77.  I still feel – even after ten years – that bedtime is the work of evil spirits, sent to leave me broken and begging for mercy.   Every. Single. Time.

78.  Melatonin was sent by the goddess to make it all okay.

79.  For the love of all things good and holy, listen to my friend Marybeth when she says  “Less Talk.  More Do”.

80.   I should probably start listening to Marybeth**

81.  The world would be a better place if everyone wore pretty lingerie.

82.  And even better if people matched their underwear to their outerwear.  Try it…you’ll see.  My lingerie drawer?   A color coordinated rainbow of beauty.  Truth.

83.  Even after four years of shared custody – especially after four years of shared custody – not having my children with me every day still feels intrinsically wrong.  It’s a little slice of broken heart that never leaves me.  Accepting that this is just so makes it a little easier to bear.

84.  It can take a while to find your groove. If you give it enough space and you are on the right path, the ease will always find you.

85.  The only way to know if you’re on the right path is to keep on trekking.   One foot in front of the other, all the way home.

86.  I am completely and totally addicted to chocolate and refined sugar.

87.  Being almost entirely vegan does NOT mean you are automatically healthy.

88.  When I find myself at social gatherings, unable to eat any of the food, I deal with my resentment by smugly tallying up how many extra empty calories you omnivores are consuming.

89.  Andrea Gibson is still god to me.  I see no reason to pretend otherwise.

90.  And Brandi Carlile is my goddess (and no, six concerts in four years is NOT excessive).

91.  And believing she will marry me one day is NOT delusional.

92.  I don’t confuse your/you’re and know the difference between there/they’re and their, but semi-colons may be the death of me.

93.  Finding out that Betsy Johnson bras in a particular size are the absolute perfect fit for me in every way shape and form AND finding out that they are carried at Last Chance*** for $3.97 was a bit like finding religion (and having a threesome with Andrea Gibson and Brandi Carlile).

94.  Okay, maybe not quite that good.

95.  Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter.  By the spoonful.  (refer to #86/87)

96.  It is 100% possible to get utterly and completely burned out doing something you utterly and completely love.

97.  If this thing happens to be the basis of your livelihood this creates a bit of a problem.

98.  Sometimes that means you’ve gotta get over yourself and just Get. Shit. Done.  (for clarification, refer to #79/80).**

99.  Hula hoops are not just for children.  Learning that will leave you black and blue and completely exhilarated in a way you have not been in years.

100. A circle of women may just be the most powerful force known to humanity.  If you have one, embrace it.  If you need one, seek it.  If you find one, for the love of all that is good and holy, dive in.  Hold on.  Love it up.  Get naked.  Let them see you.  Let them hold you.  Let your  reluctant tears fall.  Let yourself rise fierce and love gentle.  You will be changed.   The very fabric of your being will be altered by this, if you allow it.   Please, please allow it.

{To my circle (you know who you are) this year would not have existed in the form that it did without you.  I would not have cracked and grown and unfolded and relinquished and laughed and cried and loved the same without you.  My profound gratitude, my unending love, my heart and body and soul – they are yours.}

**In some cases these lessons will be continuing in 2012.
*** If Andrea is my god and Brandi is my goddess, Last Chance is my mecca and my holy grail.

Find Part One Here
Find Part Two Here
Find Part Three Here 

“Love isn’t always magic.
But if I offered my life to the magician, if I told her to cut me in half so tonight
I could come to you whole and
ask for you back would you listen?
For this dark alley love song,
for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies.
I wrote too many poems in a language
I did not yet know how to speak,
but I know now it doesn’t matter how well
I say grace if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat,
So this is my wheat field.
You can have every acre, love.”

“I loved you the same way that I learned how to ride a bike: Scared… but reckless with no training wheels or elbow pads so my scars can tell the story of how I fell for you. You see, I’m not really a love poet. But if I was I’d write about how I see your face in every cloud and your reflection in every window, you see I’ve written like a million poems hoping that somehow maybe someway you’ll jump out of the page and be closer to me because if you were here, right now, I would massage your back until your skin sings songs that your lips don’t even know the words to.”

26.  I mostly write to myself.
27.  If I sound particularly authoritative in a blog post it actually means I’m giving myself a stern talking to.
28.  Sometimes I actually listen.  Often I do not.**
29.  If you are going to spout off statements like “I’m not a jealous, insecure person” it’s a good idea to test yourself by putting yourself in a jealousy/insecurity-inducing situation first.  Just sayin’.
30.  Lip service is easy.  Living up to those words is hard.
31. Right/Wrong.  Black/White.  Expand/Contract.  Life is rarely that simple.
32.  But sometimes it actually is.
33. Yes.  This is confusing.  Life is often confusing.  Get used to it. **
34.  If someone says you’re too much for them they are likely not near enough for you.
35.  Mamalove is the stuff magic is made out of.
36.  Sex is natural. Sex is good.  Not everybody does it.  But everybody should.
37.  And also; You’ve gotta have faith, faith, faith-uh.
38.  Word to George Michael.
39.  One way or another, we all grow toward the light.
40.  No can be a profoundly powerful, sexy, badass word.
41.  People are not always what they say they are.  It will always  hurt when you discover what lies below the façade.
42.  This makes it tempting to write off humanity.  Don’t.  Pollyanna was onto something.
43.  Be your own guru, find your own mountaintop – but don’t forget your stilettos.
44. You can do that thing that scares you.  Even if you tremble.  Even if your voice shakes.  Do it anyway.
45.  Fear likes a good lap dance every now and then.
46.  Actually, to hell with that; sometimes fear needs to lap dance for YOU (stuff a few bills in her G-string, then sit back and enjoy one hell of a ride).  A mechanical bull might also be useful.
47.  Comfort zones and creativity do not go hand and hand and the muse is one hell of a dominatrix.
48.  This means that it’s possible that the crazier your life gets, the more brilliant you will become.
49.  This is not an excuse to embrace the crazy.   Just a reminder to make friends with the edge.
50.  Doodles are magic.  Or they can be, if you let them.

Find Part One Here
Find Part Three Here
Find Part Four Here

**In certain instances further life learning will be necessary in 2012.

My official 2012 anthem.  I’m feeling rather invincible this year, if I do say so myself.

Lyrics

“And if you find it hard to follow me
If I loose you in my creative stream
Than you only got to raise your eyes
And see me fly

Don’t tell me that I won’t
I will
Don’t tell me that I’m not
I am
Don’t tell me that my master plan
Ain’t coming through

Don’t tell me that I won’t
I will
Don’t tell me how to think
I fell
Don’t tell me cause I know what’s real
What I can do”

“But I know she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby,
because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix.
Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix.
But that’s what the rain boots are for.
Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. “ 
{My rocking new friend Jill blew me away with a hard cover printed copy of this book for Christmas.  I will treasure it always}

Lyrics

Erin McKeown is some kind of magic…..

I’ve always figured that if I’m going to be a copycat, I might as well focus my efforts on emulating the cool kids (copying regular folks is clearly not a good use of time).  And  dude, the cool kids don’t come much cooler than Colleen Wainwright (raising  $61,517 in 50 days for a worthy charity AND shaving her head makes her an easy favorite for coolest-woman-in-the-history-of-the-blogosphere-ever).

Since I love Coleen’s “100 things I learned in…”  series and I’m feeling even more reflective that usual (this having been one hell of a year to reflect on); I decided I’d take my self-indulgent ramblings and my love of lists to a new level.

I give you my very own 100 in 2011 list (in four easily digestible, 25 item, chunks).  I feel cooler already.

100 Things I Learned in 2011 | Part One:

1. If we are at a party and you use the words pejorative, succinct and superfluous in one conversation, I will end up sitting in your lap and nuzzling your neck*.
2. Words turn me on.
3. Ditto that for people who know how to use them.
4. Sometimes I think I might need slightly stricter criteria.**
5. The road from lust to trust is a long and twisty one indeed.
6. You may not make it all the way to the end of every story.
7. Knowing what you need but not insisting on it is a recipe for disappointment.
8. Tightly held expectations are also a recipe for disappointment.
9. Therefore; the secret is to know what you need, be sure to insist on it and then not expect it to be delivered.  Or something like that.**
10.  Ego bruises seem to heal faster than others, but they hurt like a sonofabitch in the interim. Adele helps.
11.  There really is no place like home.
12. After you’ve given up dairy, going veggie is easy-peasy.
13. The otherwise effortless twenty-pound weight loss makes it a complete no-brainer.  Consuming cow flesh or rocking a bikini?  Hmmm….no contest.
14. Exercise really can change you.
15. I do my best writing while I run.
16. Unfortunately I seldom remember any of it.
17. This has taught me much about impermanence and non-attachment.
18. I still come home and try to frantically scribble out all the brilliance before it escapes my brain.
19. Clearly this is another thing for me to work on in 2012**.
20. I still just want to make pretty things.
21. It’s all too easy for me to stop owning it; this year it was often like I just had it on lay-away.
22. Pinterest is the most delicious time-suck ever invented.
23. You will not always get picked for the team.
24. This will always sting just as much as it did when you were 12.
25. We’ve all got dragons to slay.

*My apologies to the cute boy at Jill’s New Years Party.  While your vocabulary and your lap were lovely, the nuzzling may have been a bit much.
**In certain instances further life learning will be necessary in 2012.

Find Part Two Here
Find Part Three Here
Find Part Four Here

It may be true that music can save your mortal soul, but it’s Spoken Word that has my heart.

During the hungriest periods of my life, it has been poetry that fed me.   First as a reader, consuming poem after poem like a starving woman. Rumi, Hafiz, Erica Jong, Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde.  They were friends and teachers and guides.  I learned about love and sex and feminism and mysticism and how the language of poetry transcends language and centuries and gender.

Then I got over that small voice inside that kept saying “you can’t write poetry” and I started writing poetry.  The words that flowed healed parts of my heart, allowed me to claim my truth, and answered questions I didn’t know I was asking.

It  wasn’t until I discovered Slam Poetry/Spoken Word that I found my home.  I thought I knew all there was to know of poetry until the night my dear one played me Daughter by Alix Olson.  The hairs on my arms stood up and I felt my throat get tight and my eyes were wide and I thought, “What the HELL is this?”  and then, “I must have more”.

Performance poetry is like sex and hot showers and spooning in the dark. It’s the fierce love of a mother and the broken heart that refuses to heal.  It’s the kindest thing I’ve ever done and the meanest thought that’s ever crossed my mind.  It’s my darkness and my light and my very humanity expanding before my eyes and ears.    It’s Andrea Gibson and Buddy Wakefield and Sarah Kay and Rudy Francisco and Big Poppa E.   It’s feminism and the queer community and social commentary and politics and a spotlight on racism.   It’s hard core fucking and the most innocent love and it’s the agony of being left behind.  And it all plays out in the voices and faces of real people – not just names on a page but real, breathing people who give themselves so fully that you can’t help but be moved.

I’m going to start sharing some of my favorites with you on Sunday each week, because this is far too good to keep to myself.

{Phoenix Peeps: We have our own amazing spoken word night  Homebase Poetry Open Mic - 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month at the Wyndham downtown.   I’ll see you there.}

“This is for the hard men, the hard men who want to love but know that it won’t come.
For the ones who are forgotten, the ones the amendments do not stand up for.
For the ones who are told to speak only when you are spoken to and then are never spoken to. 
Speak every time you stand so you do not forget yourself.
Do not let a moment go by that doesn’t remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.
Do not settle for letting these waves settle and the dust to collect in your veins”