#watched my surrogate grandfather die in front of me

[jamiesansible]

Today I went to the river and carded some wool, listening to the water fall over the stones.

The last few months have been really hard for me. I haven’t had the mental space to even think about making things. But I’m taking some time off work to rest and will try to live life at a slower pace.

[fred-frederator-studios]

Arlen Schumer: The Frederator Interview  

Arlen Schumer is the designer and illustrator of our Frederator Fredbot, the robot that’s inspired so many variations.

You read that right.

We all hear so much from fans about our “red robot” that I thought the time was right for Arlen to design something for us again, 20 some-odd years after his first.

So here it is! The 2019 Frederator New Year’s poster. (You can see some of the poster’s development work here.)

Arlen’s not only a fantastic artist/designer, but he’s a prolific pop culture historian with some great books and essays to his name, and a thriving lecture series on some of the famous (and even more unsung heroes) of comic book art.

How did Arlen Schumer come to Frederator? And how did Arlen come to art, specifically, comic book art? As you can read below, he and I have known each other and worked together for several years, even pre-Frederator.

All this and more, in the first Frederator interview of 2019.

Hi Arlen. When did you start drawing? 

I grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a great place in the early-mid ‘60s, with equal parts bucolic American suburbia and small-town Rockwellian, pop culture ambiance—everything from an uber-Jewish deli like Petak’s to Plaza Toy & Stationery, which had a classic 20th Century soda fountain: it was there, after school, that I read all the comic books of my youth while drinking chocolate egg creams (with a pretzel log, natch). And because Fair Lawn, like all of New Jersey, was in the shadow of New York City, I grew up on all that pop culture through television, not just the 3 networks but the 3 local stations that showed everything from the old Universal monster movies to The Little Rascals to The Three Stooges to the George Reeves Superman TV series.

One of those local TV shows, a children’s show called Diver Dan, which was filmed in black & white to look like it took place underwater—the actor, in a deep-sea diver’s suit (with a helmet that never revealed his face, so he was like a superhero), walked slowly like he was underwater, surrounded by pop fish hanging by wires—triggered my interest in drawing, as I watched my brother draw him first, and copied him. I’ve been drawing ever since!

What was the first comic you fell in love with?

Giant Superman Annual #7 (Summer ’63): Not only is its cover the hands-down greatest of all the great multiple-panel Superman Annual covers that Superman Artist of the Baby Boom Generation (and my first favorite artist) Curt Swan drew in the ‘60s—not only does it feature perhaps the greatest single Superman figure ever rendered by Swan (in pencil; head of DC coloring Jack Adler did the hand-painted grey wash tones over it) or any Superman artist, before or since—but it is the first comic book cover I can recall ever seeing, when I was five years old, in summer camp that year. What an image to come into the wonderful world of comics by!

What was your first professional job as an artist?

My summer job between freshman and sophomore years at art school (Rhode Island School of Design), creating black & white line illustrations for a t-shirt silkscreening company in Fair Lawn.

I know that you count Neal Adams as a primary mentor? Were there any others?

Neal Adams was one of two Gods of Comic Book Art in the late-‘60s: the other was Jim Steranko, who was described as the Jimi Hendrix of comics, because Steranko’s career was as meteoric in its rise, and as short-lived. Though Steranko didn’t die in ’70 like Hendrix, that’s when he left Marvel Comics after less than 4 years of explosive and experimental works—and, like Hendrix, his impact on both the art form and its audience was in converse proportion to the relatively small amount of work he turned out. In particular, Steranko’s design sense and typographic talents were a tremendous influence on my choosing to major in Graphic Design at RISD.

It was sometime in my junior year there that I must’ve written Steranko a fanboy letter, gushing about those very things—and much to my shock and surprise, he wrote me back, inviting me to come see him in his home/studio in Reading, PA! So I took a bus from Providence, RI to Reading, and spent the day with Steranko—except I barely remember a thing about it! Why? Because I think I was having a Dr. Strange-like ectoplasmic out-of-body experience the whole time I was with him—I, a fan, spending quality time with one of the Twin Gods of Comics!!!

He wanted me to leave RISD and begin working with him as his apprentice! I couldn’t believe what he was offering me; I remember the bus ride back to Providence in a daze, feeling the utter cliché come to life of my future like the road in front of me: I could either stay on the main highway of getting my college degree, or take that exit ramp and join the circus! What do you think I did?

I stayed in school and got my diploma a year later. Had it been freshman year, maybe I would have left; but not when I was a year away from matriculating—not to mention honoring my mom’s sacrifice of putting me through school financially. But I’ve remained in touch with Steranko ever since, and feel both fortunate and unique, that I am the only fanboy who grew up to not only work for one of the Twin Gods of Comics (I ended up working for Neal Adams 3 years after I graduated from RISD), but almost worked for the other, too!

And then, Fred, there was—YOU! You were one of the first great professionals I met/interviewed with after I graduated from RISD and moved to New York City, when you were still at Warner-Amex having just created the MTV always-changing logo [actually it was Manhattan Design; I was the company creative director]. You impressed me as someone who was “real,” who didn’t hide behind a phony “professional” mask. We stayed in touch after that, and you gave me my first real breakout illustration job when I went solo as a freelancer a few years later, designing and illustrating an animated 30-second spot for a radio station, working with Colossal Pictures in LA (who later became Pixar)—and a NY metro-area billboard to go along with it!

Since then, we’ve done a bunch of great things together, up to and including this Frederator poster! And I’ve watched you wade through your own career waters as a multi-dimensional leading man, wearing so many different hats over the years—the decades—which has inspired me to cultivate my own Renaissance Man attributes. I’ve always described you to others as a mensch, the ultimate New York pro who’s got a great big beautiful heart an d soul to match his creative mind. If I could ever be described that way one day, I would consider that to be the highest compliment I could ever receive!

How about the mentors that you never met?

My father died when I was only four months old; my mother raised my older brother (by a year and a half) and I herself. Neither of my grandfathers was alive, and, though I had a handful of uncles, I would only see them a few times a year at family gatherings. So I had to find surrogate father figures elsewhere—and I found them in the American Pop Culture I grew up with in the’60s, in roughly this chronological order: Sean Connery’s James Bond, my first idealized masculine role model (the first movie I ever recall seeing, when I was around four-five years old, was Dr. No, the first Connery Bond, at a drive-in theater); Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling, a pop prophet of moral righteousness in the vast television wasteland, looking cool as all get-out in those incredibly tight TZ introductions—all of my artworks based on the series can be seen as my ways of honoring Serling’s legacy as a son would honor his father’s; and the superheroes in comic books, first and foremost Superman and Batman (the Yin-Yang of the genre), pseudo-paternally teaching me right from wrong, good from evil, and standing up and fighting for one’s beliefs. These are the things I suppose sons learn from the fathers, as well as their religious and academic authority figures. But “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Comic Books”!

You've published a few pop culture histories, and given countless lectures on various great, neglected figures. What got you started as an historian?

I don’t know how any artist in any genre or medium, if they truly love their work, cannot also be equally-interested in the history of that art form. When Keith Richards plays any of his classic Rolling Stones licks, he knows which black bluesman he nicked it from; filmmakers like Spielberg and Scorsese know the history of film like they know their own films. And the history of comics is as rich in artistic triumphs (and personal tragedies) as the histories of the other major 20th Century art/entertainments: film, television, popular music and rock and roll.

When I was a senior at RISD, for my degree project, I toyed with designing an exhibit of comic book art, and when I went looking for a theme, the only subject that seemed both worthwhile of my passion for the material and deep enough for the demands of the assignment was one based on the comics I grew up with in the 1960s, and the artists who drew them, the twin founts from which I drew the inspiration to become an artist. Though I never did that exhibit (I ended up doing a giant autobiographical photo-comic instead), I kept the ideas and images that I gathered, in the hopes that one day I’d use them in some other form. Many of those 1979 layouts are the same ones I’ve used in my book published in 2003, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art; its introduction, in which I place the images and ideas encountered throughout the book in a socio-political, historical framework, is composed of essentially the identical concepts from my aborted exhibit idea.

The idea to do a book instead on this period of comic book history goes back even further, to 1970, when Jim Steranko, on the heels of his amazing barnstorming stint at Marvel Comics, wrote, designed and published the first of his twin-volume History of Comics, which remain the best books of their kind, and were—and continue to be—a source of inspiration. Except they were about The Golden Age of Comics (circa 1938-1950), the period Steranko grew up with and was affected by, not The Silver Age of Comics (circa 1956-1972) that I, and the entire Baby Boom Generation, was turned on to.

Steranko himself might have been inspired by the first great book about comic book history, Jules Feiffer’s 1965 The Great Comic Book Heroes, even though it’s more of a handful of wonderfully written, witty essays on specific Golden Age superheroes Feiffer followed avidly as a boy, accompanied by reprints of the origins or earliest adventures of those heroes. Feiffer may not have realized what it was like to be an 8-year old comic book fan in 1966 and hear that there was actually a book in the Fair Lawn public library about comics!

How did you come to design the Fredbot?

When you asked me to come up with my take on the classic Japanese-influenced sci-fi trope of the giant-monster-attacks-the-tiny-people back in 1997 for your first Frederator brand image—but make it a robot, and make it look like you [I don’t remember this last part], to boot—I immediately thought of the animated robot Gigantor, one of the first Japanese anime to reach American shores in the wake of the Batman TV series in 1966. Once I started drawing my version of Big G, it was a no-brainer to add the distinctive Seibert horned-rim eyeglasses, topped by the equally-distinctive Seibert eyebrows, and voila! Fredbot!

OK, I know you love Bruce Springsteen. How come?

I believe there are Four Pillars of Rock & Roll, in roughly chronological order: Elvis, Dylan, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix, representing the greatest voice, lyrics, band, and guitar; hence, The Four Pillars.

Like Elvis, Bruce is a singular, dynamic presence with a commanding vocal power; his lyrics and songs have stood the test of time and made him the only one of the many “new Dylans” to actually live up to the label, living a true, real rock & roll life while writing it down, The Great American Novel but on records, great American songs chronicling not only his life and career, but that of the postwar generation that has come of age with him, timeless anthems like “Born To Run,” “Thunder Road” and “Born in the USA,” just to mention three of his greatest hits; with The E Street Band, Bruce captured the sheer joy, enthusiasm and positive energy of the early Beatles; and, like Hendrix and any of the other guitar gods—Clapton, Page, Van Halen, The Edge—Bruce has played searing, soulful, melodic leads with the best of them.

But Bruce isn’t one of those rock & roll pillars—he’s the rock & roll roof built over them, the complete rock & roller, putting it all together as no one has before. Bruce Springsteen is, quite simply, the promise of rock & roll...delivered.

His uncompromising and unparalleled creativity, body of work, attitude, and performance and work ethic have been an inspiration to me since I first heard the song “Born to Run” over a tinny AM car radio when I was 17 years old in the summer of ’75. Especially when I lecture, I employ what I call the “Springsteen Performing Style,” which is to give your 110% all to your audience, whether it’s 10 people or 10,000 people.

Bruce is also a bonafide moral leader for our age, doing what a true leader should be doing: living his life by example, and using it to inspire and exhort others to do the same.

He is the true President of the United States.

Thanks for the interview Arlen. And of course, thanks for the Fredbot! Happy New Year!

[atheistj]

open-ended ask bc I know you have the thoughts and we haven't talked about it in a while: tell me your thoughts on thorin oakenshield. personally I feel like people try to way too hard to redeem him for the bad things he did and that it's okay that he was kind of an asshole, you can be an asshole and yet still have good qualities. but anyway what do you think

I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to send me this ask…and now I’ve been given permission to ramble on about Thorin. So thank you for that.

First, let me point out that I’ll mostly be talking about movie Thorin. I think he’s an overall faithful adaptation of book Thorin, but they just expand on him a whole lot more. So there’s more to discuss with movie Thorin.

Thorin is a tragic character. That’s pretty obvious when you watch all three movies. He grows up a prince, watches his grandfather become obsessed with his treasure, loses his home, loses his grandfather then his father, then he goes on this quest to reclaim his home, succumbs to the obsession with gold that his grandfather had, loses his nephews, and dies. Thorin has very few moments of happiness in The Hobbit. He’s compared to Aragorn a lot, but Aragorn, while he had to suffer his own losses, had a lot more joy in his life. He had Arwen, a surrogate family, he had his mother for much of his life, and he got his happy ending. Thorin didn’t get any of that. And I think that’s important to point out, because much of what makes Thorin so sympathetic is how awful his life was, and how little happiness he ever got to experience. 

Thorin’s story ultimately is one of redemption. While he had nothing to redeem himself for at the beginning of the first movie, his actions over the course of the movies show him to be deeply flawed and in need of redemption. And because this is Tolkien, the only way to redeem yourself is to die (hi Boromir). Thorin generally doesn’t treat Bilbo very well because he doesn’t think he has any value. He does change his mind and apologizes to him at the end of the first movie for how he treated him. That on its own is a big show of growth. But unfortunately, even though he shows great development in that scene, he only gets worse from there.

Even though he gets worse, it never comes across as character regression. Thorin gets worse along the journey because they’re getting closer and closer to Erebor, and he’s desperate to reclaim it. That’s why his behavior worsens, because of how badly he wants to reclaim his home, not because he’s a bad person. One of Thorin’s best scenes does a lot to explain his behavior. When they first enter Erebor, and he’s so emotional about being home again. He missed Erebor so desperately and wants nothing more than to make it what it was again.

So his behavior continues to suffer. He falls to dragon sickness, he hesitates to go into Erebor to help Bilbo even though Bilbo is alone against a DRAGON, when he does go to find Bilbo, he threatens him with his sword. This is all really bad, but it stems from, what he believes, is a noble purpose. And again, the dragon sickness affects his actions.

Probably the worst thing Thorin did, which he should be criticized for, is, well, trying to kill Bilbo. This scene can be sugar coated at times, but let’s be real. He grabbed Bilbo and held him against the edge of a steep drop. Yes, it’s unlikely that he would have gone through with it, but that doesn’t excuse it. He treats Bilbo terribly in this scene, calling him a “rat” and a “thief.” He has completely fallen to dragon sickness at this point, and also consumed by trying to hold onto Erebor, and he does a horrible thing in this scene. It’s in this scene, really, where we knew he was going to have to undergo a great moment of redemption.

I think the most important moment of Thorin’s redemption is when he overcomes the dragon sickness. His death is a big deal, yeah, but he’s able to break through the dragon sickness because he realized that what he was doing was terrible. I LOVE the moment when he throws the crown off his head. He’s almost disgusted with himself. And then he leads the Company into battle, and they win that battle because of him. Thorin overcoming his dragon sickness really did save everyone.

So I gotta talk about his death scene while I’m talking about his redemption. It’s very important that he apologizes to Bilbo. His redemption wouldn’t have been complete without that. He tells him he’s sorry, and recognizes how he had been so wrong with his last words “If more people valued home [or food and cheer if it’s the book] above gold, this world would be a merrier place.” He places value on Bilbo with that line, because he’s essentially telling him “If there were more people like you in the world and fewer people like me the world would be better.” and that’s important because again, his opinion about Bilbo matters to his character arc, and he’s also recognizing that his behavior was awful, and he caused people to suffer because of his obsession with gold. Recognizing the error of your ways is so important to redemption and Thorin does it with that line.

He really does pay for his mistakes. He has to watch one of his nephews die in front of him, and then he dies at the hands of his worst foe. He never gets to see Erebor brought back to its former glory. He doesn’t become king. It really is a horrible ending for him, but for a tragic character like him, that was the way it had to go.

This is a more subtle thing, but in a way, Thorin saves Middle Earth when he gives Bilbo the mithril, something he didn’t have to do that and truly did it out of decency and care for Bilbo. Thorin inadvertently saves Frodo’s life when he gives Bilbo the mithril, and because of that, Frodo is able to bring the ring to Mordor, and the ring is ultimately destroyed. So I do think that’s a part of his redemption. He had a hand in the saving of Middle Earth.

So anyway, I get what you’re saying about people trying really hard to redeem him that they neglect all the really bad things he did. I see that all the time too. People don’t like to acknowledge the terrible things he did to Bilbo especially. But I do think he’s an ultimately redeemable character because his intentions were never bad. He had good intentions in wanting to reclaim his home. He cared about his family and friends. He fell under dragon sickness, yes, but was able to overcome it. Before he died, he recognized his faults and apologized.

Thorin’s not an easy character. He’s actually one of the most difficult characters in the books and the movies. We’re supposed to have mixed feelings about him. My perception of him is that he’s a tragic and flawed character, but that’s why I enjoy him so much.

[thevulernablepreacher]

Energy Healing-Read it Anyway

Inspiration is a God thing. When it hits my mind is on fire. It courses through me. I LOVE it. Rarely am i somewhere i can write it down as its happening. I’m on the toilet or driving..recording doesn’t help. I forget i recorded and have zero to negative patience for listening back.

I read Lean Dunham’s piece on her breakup this morning when i woke up b/c it was front and center in my Instagram feed. IT’s gross how addicted I am. i had been looking at her photo’s lately, wondering if she’d broken up. I sensed it. The energy surrounding here screams it. She’s been looking so clearly sad behind what looks like attempts to put on a strong and happy front . 

Someone wrote a reply saying so. I wanted to annihilate that person. I cannot tolerate the ease with which other people decide they're on an intimate enough basis to say this kind of shit to pepole. Of course she looks sad you ignorant fuck; you think she doesn’t see that or know that? She’s a fucking creative genius living in her emotions at every flipping second. So that’s not a helpful reflection.

I hate the word trigger but that comment clearly did just that to me. But that’s not at all what i want to write about.

What happened when i read that was that i fell in love with LD again. She blows my mind. She is an INCREDIBLE writer. She can talk about shit that we all talk about and experience in a way that no one articulates it. She has this special sauce ability with language to get into the nooks and crannies like a Thomas’s English muffin,  so deeply descriptively. 

I fell in love and i was jealous..so fucking jealous. I want to write that well. I want to be that fucking famous; not for fame sake, but i think maybe for the flow of cash (so i could work from an Adirondack chair) and for people desiring to hear more from me and thus paying gigs would fly in..a beautiful viscous cycle.

I had a mind blowing energy healing session yesterday and one of the things she said to me was, “I can just imagine your next speaking gig when you show up completely authentically; how powerful that will be.”

Well, i had that next gig this morning. I had to read  a “purpose and overview” statement to my networking group at 7:15 am. i wrote it last night. I took two bowls of ground curried lamb topped with black salt, and three cups of chamomile tea get it good and done. It took probably an hour and 1/2 to complete. I love it and its torturous.

I read it this morning and i will tell you i was amazed at my sureness confidence. No longer is my voice shaky when i speak. I”m finding that to be true in my speaking club group too. I just feel right; strong, upright, grounded. I was listening to myself and i thought, “God, this is really good.”

I was speaking to a room full of humans of an incredible caliber. They are all seasoned vets, with solid truly “successful” and thriving businesses. More importantly,  they are also stellar humans. 

Interestingly there’s a lot of lesbians in this group. We have the woman who brought Title IX to Yale, back in the day. She was also the first female plumber in the state. She’s unbelievably awesome. We have an amazing acupuncturist and a landscape architect to die for: all lesbians. Amazing, so cool. 

And in terms of men; stellar men. Incredible to be able to say that; and its true.

One of my mentors and fav’s among uttered, “wow” when i finished reading. Another caught my eye from a distance, beamed at me and gave me the thumbs up.

They’re all human of course, even though i pedistalize them (constant challenge for me). They've al made  gaffs in the building process. I of course LOVE to hear about them. Nothing more fulfilling than hearing about stellar fuckups made by people i so admire. It takes a ton of come to Jesus moments, courage and perseverance to create a business, build it, hone it and nurture it constantly. Beyond belief.

The first thing i thought when sat down was: “is that what i’m supposed to be doing, speaking publicly”? The answer is yes. I’ve known this ALWAYS.

That question came this morning though b/c my energy healing session was about clearing a blockage between my solar and lunar chakras. She said she’d never seen a more perfect and equal imbalance. she was psyched and I was psyched. she cleared it. 

The imbalance was making it impossible for me to live my life’s purpose. 

I knew exactly when the imbalance came in. It happened after the best six years of my adolescence. And ironically i have been through 6 years  physical pain, illness, total annihilation of feeling like Emily. So the six year thing she thought was incredible. I guess the jig is up.

What i learned: ANYTIME one has pain or feet issues it is because they are having Lunar issues. FASCINATING to me! Can you imagine if we all did energy healing instead of taking pills or having surgery? WTF!!!!!

Anyway a part of me got scared when she talked about showing up now authentically.  Could i do that after mastering looking like i was showing up authentically so well? What would that feel like?

I talked to her about how I am able to create great intimacy, make people laugh, connect, when i speak publicly. So I am living my life purpose..sort of; the blockage part is that i keep the all at a 5 feet distance. 

She asked about friendships; which ironically my former therapist asked me recently through an FB chat we were having. I said i have them; very close one’s but i never see them; any of them. it’s always been a source of great pain.

I don’t have daily intimacy. It makes me so so sad. You know those people who command the stage and can’t bear talking intimately with a group? I’m not that person. I have very intimate interchanges and time with close friends ..but it’s far from often. And when i do I then go home alone, and spend inordinate amounts of time alone.

Some of that is okay..but id prefer less at this point. Pain and illness have made that alone time grow; but it has been there since as early as I can remember.

And while i would love a best friend/partner who makes me laugh and with whom i can go to the movies, hang out, talk about nothing and everything with; i also stay away from it b/c i think it would suck to be with someone who has such intense forward and backwards and ups and downs..id be afraid of bringing them down and of becoming dependent upon them.

I know. I have a fear of true intimacy. I come by it so honestly it’s beyond.

I blocked off from true intimacy b/c performing was exhausting; performing in real life. i learned in my house that revealing all of me was going to receive very intense judgment and rejection.

Ive had two long term lesbian relationships. They were both abusive. Im so different now; that would not happen. And i think the right person will show up when the time is right; but i keep feeling like that may be close. I have a great curiosity as to what that will look like. It will be something i’ve never known before. This much I know.

I’m writing all of this b/c during the energy healing session my feet were buzzing. Afterwards i was able to walk in my adidas flip flops with the nubs comfortably for the first time in months. I was elated.

I thought...this shit works.

I talked about my very clear image of myself in my 60′s galavanting all over the globe with a partner having the time of my life; pain free; joyful, healthy. She asked that i write about the crazy creative that i was at Far Brook when i was a kid; when i was encouraged every day to be as insane and out there as I could possibly be. 

My surrogate grandfather Mr. Finckle, would sit in the back of the hall while i did this larger than life evangelical thing. He loved it. My friend Donna would play some soap opera music and gospel music and i would just go. If I was watching myself now i think i’d find it hilarious. I was off my rocker in the best possible way.

I did this every day all day for 6 years. I laughed straight for 6 years. it never occurred to me to button up or quiet down. My music, humor, authentlic prowess, improv gifts were living LARGE. It was a magical creative faucet turned on and flowing at full force.

That’s me. That’s my essence. 

I remember being at a visual art opening this past winter  at a crystal gallery (yeah, really). I was being told as the artist was playing her violin. That not only did she create art. she was clearly a musician, and a writer. I thought: Jesus  this art is hideous; but regardless, she has as show and is playing her music at her show and people are here loving all of it! WTF.  And i thought, i too am a musician and an artist..and used to produce on full throttle. What happened to her?

So this morning...i was wondering after i read that piece: “was i being authentically me?” I know i was talking to a bunch of  business people...but i think i was being me.

Im working on that really consciously now. I told my energy healer that really me is kind of messy looking and tatted abundantly. I wasn’t messy enough today for sure. And i would LOVE a few more tattoos.

I walked by a  woman looking like an artist coming home from yoga yesterday. She was disheveled and nothing matched. And i thought she was stunning. She made me feel completely at home. She was a huge reflection of me at my most creative self. She would have been floored had i told her how much i loved her look.

So i am trying to button down  big time; to be me in the realm of business and the real world..and watching; seeing what that might be. 

I write all of this because i left my networking meeting early. I was in a fuck load of pain. My foot is not healed. My knees were killing me. another part of my foot was really hurting and i though omfg i think i restrained the right ankle area again..this is of course not the left ankle that is always stressed and restraining if i have the boot on. 

A couple of people asked me why was there if i was in pain. I was completely flummoxed and searching for the answer. Why was I there when i was in pain?

Because i didn’t want to be in pain; because i thought i’d be okay. Because i rarely cancel on business things. Lately I'm cancelling more and not feeling guilty.

I was so fucking mad at my pain this morning. I told people i was mad, over it. Tired of shelling out cash like an ATM to heal myself. O.V.E.R. IT!

I get to say that. I so get to say that.

Im over the shame and i’m over the isolation it causes..i do everything in my power to heal. I seek every possible Western and alternative person on the planet..and still I am in  pain. 

I’m also confused and not sure how to proceed. I’m not good at figuring it out.

And because i’m me, this is what i think: There is something that i am not getting. There is something about my souls path that i am not answering. 

That’s why i ask: “am i supposed to be speaking and not building this business?” Logic to me, and the inner voice says, “yes, that’s right.”

My life should flow. My life can flow. My life is not flowing. 

When i’m in pain its really hard to be positive. Someone used the word “positivity” today at our meeting..a visitor. No one in our group would use that word. I wouldn’t be in a group that did. I would be throwing up all over the group if that was the case. I can’t stand that word. 

It’s complete bullshit. You have to get the core of your shit to feel positive..i think i’m at my core. I cannot stand “words or quotes of the times”..horrifying.

I also wonder: "If i start speaking publicly will my physical pain just go away?”

I’m an unbelievable magical thinker. So i think that’s what the universe is waiting for. 

For today i will wear my cool blue Bomba’s peds with my Adidias flip flops b/c for some reason that seems to ease the pain a bit. I think it’s just because the feeling of the nubs takes over.

I have no cohesive ending here; i’m just ending.