Flying At The Speed Of Joy

J: "You are very quiet. I don't think you've said ten sentences..."

JNET: "It's before noontime. I rarely speak to anyone before then."

I stepped out of my world and joined my roommate to celebrate his birthday at Magic Mountain. After several weeks of juggling my schedule, stressing over cars, fitting in family and friends and trying to keep up with rehearsals and exercise, Magic Mountain seemed like a good place to blow my mind.

But even the surreal sounds of listening to "It Had To Be You" while being roller-coastered at speeds beyond 80mph, 20 stories above the earth, with pyrotechnics dancing to a mix of heavy metal, didn't blow my mind.

Life is already blowing my mind.

J: "You are soooo quiet."

JNET: "It's noisy in my head."

Random conversations while standing in hour plus long lines....

Zipping along in roller coasters doesn't do much to scare me. Instead, I am filled with an awe for the engineering and creativity. To enjoy a moment to safely fly and be able to imagine how angels must feel, is to enjoy a "thrill" of a different sort that is separate from fear.

FLY AT THE SPEED OF FEAR was Tatsu's teaser. Such a fascination with fear and death... Doesn't anyone flirt with LIFE and see what's possible? But the conversation of roller coasters rides heavily on the flirtation with death... I find it hard to keep that perspective when I know I didn't sign release forms entering the park and I'm standing in line with a group of enthusiastic twelve year olds. Doesn't anyone else think that riding roller coasters can be an absolute JOY?

FLY AT THE SPEED OF JOY.... that is how I feel ...over this ride of life.

Who said joy is a high tech roller coaster? Why not a rickety noisy car? A splashy smooth water ride? Why not joy is a bumper car?

Flying at the speed of joy in what today?

Today is a good splash day.

JNET

SS: The Accidental Boyfriend

I'm a bit unravelled.

It's a good thing.

My current facebook status update: Life and love is interestingly hilarious.

I am onto my THIRD facebook marriage of the summer and the only appropriate thing I can think to say to my prospective real time suitors is...

"Welcome to JNETSWORLD:)"

I do not know how most people do it... living it Noah on a daily basis. Together conversations and together times bumping against the Independent Meditation. Life in the carpool lane is not everyone's experience.

It's exciting and un-nerving.

Un-nerving because I am happy and wonder what more can I want in having someone's life align with mine. Un-nerving because conversations and thoughts are more demanding. I must balance self ambition and develop a shared dream in order to build possible futures with another person.

I feel like I've started a brand new company and I'm not the only president.

E: "You are incredibly rational."

JNET: "A couple of my guy bestfriends have voted me as such."

E: "Don't you have emotions?"

JNET: "I like them when they are useful."

E: "Hmmmm."

JNET: "I have no right to tell you how to spend your time. If you wish to date other people, then you should and I will decide from there how I feel about it and you. Anyway, I hate making decisions for other people. Be happy."

E: "Wow...."

I can't be the only person that thinks and talks this way... this "incredibly rational" way.... who experiences emotion yet in a surrealistically sacred and detached way.

And so exciting comes up in conversations... in all the ways of being... in entertaining salt shaker dances.

Do I have emotions?

Yes... very much ...

D: "You have a boyfriend? That is so UN-JNET."

JNET: "I know... It sorted happened."

I have an accidental boyfriend...

Meanwhile, I'm onto my third facebook marriage. I dissolved my marriage to my roommate after one week and we are still living happily ever after. The experiment continues... spinning possible futures, practicing expanding identities with boyfriends, husbands, fictitious and less than fictitious.

Welcome to jnetsworld...

It's nice that someone wants to be in my mad hatter yet sensible world. Status updates to follow.

JNET

PHOTO: Obituary of a Teddy

*as written by gordonopolous



TEDDY. Passed away July 4, 2008 at the age of one and a half weeks.

Teddy was a lifelong Los Angeles resident, born into a modeling career and faithfully served as an inspiration to the Women's group for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Manhattan Ave branch. With his talent and cute, cuddly looks, he effortlessly won a role as a demonstration for a cake decorating class held at the church.

He was then scheduled to travel to an Eagle Rock bowling alley to serve as a going away gift to a friend of the church, but that assignment never materialized due to an error by his creator in which he was inadvertently left behind and forgotten. He never recovered from this traumatic event.

After retiring, he served the remainder of his days in nearby Studio City, at the home of fellow Christians, where he became a centerpiece for their kitchen table. His realism and outgoing personality easily won him many friends and he became quite popular in his final days. He suffered from perishability, and after struggling for many days, his tired body gave out and he succumbed peacefully on the Fourth of July at 7:00 p.m., among many friends who grew to love him during his short but meaningful life.

He is survived by a small container of frosting, still in refrigeration at his former church home.

His cute face will be missed by all that knew him.

Memorial and interment services will be private.

Life In Wonderland II

A reflection on a reflection... two years later...

Do I change, evolve or pretty much remain the same???

**************

This is how I feel about Life a lot of the time.

My friends endearments make me feel put on pedestals. And though I may throw myself freely into unknowns that stretch imagination and reality...

I am afraid of heights and terrified of going to new places sometimes.

Though I make friends easily, love how beautiful the world of people is diverse and wild like a garden...

I feel incredibly claustrophobic at many times and have a strange wish that I had powers to render myself invisible. I distance myself from others with structures of esoteric knowledge and find my most blissful moments alone.

Though I may lead a spontaneous life, finding adventures at strange turns, and wander into new worlds alone..

I prefer the serenity and saneness of quiet days with good friends where little needs to be said and nothing is amiss in standing still.

Though I am told that I am beautiful, held in high regard, seen as graceful and feminine...

I feel awkward, goofy, and geeky... and I out of grace with my body. I study dance to practice grace and poise and find that it is my most challenging discipline.

Though I enjoymy freedoms, the streams of my thoughts and my ideas withou tinterruption.. Throwing myself into new passions and interests...and furthering my craft with each season...

I would like to enjoy being passionately in love and lose myself in my affections with someone, happily distracted.

Though I am independent, respected and seen as a model of strength and singularity...

I really feel quite vulnerable and fragile. I don't know if I am made of diamonds or glass. And I spend some quiet days questioning my contentment.

I wonder many times...

In my private wonderland.

JNET

SS: Composing a Symphony and Not a Jingle

E: "What are you looking for?"

JNET: "Truth... True Love"

I've never had a confidant; a someone to share my every day thoughts with. Ever....

Ever...ever... ever. And I never craved that type of audience. Being happy with my life never entailed a captured or captivated witness. A full life is difficult to unload every day plus the given divine moment is sacrificed.

Every person who's known me from birth knows that I am as happy catching up with a friend once a week as the person I catch up once a year and that I take no offense if time stretches longer than that. If I need to work out my thoughts, I rarely run to a friend.

I work out my thoughts alone, at the piano bench, at my yoga practice, in my writing. And then I go to my friends to let them know of my plans of how I intend to handle the situation. At that point I have rehearsed scenarios in my mind in how I would like my life to play out.

I am an introvert that finds fuel in the silence of life that practices understanding emotional noise. A musican interpreting myself through patterns of tempos and dynamics and writer who pens that path I walk.

Where in this life of mine is there need for a confidant? I work out things alone and trust things to be in their rightful place. I watch people try to possess one another, sharing secrets in serial official and un-official relationships only to have chunks of great memories and a lost friend archived to banished parts of their own soul.

That's what many people do to their lost loves. Losing pieces of their selves.

I couldn't deal with a piano bench full of unfinished music. Or pieces of songs where pages have gone missing. And a bench of one pager children's songs will drive me batty from boredom and being unchallenged.

So I am a bit surprised that Life has given me a confidant not because I need one but simply to have one. And I am a bit surprised because I have others who beg for a chance to know my daily thoughts (and then some) that inspire me to further seek solitude and give them theirs.

But, I have someone here who is actually listening to my silence and is not a muddle of propositions trying to mold me. And I am especially surprised that I am enjoying it despite the imperfections and awkwardness. He makes himself welcome to my world.

Last night, I had a moment where I just stared at him and didn't know what to say... And I felt better when I got that he didn't mind the silence and that he wasn't chasing to fill it with something. He was happy.

No matter how far I have gone to show him the door, told him I'd be happy to have him in the audience if he'd prefer to give up being first chair, he's insisted to that he can read my music. He keeps surprising me...

Can he take on the cadenza, I wonder?

JNET