Diary

I chose to become a writer — but specifically write a book about my family and childhood. And I found that took me on quite a ride, forget adventure, that I regret most days, these days. Mostly, I struggle with my choices, the people I met in the window of time I’ve been doing it. How it led me thus far through the most painful years of my life, through the unreal, too, like I didn’t need to become psychic, just to get that out of the way.

It might sound strange at first, that I became psychic, but basically, what that means is, I came from an otherworldly story and ended up misinterpreted. It’s not to say I’m not intuitive; I just don’t know what that means, and it didn’t do anything for me at all. I ended up in strange territory with a strange cast of characters. Overall, I think I would advise against helping, I would advise against helping someone unless you know how to do that. I really suffered because of a false understanding of what that means, and I didn’t have the awareness I have now. I had to skid across the pavement, get hurt, to reach that point of awareness.

I’m going back to New York, tomorrow, after traveling or wandering for a few years, and I’m terrified. I have moments, only because I don’t have any support. I have to accept that and go find it — I ended up questioning everything I thought I knew about my past, which put me through hell, and that broke my heart because of how some people responded to that. Especially the people who got so heavily involved in my childhood story to then disappear when it got real. I got really heartbroken this past decade, as a person, not as a lover.

But mostly, I think about what I want to do, and I normally find center, once again. I shift back and forth in terms of my sense of purpose. I don’t have to, but I feel like I have to communicate what it is that I am writing about. I chose to lead with it, but I found that to be extremely hard. It didn’t bring me support. It hasn’t yet. And I didn’t really want to write about family or trauma or any of these subjects, really. I just wanted to write books, see if I could do something with it, and maybe connect with people who have tough families. I don’t really feel I can speak from the perspective of, I reached success, I’m at the point where I can look back and say, this is what I’ve learned in a positive sense, but I’m supposed to fake it until I make it.

I wanted to try stand up, performing again, because of the cathartic nature of it and the real and direct connection with audience. I don’t quite know what to write, like, “ten things to do if you…” or “becoming me…” or “if you have two parents who were mentally ill” at forty years old. It feels weird writing about that, at my age. I know people write about their childhoods at all ages, I know that people write books about their parents. It’s more, trying to build a platform, and speaking from a place of experience, as it’s taken me my life thus far to just get here. That causes some anguish and distress sometimes, as I’m starting over, again, so this time, I have my lows, I didn’t have lows in the past. And I didn’t have to, either, but when I think about the past decade, it’s just a — I wish that never happened. Any of it. I made choices that made this juncture of my life confusing. I met a man who thought I could succeed in the world, without really trying, but it turns out that I don’t know I’m operating completely from the position of my strengths and even gifts, not the psychic stuff, but what I’ve got, literally speaking. And all that, succeeding in the world — I ended up meeting shadows in wanting to do that — isn’t really what makes one happy, it does, but what about love, real friendship. I had friends, I have friends, and that’s more of the arena that I miss the most as I’ve been abroad. I went through a lot of loss. And it’s not that I haven’t met people, but I don’t have a home, I don’t have a community.  I feel stupid, I do, most days, because of how I was operating. I used up the money I inherited over time, like fifteen years, because I wanted to start over, strangely, abroad, and then, become a writer, when it was unnecessary to behave like that.

When I look at these people who came in “to help me,” I’m shocked, now, that not one of them said, “just get a job, like a real job, and write on your free time.” It was so simple, basic. I wasn’t thinking. Like, why would you spend the money you have? Instead, I get these arrogant men who came into my life manhandling me in precious and useless ways — like you don’t have anyone, you’re poor, when I wasn’t, not exactly. So I found my head spinning in the choices I made, who I listened to, and now, I don’t have much money left, and I’m 40, not 20. Sure, I can recuperate, I can make more money than I had originally, it’s more just settling with the journey it took to get here.

The first call to prayer has begun, 4:30 AM. I’m going to be up at this hour in the beginning, as my job is located abroad, and I can’t give it up just yet. Sometimes, I don’t even want to be a writer. Truly. I find it to be rather exhausting.

I decided to just concentrate on the four years I lived with this other family. I put Christmas in Naples aside, not because I don’t like it, but I don’t know what it is, and telling a family a story about the three families that came into my life was an enormous idea — I was a total mess mostly because I didn’t want to talk about it, of course I didn’t, and I had no clue what the hell happened, like, why am I here? Why do I have different families, and hilariously, my cousins missed the point, which everyone did.

Which is — my parents were sick. It was so stupid and hysterical how obvious it was. And yet, I had to deal with disbelief left and right unnecessarily. I put up with it. And, I’m the one, in the end, who gets ignored, or thrown around. I felt thrown around for nothing. So, great, I’m here, I won’t let that happen anymore — this is 39. No one will even care, anymore, to be frank, because I’m not young. It’s not the same, it’s not the same world. It’s not to say I’m not attractive, yada yada yada, I’m just not treated in the same way anymore. I’m not the same person, too. I get ideating, I get having a good mindset, but I still struggle cognitively with some of the New Age shit, I’m sorry, that I really took to heart. Like, “it’s the future that writes the past,” this still plagues me, straight up. Where I have these future figures in my head that still channel through, when I’m writing, sometimes, or when I’m making decisions, and when I read Bowen, which has helped me.

Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist, these so-called helpers didn’t understand that they were enabling — like, he speaks about differentiation of self, which I’m still unpacking, as being able to separate subjective and objective processes, as the family is an emotional unit to him. And that factors into one’s ability to set a goal in life and take the steps to get there. I think even Barack Obama would relate to that, more so than calling himself a genius, not to say he isn’t, but I got sucked into these “male geniuses” that just burned me.

My mother, Dr. J, she was — hmmm, Hannah Arendt isn’t too sure — a genius. “Sure, she was,” Arendt says in my mind. I didn’t have that, right?

I made decisions. I think, if I believe in anything, it is that. Unconsciously or consciously, we’re making choices. And I had to make peace with the choices I made, like sometimes I feel like I’m the older mature one with this younger self inside of me that is coming to terms with the choices I made that did not satisfy me, that did not lead me to where I would like to be, and there’s nothing I can say, other than, there’s now. I don’t want to be like my father who struggles with the basic fact of life, which is, we get old, if we’re lucky, and we have one life. That’s really the truth. I would never say to a person, never, as I heard, that there are past lives, parallel realities, there’s even something beyond this. Something beyond this. I tend to disagree with most religions. It’s Nietzsche, like, life really begins at death — there’s paradise somewhere else, don’t worry, this life sucks but it’s all good in the end, I don’t like any of it. I much prefer you have one life. It’s not the time to play mind games if you can help it. It’s time to roll up your sleeves and really live it.

I couldn’t really move on with my life, though, because I decided, I don’t know why, that I didn’t want to perform, I really didn’t want that life, but in the end, I’m struggling, truly speaking, because I didn’t. So I should probably go back and at least try. I have to remind myself, I didn’t want to achieve in the world, I made that decision, I wanted to live a more experiential life, it’s just, what the hell doesn’t that even mean? Where I was encouraged, you know, one of these headfucks, to sell myself short, that made me angry. And when I did decide, okay, here I am, I’ll try writing, how I went about that, just felt like a disaster.

These older men that came into my life — it’s a giant x. Even the jobs I got in psychedelics, it was a giant x. That world ended up being — amazingly volatile, amazingly problematic. Amazing. Just — all things considered. Wow. I became the face of capitalism at a psychedelic conference because I wore a tweed skirt, and I happened to be hired by the capitalists, apparently. Me— a capitalist. The capitalists didn’t ask me for a CV. And then, I got so upset, because the liberals, if not communists, one was, that I staged a clown act at their podcast taping. A most hilarious soiree.

I told everyone there that I was a capitalist, with the capitalists, anticipating that they might pull something, and I was so angry — who cares? Whipping out these terms. Can we talk through this?! I am here facing my conflicts, I said, “can you, face your conflicts?” I went in. This is why nothing changes. So I made a bold move there. And they bent, too, they were willing to talk to me in the end, because I had 100% — went in — got half the audience in the know, so when they called me out, everyone knew. I even said to them ahead of time, “we will see, if they call me out,” and I kept saying “conflict is good, that’s what a conflict resolution specialist at the highest rank said to me…”

And of course, in the end, the capitalist got hurt, right? So, I’m on the liberal’s side. I made the error of talking too soon, I learned in diplomacy, you might have to, well, act like a politician, in fact, and say, “it’s going really really well.” That’s what I didn’t do. You have to have a face, you have to have a mask, it’s somewhat necessary, and I struggle, personally, with that. Now, I’m giving a thumbs up, a Biden smile, a wave. “The liberals and I are getting so much work done.” Meanwhile, “can you face your conflicts?!” in a podcast taping in Brooklyn.

I stepped outside afterwards with half the audience looking at me like—omg! They called you out! “I know!” I cried. “And this is good.”

The psychedelic world—damn. That was for real.

I find the internet really difficult to navigate. I really do. I know there’s some inner formula, I do, I know that people spend their lives on the internet, that they make videos, they figure out what their niche is, that even posting photos feels natural to them, but none of that feels natural to me. Literally, none of it. I’m not an image person. I’m trying, I’m trying to use it, I don’t take it that seriously, but speaking about my life into a camera, even, or promoting my story feels so strange, feels so bizarre, given the content. I know that people talk about anything and everything, and I don’t follow them. I don’t follow people who come from complicated family backgrounds. I’m sure, almost positive, that there’s a way for me to reach people who would be interested in it, interested in what I have to say, I just haven’t be able to yet. I keep trying to put content out there, especially now that I’m thinking about standup, getting up in front of people, and trying out my story that way. I’m trying to free my mind. I suppose, everyone can relate, or many, that sometimes you’re playing to 2 people, for a while, and it makes you want to cry. Especially with the type of family I had.

My mother now, even that phrase, she totally utterly ignored me, she just acts like I didn’t say what I said, and it broke my heart. I said, I have no idea what happened back there and she just pretends like I didn’t say it, and I can’t take it anymore. So I said that. I don’t know what else to do, sure, I suppose I can play patty cake, from time to time, as I do with my cousins. It doesn’t mean anything. I guess people like those relationships, I guess people have them. So that’s it.

I’m going back to New York tomorrow morning at 1:50 AM. I will be — implementing the lessons I’ve learned. That’s first. I need to take care of basics, first. I need to get a job, step one. I should be able to get a good job. I hope. But I should. Then, I can get back to the rest of it. It’s like, this guru said, “Vonnegut was selling socks.” It’s like, I didn’t need to do that. The author of The Tell was a successful business investor. That was more of the vibe, I would like to go for. The idea that ONE BOOK this BOOK the BOOK was going to CHANGE MY LIFE — wow, that was a lot of pressure.

Even my former best friend, he got stars in his eyes, truly speaking, when a screenwriter just read some pages, not because he wanted to make it into a movie, either. And he called himself my manager, truly, as if THIS BOOK THIS STORY was not only going to change the world, change my life, but I was going to be discovered as an actor, because of it, and I would then need a manager. A writer has an assistant.

I truly, this one, I have to say, the WAY people could RESPOND to me and my story — that was an obstacle in itself. There’s a best seller list, every year, you know, there are plenty of books that make it, but I don’t know if I was — cue the action flick — going to BLOW UP the world. I suppose I hope so, I could be Eat, Pray, Love, but I don’t know what that means.

People said that about Christmas in Naples, except — it’s not that. It’s more like a sitcom. That was truly a comedy of errors. And I’m going to keep working on it, for sure.

I’m trying to survive the food, survive Christmas, and my story, at the same time. I’ll get there, I just think that starting with the sex scandal, quite frankly, provides more context — so when I start telling you of the UTTER IMPOSSIBILITY of communicating this story, the action flick that it cued of gurus coming in to save the day, the whole mess of it, it will make sense.

Now I had to deal with this shit, not knowing I don’t have to. Just blow them away. Leave me alone. It wasn’t that hard. But this guru even got sentimental about my cousins, totally missing the point. WHY am I putting myself through this??? Even with him, some random guy who wanted to play guru. Because I was “so special,” yikes.

Once I get to Barbara Harris, we’ll see, that really really didn’t help. YOU go be special. YOU go out into the world and THINK about what it MEANS to be the type of person who attracts this type of shit. I’m sorry, to be crude, but it’s true.

I have my ups and downs. I’m leaving, so it’s to be expected. I’m not going to be in my ideal conditions at first. But I can go to an open mic. I can get over the fact that I’m almost 40 but I feel like I’m 18. I can see if I can do anything with my family story, since I have it, I suppose, and I can keep a positive mindset, that I’ll reach success in the world. That’s the hero’s journey. I don’t know what to say, but I got false help. It wasn’t divine aide, in my case, so I wonder if there’s something I can reflect on, when it comes to trauma or complicated backgrounds.

Step one — find a psychologist. Take some time there. Make sure they know what they’re doing. Beware of the “divine help” because it won’t be, or be able to evaluate what it is, and try saying “no thank you.” I don’t want help. It’s funny, because my time with the guru wasn’t even that fun, he wasn’t very talkative, or warm, not unless we were “in session,” type deal. I felt like I couldn’t connect to him, and I ended up laughing so much because it just wasn’t a reciprocal, mutual, friendship. He wanted to play guru. And that crushed me. I wasn’t able to see the signs, boundary issues. But his idea of me, his ridiculous version of “holding me up” was false and harmful. I didn’t need that. He was basically projecting that I was broken. And I wasn’t! Now, yes, I feel broken. Sometimes. And then, who knows, who knows, who knows, because I worked out what I needed to. I can’t always explain that. I just learned the hard way.

Okay, so I’m here. I have plenty going for me. I just need to figure out the basics. I just need to keep going. I need to get on a mic:

I hate the INTERNET! I’m coming out of the gate with how MUCH I FUCKING HATE THE INTERNET. I cannot STAND the internet. I cannot STAND NICHES. I CANNOT STAND HASHTAGS. I CANNOT STAND THE INTERNET! I cannot look at a photo, I can’t do it. I cannot look at how many likes I have — I cannot do this. I write about archaeology, so I wonder, sometimes, how people in the future will view this moment in time.

Like, “hm, that was weird…people…made these boxes, and they invented a virtual world where they posted photos and text… how peculiar. Of all the directions to go in… what a funny form of progress…” and the planet is falling apart, something. Nonsense. It feels a little off.

“So information was at everyone’s fingertips,” okay. “It’s the dawn of the expert, where everyone has a coaching class.” But you can make real money, so I’m trying, I really am, to figure out how to capitalize on online money making, I’m just being real. This person makes 20k a month, 40k, I mean, I’d like to. That’s it. I want to be able to say, “YOU GUYS F your feed, I did it. I made 40k last month online off table settings on Canva. I did it!”

I’m feeling better.

Right now, I’m meditating on no expectations. It’s a lot easier. It’s a lot less pressure too. But I am “ideating” or trying to, a really really good job. One of these — I didn’t even think about it, and there it was. So that means, honestly, I’m going to have to take ACTION and go look for it. I know that sounds so obvious and stupid, but that was a problem.

And this guru is like, “meditate,” and I lost years to just meditating. It was just a boundary issue. I took this person way too seriously. I couldn’t even believe that I ended up where I did. I was so shocked.

I guess — I actually didn’t find it easy putting myself out there. I guess not. I didn’t. There’s such a no trespassing when it comes to my family, my family story, there’s barbed wire, dogs, men with guns, the cops are within eyesight, there’s a no — way.

You know, I became known for my style, my clothes, which made me shiver later, and now, I’m like, utterly clueless. It’s getting better, but this is an arena where I feel retarded now. I gave my style away to someone else, basically, because he was “so good at it,” but he was a bit too critical. I just wanted to have fun. But that was the first thing to go in the new era of me — I had no clue what I wanted to wear, who I was, nothing.

Yesterday, I took myself shopping, a little, before I left, as everything is less expensive out here. Just got, finally, after four years, a few things that I actually liked, I think. What I like about comedy, is that, I can go in a t-shirt, if I want to, I don’t need to tackle that as it’s a different space. Eventually, I’ll put on a tennis skirt, obviously, and do Angelita. I have to. I’ll work that in, but I can just start.

You know what I want? I want to fall in love with someone. For real. I think, that makes life worthwhile. I’d like that feeling of having met someone that I felt like I was meant to, even. I know not everyone feels that way, and that people might have felt like that more than once, even. Not like I haven’t, but it’s a very different story now. The guru once said: Your suitors came to me in a meditation. And it’s like, should I go out? Is that what you’re saying? Should I try to meet someone? He spoke in these indirect phrases that were so unclear — it was awful, actually, feeling like I was a character in a bad movie. Maybe I’m Lady Gaga, I don’t know, but that’s why I thought if this man felt like I was THAT SPECIAL LIKE YOU COULD HAVE A LAMBORGHINI and vague suitors, and all he mentioned were performers, not writers, maybe I should try.

He wasn’t reading my work — this is what I mean — and saying, “wow, you’re really good at this.” He’s not saying that. There’s nothing real he’s going on, only his FEELING, his superior feeling. I could be successful — at something.

I can picture my cousin Chris beginning to the slow clap.

So I might as well try some performing, if I’m THAT SPECIAL OMG — she didn’t even need to DO ANYTHING EXCEPT SHOW UP AND I AM CONVINCED THAT SHE CAN TAKE OVER THE WORLD. Okay. Maybe he found me to be pretty, and he just couldn’t admit that to himself, I don’t know. It’s a mystery.