saved my life and all of that

i have been gone forever. there was much to do. and then there was hawaii. and then there was the end of my job. (there is a new one coming soon, you'll hear about that before long.) and then a friend of mine died. and all of our hearts broke, me and so many people in this city and beyond. we have been dealing. we have been spending time. indulging. grieving. sharing. loving. being together. walking. missing. remembering. hugging and holding. eating and drinking. being lost. being grateful. being angry. young men should not die.

i re-read joan didion. the year of magical thinking. the memorial was this last weekend. it was hard and wonderful. full of love and tears and laughter. we are not good at grieving, we in this country, continent, time. i can't tell you how much it helped to be weeping in a space with other weeping people for a few hours. i can't tell you how much i love these people, my people, in this city. i can't tell you how thankful i am that i am in this strange bubble of time where i am not working and can be with these people.

here is the song, the video, that has been on repeat this last week. until morning light.



next week i will be back to Real Life. until then. reading. dancing. singing. remembering. loving.

ff

who has a mega girl-crush?! WE ALL DO!!! wendy davis, wanna be my best friend forever?

{thanks to the champions at rookie for this amazing graphic}

if you happen to have spent the whole week in a box (or not in a box that is the internets) then here's the what. wendy davis rocked an insane filibuster in texas to shut down an anti-abortion rights bill that would close down all but 5 clinics in texas. she stood and talked for hours and hours giving testimony from women all over texas and the u.s. and discussing the medical implications for doctors and so on and so on. she didn't make it to the full 13 hour mark, but her supporters managed to slow proceedings and the rock-awesome touchdown was thrown down by a fellow senator leticia van de putte (who had hustled to the senate on the day of her father's funeral so as to not miss the vote) when the president refused to acknowledge her request for attention:

{"at what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues in the room?"}

aaaannnnd mic drop. MAYHEM! mad cheering, totally thrilling. the clock rolled past midnight and blammo, no vote. (although the republican senators did try to claim they got the vote in... and there was a period of real shock and amazement realizing they were going to try to lie with oh so many people's eyes on them.) watching the whole thing go down on live-feed was unreal. who knew i could get that excited and terrified and amped watching senate politics happen? the feed of people watching on youtube read over 200,000. just nuts. and eventually:

so it was a pretty great week for feminism. woop!

of course, things turned for the worse again with governor rick perry calling another special session beginning july 1st so they can pass the bill then. and he also tried to shame our heroine wendy because she was a teen-mom and so she should know better. eeewwwwww. seriously, guy. gross. please please just go away?

so though they're basically stamping all over what she accomplished, it remains that wendy along with her supporters in the senate and the mad-wild-awesome pile of civilian supporters who were there that day, did something really spectacular. she has started something. she is a power house. i love her and i'm so glad she exist.

happy friday, sneakered warriors!

dust in the spotlight

{from my tumblr, but really from here}

 

i want so much to tell you not to die. i know it is a useless and mostly meaningless thing to say. but i'd like to say it all the same.

i am sure you have people who actually know you, who are there, who are telling you not to die. and i know that even those people can barely create a pull, really, when the sinking begins. and i am only a girl on the internet.

i do not understand suicide. but i do understand that my lack of understanding is largely luck. my moods have not got that far in. not yet. hopefully, maybe, they never will. but also one of the many medications i take or will take might maybe tick just so. and that side effect they tell you might maybe happen will happen. i understand that my not understanding is a fragile thing. i am susceptible to that side effect, of course, too. if the nauseous and the fatigue and the headaches and the reflux and the trouble swallowing and the fitful sleeping that leads to foggy, unfocused days... if those, then the others, too, are possible.

so i understand that telling you not to die is not helpful. asking that you not die is unkind. i can feel people wanting to ask me not to die, and i want so much to promise them forever and ever i won't. i want to laugh at the absurdity of the thought because it is, for me, so far, a completely absurd one. hopefully forever and ever.

(and now, in the weeks since i wrote this, you have seemed so good. so safe and so fine. in the way that you may never be entirely fine but you are fine for now fine. and it doesn't seem so pressing that i tell you not to die. but really i don't know a single thing.)

off and back.

i spent years feeling unsettled... always working towards a something. i don't remember when it started exactly. university? just after? i am not sure. it seems like forever ago. there was always a something. tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow... forever waiting to be living completely.

(probably it is a 20s something. feeling like you are preparing for being a whole thing. (almost out of those. 20s...))

anyways. i wasn't, anymore, for a little while. just for a few months. all of the things stopped being somewhere else and were just being. i loved all of the things right here and right now. i was present and happy and good. job life home friends love city. it's not that before i was unhappy. just not there.

and then: there.

still looking forward and excited and wondering and nervous... but there. here... present.

and now. not, again. waiting. looking. and it is harder to go backwards. it turns out. than to feel behind in the first place. i am sick of looking forward. making choices for then instead of now. i would like to just be here.

i was very happy and very here.

saved my life

things are hard and i am tired. but music is magic and singing always helps.









and so on. hi monday.

conversations we did not have

how are you feeling this morning? i am feeling shaken. all weekend, really. i've been having these strangely intense dreams for the last few weeks. they're not nightmares, but they're not really pleasant either. they're a little too vivid, a little too close to reality, a little too intense. everything in them is loaded.

well. anyway. clothes. these things feel right for today.

 {prefall carven 2013, photos courtesy of carven by way of style.com}

{prefall stella mccartney 2013, photos courtesy of stella mccartney by way of style.com}

tomorrow you'll be worlds away

dearest future me:

soon you will have a day when you are feeling so many feelings. the nighttimesads and the anxietyattacks (or as aleena heard, the unsexyattacks). and when you do. remember today. remember how today is one of many practically perfect days. how you have a magical body that does magical strong things thanks to jenn, and how your friends are basically unicorns come to life and covered in sparkles, and how you probably couldn't dream up a better life than the one you are living. not really. if you're being honest about it. hold on to today.

xoxo
ek. (from now. the past. or something.)