better, instead of causing me to break myself down?"

I can honestly tell you, my demons are vast. They can stretch to my toddler years if I were to allow them to. Here's the thing...I have had long discussions with my dark souls, they have given me many sleepless nights, but many of them have given me the answers I longed for, when asked, they whisper from their darkness, "Girl, we know your secrets, your torments, you will not win all the things you wish for, but because you have asked these questions of us, we will give you the chance to be free of the pain we have caused you in the past...but you must know, we are always hiding behind you, and sometimes we will make you feel unsure, scared, or cause to question yourself... but you are free to let us go, since you have confronted us." 

The problem is, sometimes you become so used to those monsters that you almost miss them when they have left you. No matter how hard one may try to dissolve their past in lye , not all demons die, they just go hide somewhere else. 

So then one must ask, "How do I trust again? How do I stay silent when I wish to be loud? How do I make it right, when so much water has passed through the destruction that once was my bridge to the stars? How do I make the changes needed in order to gain that which I see as perfect? 

Do you know what? My ghosts tell me again, "because we are never gone, just inactive, we have given you all you will ever need to make the right choices, you just need the eyes to see which path to follow. For all the bad we have placed in your soul, we have placed just as much light. You just need to feel around until you find the light switch and when you find that switch, your eyes will be blinded by all that you hope for. 

We will give you all the tools you need to rebuild...just keep following your hands along the walls in your dark rooms, and when you find the switch, flip it on, and the world will be yours again. For ghosts cant be seen in the light, demons can't live there either, and everyone knows monsters hate the daylight. Stay strong, stay vigilant, and listen to your ghosts, because sometimes they will help you. Have faith in you."

In Collaboration

It's a funny thing when you try to write about yourself, it's a challenge. One often wants to see themselves one way and hates the reality of who they really are in the eyes of others, let alone the person in the mirror. So recently my dear friend Phil stepped in to be my antics writer, and to be fair, there are very few out in this world that know me as well as this guy, so who better to tell my stories, slightly more exaggerated than reality but in a fashion that certainly will tell my stories for the world to be entertained by. I have one of the wildest and most fulfilled lives. NO REGRETS, no matter rough it has gotten, especially recently. 

I have always gone down the road less travelled and if someone started the story off with "This may be a bad idea", well, I was always in. 

"Skydiving??? I'm gonna pee my pants, and probably cry, but okay, let's go flying!"

I tend to get myself into some strange situations on a regular basis, and I tend to get myself into trouble as often as possible. Not always for the wrong reasons. I do not and never will fear change. In fact I seek it like a gypsy soul travelling through time. 

Much like my Chinese Zodiac sign The Goat {Ram}, which directly states I often get off on the wrong foot with people, I tend to suffer foot in mouth issues on a regular interval ... but those that stick around will find, I am a loyal and loving soul who will never fail you. 

I do not always go about things in the common sense way, or even more rarely, the grounded in reality way, but I will always get the job done, and much like my Sisters in Xanadu, I am a MUSE, and I will show you the magic of the world. I hold a great deal of it in my heart. I radiate effectiveness when at my best and can concur ANY challenge I decide to set forth upon. 

Now, that being said, I do tend to travel rough and rugged roads to get places, but I like to stand out and be seen for what I am grand at. I think it is better to see the world as a child does, than as an adult. Adults too often forget to just stop and look at the world. Life gets in the way. 

With my current circumstance, being homeless and on an extremely high level of emotional overload, have often found myself in this exact issue. I think too much, too often and am being stuck in the adult world too long. Sometimes you just need to jump on the trampoline and get shit out of your system. 

One thing I have noticed and has brought extreme levels of serenity to me, even in these cold homeless days have been the sunrise. The sunrise in the dessert is something to truly be enjoyed over a cup of tea, and to just sit back and enjoy. It is easy to forget the world when you are watching hot air balloons rising into the early morning skies over Red Rock Canyon or Mt. Charleston. The sun highlighting all the deep levels and hues, and the brilliant designs in the rocks , as the canyon slowly unveils itself to the sun, the majestic balloons of multiple rainbows towering in the sky with no worries to be heard. As the stillness of the city is barely waking with slow growing blankets of business goers and casino workers as they scurry to and from their perspective locales.

 Life is easy in the mornings, when the world just starts to rise here.

(Like most writers, I have lost my train of thought...I will come back to this one someday and continue this rhetoric, but until then, I hope those that do read this, should maybe take a moment themselves, to just go outside, no matter the weather, and just be silent , listen to the wind, smell the outdoors, hear the sounds that surround you...its beautiful out there.)