SS: Salt Shaker Experiment Part TWO

My roommate asked me if I can marry him for a week.

The single click ease of facebook marriages makes for an interesting experiment. It's like running through sugar glass; acting the part with a lowered chance for pain while having the advantage of playing out a scenario.

Call it therapy for chronic singles that dread the prospect of coupledumb... I mean... coupledom. The status update is a purposely generated flirtation.... not with each other but rather with the concept. Dare I admit it, I am flirting with the idea of getting married... to someone... someday... at my insanely deliberate pace that is not in step with the common crash and burn world.

A part of me wants to be apathetic.

Isn't the world of salt shakers a boring dialogue of "what did you do today" "what do you want to eat" "where do you want to go" questions that are repeated ad nauseum until you are entranced or terrorized to bury your self in "partnership"? I want to be inspired. I want to be inspiring... not live as a log of a love one's calorie count.

A new game has begun....

Status updates to follow...

JNET

Feeling Heavy in a Zen Sort of Way

I go through moments where I am sitting in the chair of emotions and then shortly, visited by lengths of peace. Disappointment and sadness punctuated the hours. The practical side of myself looked at these moments as ego based and in the peace of detachment....

I look to the future.

I expect a miracle.

A miracle? Like a walking across the water miracle? No... but something wonderfully unexpected, gracefully creative, captivatingly honest and inspiring. That's my dream. It makes walking away from anything less, easier.

Shall I let myself be free into the unknown to meet truth and my dream or shall I accept less and live a life caged in mediocrity and hopelessness? Sadness had exhausted me over the week. It stole the wind out of my week's dear victories and joys. But I remember the moment when a clearing came to pass.

"To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest of unhappiness"

-Maurice Maeterlinck

I spent the week in silence, too sad to play the piano, heavy hearted; trying to learn the lessons that Life was whispering.

I found my joy again in remembering that my life is about expecting miracles.

Life as a work of art.

I am looking forward to my tomorrows.

JNET

SS: Crashing From the Dopamine Or This Thing Called Love

It was a brain dropping perhaps, the downswing of a dopamine high.

For a little while, life seemed perfect. I didn't need to sleep and I was exceptionally happy. Happy to be charmed and outwitted. A fault in theory did not hold up to argument and debate.

He could not make a case and I could not hold my regard.

I was surprised that I hadn't lowered my head from the clouds sooner. I suppose I can blame it on a darwinian fever; a human nature lending me to feel strongly emotional.

A shot blasted through my little heaven and the balance was tilted. I found no landing; no steady ground to stand upon.

I fell.

For several days now, I've allowed silence to settle in me. I fasted and sought ways to iron out my thoughts from my fantasies. Was I a part of an unfolding miracle or was I simply riding out a chemical reaction?

The beauty of it was fleeting. All songs and music over it was muted. And I found myself in a cage, feeling hungry when I have never suffered from hunger... the air was thin and I did not find freedom in new horizons,

I did not find license to be fully expressed. Now, I am an explosion of words seeking homes for displaced ideals.

Is it a neural itch from which I did not find peace. Did I find love in the space of chaos? I don't know. I didn't have the patience to tolerate the growing incongruence. Let me blame it on the moon or a lack of good chocolate. Let the crash be blamed on a glitch in the matrix.

I suppose it was not a sturdy structure. I suppose it was a vulnerable design. Understanding and value did not grow. A match was never made. It was humored... and then humored... and then humored til the punchline was lost. The polypeptide party was cancelled. Happiness met anger in hallways and the noise from the other side of the door finally spilled through the crack and brought the house down.

Today, I watched the dawn alone and in the silence found that my ideals are safe at home. I am not lost or alone but rather I am in a space of learning and leaning on the understanding of the one who loves me...

I wait upon only one.

JNET

SS: Courting The Dreams of My Mind

Despite a life spurning salt shaker ritual as plebian, I cannot say that I do not dream of love.

Los Angeles can be a very isolating, maddening and lonely place. I listen to those who lament the loneliness of not possessing a partner. I listen to those who hurt for not being possessed. I am only inspired further to seek the uncommon to trump my doubts.

JNET: "I'm looking for a king."

E: "A king?"

JNET: "But a specific type of king. There are many kinds of kings and I am looking for the best one for me."

I have crossed paths with many kings and the mathematician was my favorite. But like Queen Sheba who spent a season with King Solomon sharing riddles and wisdom, I had returned to rule my world with lessons from admiring someone so powerful and kind. His deliberateness in silence, word and action amazed me for I never met anyone as mindful and unhindered. He claimed everything in his path. Not many people show such dominion and grace. I usually meet people who'd rather live by their fears than their dreams.

I chose to leave. We had our respective worlds to build.

And yet I keep my regard for this passing king, not necessarily hoping that he returns but in faith that others will come. Others who will understand the testing of wisdom and solving of riddles. Others who will show that my passing king was just a glimpse of the future, a king who engenders goodwill and power.

I do dream of happily ever afters... I pass on the distractions of happy for now relationships. It is far better to be rule my world alone than in partnership with chaos.

I seek the uncommon.

JNET

SS: Practicing Salt Shaker Life

Notoriously single, I decided to get married the easiest way I knew possible;

I married one of my facebook buddies...

JNET: "E, do you mind confirming me as your wife? If you don't mind playing along, I'd like to marry you this week."

The announcement... specifically, my facebook status update, coincidentially landed during a weekend I was planning to visit Las Vegas for the first time. Predictably, the plan was cancelled.

My first hello came from a friend in Kuwait... followed by half a dozen others from around the country...

A: "You got married !! OMG !! Congratulations !!! All the best sis :)"

Close friends suspected I would be spontaneous enough for a Vegas wedding but the glaring clue that made it questionable was that they all knew I will only marry on a specific date. I also began putting up crazy updates to entertain my friends to clue them in that I was playing a game... such as;

"JNET is honeymooning to planet XYZ in an ice cream truck..... JNET is drawing out her wedding portrait with crayons."

My current status update is:

"JNET is lost in a time travel catatonic state due to a stupid penny."

Would becoming part of a salt shaker set be fatalistic to enjoying solitude? As I enjoy both worlds through facebook, I see that a huge part of my identity is my singularity in living a soloist life.

So... I promised to marry half a dozen other friends on my facebook during the summer.

Solitude... my silence makes me sane. Is it possible to have it all? Solitude, silence AND a salt shaker life?

Perhaps my boardgame mantra fits here:

"I hate to lose (a boardgame) but I enjoy a good beating."

I am enjoying the shock, the hellos and the congratulations. Despite being the type of person that doesn't like to speak to anyone before noon unless I have to, I've been stretching my self in practicing "relationship" in my own ways.

Status updates to follow (on facebook)

:)

JNET

Hate is Good?

Last month, I went shooting and I checked out a self-defense class.

Lessons I learned:

If someone points a gun at you, RUN... it's hard to keep your target unless you are a really good sharp-shooter.

and...

Being able to defend myself is going to take more than a few classes. It is all muscle memory. Like learning music, nothing will play out right unless you practice A LOT...

G. attended Krav Maga with me and we left with our respective opinions of the class. After practicing our punches with partners who were holding practice pads, we closed the hour with two 30 second sessions of pelting a bag that each person had to straddle.

Having just one 30 second go at punching was surreal and by the time I was at my second punching go, I had to stifle myself from breaking out into laughter. Being aggressive to throw punches on my bag felt very strange and I started to wonder...

Would I be assertive enough to protect myself should I come upon a situation that demanded my wits? Fight or flight? At this junction, I'd probably hope that I had enough space to run.

G. tapped into her anger and found she had a lot of it and aired that taking a self-defense class would not be good for her. She doesn't want to find out how angry she is.

But I disagree over the anger issue. I don't think anger will necessarily generate a strong student in self-defense. Anger makes people lose focus and grace.

I watched a student struggle with Beethoven the other night while wearing anger glasses. As her frustration sought to make sequences of notes run, she lost playing smoothly and clearly. Her timing became erratic and she forgot notes and got sloppy.

Studying self-defense where vision is filtered by anger and frustration would seem to lead to one's precision and focus compromised..... I want to study a martial "art" and art is more than a mood.

Nonetheless, G's encouragements and mantra of "hate is good" is a fascinating perspective. Not wishing to box her statement as diabolical, we pursued the topic on a philosophical level.

Hate on a basic level is simply an awareness of an aversion that causes one to withdraw. The mere word is controversial. Society seems to have defined it narrowly and a caller voiced his concerns that I was professing a call to hate... and assumed that I embraced violence.

If you hate bees, does that mean you are bent on annihilation of buzzing populations? If you love pizza, are you marrying it?

How sophisticated is our emotional library? If we are wise enough to say love is a complex word, is it not fair to also say that of hate?

JNET

Trampled and Doing Alright

Last Friday evening turned my insides out.

E. showed up to my door with a dozen pink roses and a birthday card. He had just flown in from Florida and I was dressed up for an evening out on the toon. After a quick hug, he announced...

E: "I just got a call. A is in the hospital. She got trampled by her horse."

I put the roses and card aside and grabbed my purse and an ill feeling overtook me. I can't take another death, I thought to myself. I'm still recovering from losing B. last winter and helping her mom sort out her apartment and things. Blast that horse, I knew I should've discouraged her from taking it after it had killed its last owner.

JNET: "Let's go."

I didn't say much en route to the hospital. A's condition was a mystery. Her friends that were with her didn't give us much to work with. We drove to Thousand Oaks full of worry.

A. had become the darling of the emergency room. Considering that her horse had lost its footing while racing at top speed and A had fallen off, had her neck grazed by the horse's hooves, had her ear ripped a bit and was "tip-toed" upon her chest, back and leg; she was swollen, bruised, cut up and in good spirits.

A: "Why is it that when you are looking your worst, half a dozen hot guys are right there! You should've seen these guys. They were beautiful!"

I knew my friend was going to be okay. She was cracking jokes to set everyone at ease and she looked unrecognizable. But she was alive and in good spirits. She was a miracle and she knew it. We tried our best to not cry. It was E. our tough guy who broke down and misted up as he took her hand while I helped pick the grass off her hair. She had brought back some of the meadow where she landed. Still too raw and sore from her accident, her head was the only part of her that I could look after without hurting her.

I stayed with her til nearly 2am. She didn't have a smooth transition to her room. Glue-ing her ear on took all the color from her. Her swelling had subsided but she was pale and feeling feverish. E. stayed behind to spend his first evening in Los Angeles with A. so that she wouldn't wake up alone and to make sure that she was taken care of well.

I had to get some sleep. I had a class early in the morning and then was scheduled to work from the afternoon through the evening for a photo shoot. Updates were sent via text through out the day.

I headed back into Los Angeles past midnight Saturday and went straight to A. to check on her condition...

To date...

A. is in stellar condition. You wouldn't have known that she was in the hospital just last week. The scratches especially the huge scrape on her cheek is GONE. I speculated to her that she might have superhero powers. She will be baking a cake or brownies for her paramedics.

JNET: "Save the cheerleader!"

As for the horse, he is in good condition as well as was quite shaken up by the experience of losing his rider. He was miserable. And when, A said that her horse "tip-toed" over her, I believe it. It must have taken all he had to not crush her but everything happened so quickly and he ran back to the stables alone and sat with uncertainty until A came to the stables before she was taken home to rest.

A will be fine. Miracles happen. A good friends make the scary moments easy.

JNET: "A. you're no longer just a stunt girl. Girl, you are a warrior."

E. "Yeah, don't you know that scars are sexy?!"

Despite the inperfections of Life, Life is still perfect.

JNET