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Thought...

of firsts.

Yesterday was my 40th birthday.

On my 25th I had reasons to believe that 40 would never happen, my life and circumstances were in a rather challenged space.

From my 13th on I've never really been too fond of my birthday, it has always been a day of errors, disappointments and far too much introspection.

Friends and loved ones either forgot entirely, got the day wrong or just found themselves so caught up in life that they somehow came up missing the day.

My mom stopped acknowledging my birthday around that time. It took me years to reconcile that this oversight was her defect and not my own.

I've heard that 40 is the time when your soul is ready to enter its era of wisdom.
In so much as I take any such things to heart this seems a reasonable thing to believe.
With that in mind I feel that for the first time in roughly 27 years I actually was able to make it through that single day without the senses of regret and foreboding...

Perhaps the era of wisdom has finally allowed me to just appreciate the day and truly let go of the unpleasant parts of what led to it.

I'm fortunate and even a little blessed to have those that remain an active part of my life and grateful for those that have passed from it. Though I still have certain doubts as to whether or not I'll manage 40 more years here, I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

Thank you to everyone that made getting this far possible.

xo. LR.

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forgetfulness.

For the past few years I feel as though I've been in a freefall.

I took off chasing a dream and started the fall from the moment I set myself into that motion...focused on the dream in such a way that the velocity involved started overwhelming everything I thought I knew about me.

I let go of every comfort I knew.

I moved to a strange new city, alone and far removed from everyone and everything familiar.

Three years that have pushed my existence beyond any limits I had ever imagined.

At times feeling as though everything was spiraling out of control.

Darkness. Despair. Loneliness. Near starvation.

Heartbreak. Disappointment. Feelings of failure and doubt.

And moments that have left me confused and contemplating whether I've made a series of mistakes and errors.

Along the way I shed a rather charmed life and started functioning with little day to day purpose beyond survival.

It is when that shift occurs that a person starts to forget the passions that were once their driving force.

Living hand to mouth has caused me to lose sight of most of the things I love about life.

I never thought I could feel so defeated by myself.

...the freefall needs to stop.

almost everything I love has rushed by in such a blur I don't even know which pieces to start the picking up with...

I don't even feel like me anymore. not even sure if I remember who that is...

restlessness.

for some reason or another the past year or so of this blog has been but a marginal interest to me.

prior to publication of Pop Salvation I was such the avid blogger.

and the publishing world expects some kind of online presence these days (for what it's worth).

but somehow I feel like this one is...it is barely treading water, currently.

I'm floundering... as though I personally don't even know what my own interests are, much less the ones worthy of sharing.

I know for my part the content has clearly been anemic for some time now. between the friends on other social networking platforms and the various interest outside of my writing this form has fallen a bit lackluster to me... just not a lot going on here... it has been lacking the immediacy I happen upon elsewhere.

careless of me, I think.

so, I need to step back a bit and rethink this whole blog thing...

perhaps reinvent it a bit or find a better format to explore, interact and share with...

we shall see.

any thoughts?

a momentary lapse into vapidity (procrastination at its finest)

this is the foundation of what I'll look like come fall/winter 10-11

unexpected good fortune...

awesome news today.

Pop Salvation is an awards finalist!

great to be in such awesome company!

congrats to all the other finalist!

random moments and images that make me smile.

glimmering hope of a shifting paradigm:
>





and really, just about anything through the eyes of Pedro Almadovar puts things on the right track for me...

because there are always some tunes...

most of you know that when I'm writing I have to have some kind of background noise.

I'm of the first generation of MTV viewers. Tunes are important, it helps invoke emotion, tone, cadence and dreams.

I have to admit, the new book has not been so easy to conjure. I keep running into boundaries with it. perhaps this comes from my hard expectations of self... I don't want to fail, I don't want to be a disappointment. I wonder at times if I'm good enough, smart enough or crafted enough to say what it is I want to say. I question if any of it is actually relevant.

but even through all the questioning and hitting brick walls of thought, emotions and words I know what the story feels like deep in my gut, and it is usually with a tune that I sense it more strongly...

these two just feel right... not the songs, per se...but the feeling of them.




yeah, I think I'm heading somewhere a bit more stark and grown-up than Pop. (lol)