I’m a Freak for Standup

I just got through watching this – twice lol

It’s is one of my favorite standup schticks – the man-fight techniques, all the stuff about his son, jesus & the vagina, and so much more….

Jo Koy – Comedy Central Presents…

enjoy

g

Polyamory and Powerfully Processing Pain

I met someone recently who’s totally new to Polyamory, and asking me questions about it.

One of his comments was, “I just don’t know how I’d feel about it.”

Anyway, this conversation got me thinking about so many people I’ve met over the years – how so many of us tragically choose to shut down our heart and love out of a desire to protect ourselves from possible pains.

The conversation also got me thinking about so people I know who have suffered huge losses out of a lack of skills in how to easily metabolize pain. Lost relationships, divorces, anger, accusations, belittling – it splits my heart open in heartbreak.

Egads how I love the inspiration life brings.

It occurred to me that the phenomena of dealing with pain powerfully isn’t just for polyamorous folks – relationship pain happens even if you’re monogamous. Monogamous people suffer jealousy. Monogamous people deal with spouses having attraction to others. Monogamous people get frustrated at their partner’s actions sometimes. Monogamous people worry about the longevity and stability of their relationships.

Pain, worry and discomfort can emerge in our experience no matter what our circumstances. How do we live with it in a way that is most likely to open us and the world around us into greater ease and fulfillment?

Our culture doesn’t teach this core skill, the skill of how to powerfully deal with pain.

So I got mad inspired and wrote this post:
Powerfully Processing Pain

I didn’t write it poly-specific – but it applies to the subjects of monogamy and polyamory too.

Tell me what you think of it.
Gail

The Doctrine of Awakening – http://is.gd/4cKD

Just wrote a new blog post, here:

The Doctrine of Awakening
http://is.gd/4cKD

If you can’t find it there you’ll also be able to find it here:
http://theintegratedapproach.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/the-doctrine-of-awakening/

With love and light,

Gail

Moaning in obliteration

Thank you Tom Goddard for turning me onto this poem.

Gratefully,
Melting girl.

It doesn’t interest me if there is
one God or many Gods.
I want to know if you belong or
feel abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to
live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you.
If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying, this is where I stand. I
want to know
If you know how to melt
into that fierce heat of living
falling toward the center of your longing. I
want to know
If you are willing
to live, day by day, with
the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce
embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

–David Whyte

Hurlyburly

I had another one of “those” experiences today – the Hurlyburly kind of experiences – the kind where I get pushed out of a moving vehicle because the driver is a paranoid who doesn’t understand that when I say, “Jack In The Box”, I’m neither talking code nor am I trying to offend him – I’m simply talking about loving fast food.

It’s crazy making.

In this case, the first “push out of a moving vehicle” was me being accused of unprofessionalism and shaming someone, when what I was really talking about was wanting to work at a rate that I enjoy. He apparently was mortified that I’d reject his request that I work at less than 1/3 of my usual fee. I take no issue with his desire to hire someone at his rate; I just am not personally available for that rate right now. Normally I try to go above and beyond the call of duty if I can help – refer the client to another professional. But in this case I couldn’t even do that – I don’t know anyone who works at the rate he wants. So I told him I couldn’t recommend anyone.

This conversation resulted in me getting labeled (unprofessional) and banished (“bad taste”) and accused of “writing a shaming reply”.

Normally I bite my tongue on moments like this, use the law of two feet, and take me somewhere more fun and less … painful.

But I’ve assigned myself a practice in more frequent expression and less frequent self-extraction from the scene, so I spoke up about it. His response was, “it’s not worth arguing about”.

Of course not.

Then it happened with someone else.

Imagine the scene:

I am on the phone with a friend who asks me my constraints for a meet-up (presumably because he was trying to arrange a meeting). I shared my constraints, imagining that he’d now take the info and use it to make a proposal for our meet.

No.

Instead, he grabs onto the content of my constraints and starts explaining HIS position on MY constraints.

Huh? Did I ask for that? No.

So then I tell him I’m confused: he asked my constraints, I gave them, NOW what would he like to DO about the meet? Wasn’t that why he asked my constraints in the first place – so that we could make a plan on when to get together?

He wraps up the conversation by saying that we have “communication differences”.

F*** me.

Am I insane to think that if someone asks a question and I answer it, it’ll be used for the original intent rather than used to digress to a second conversation?

My sister says, “Get used to it. Men are idiots.”

I prefer to live viewing the world with more innocent eyes. But I’m sure you can tell I’m a bit frustrated that this even happens.

Whoever the writer of Hurlyburly is, he/she is a f***ing genius. A true representation of the insanity of life. For all my spiritual practices, this phenomena still breaks my heart and makes me want to grab a burger and head home alone again. Thank you Universe for AFGO.

By the way, don’t watch Dancer In The Dark right after watching Hurlyburly, and then turn around and watch The TV Set.  Really depressing for anyone with a rational brain. Talk about the insanity of living in the modern world where people don’t hear each other, make assumptions rather than realize and check them out, and the people who do listen deliberately twist words and accountabilities to suit their own agendas.

Makes me want to pull out my hair.

It SOOOoooo doesn’t have to be this hard!!

Any advice, anyone, for how I can live with this without dying of heartbreak or going crazy or turning even *more* reclusive?

Off to the gym,

grieving girl

“Insanity sometimes is the sane response to a mad society” — Ronald David Laing

Help! Classical Music Compliation?

Hi again

Do you like classical music? Can you help me find this collection?

Until three weeks ago I couldn’t name classical composers by hearing a particular piece. Can you?

Anyway, three weeks ago is when I found these GREAT links on YouTube:

Great Classical Music Composers
Part 1 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-LK-7pluQA&feature=related
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ee8F3olCLM&feature=related
Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjrN8mN6kj0&feature=related
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULseDit9xM4
Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxGfjbx_UIk&feature=related
Part 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr44p1d38eU&feature=related
Part 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k1D89DV1M0&feature=related

Now I have a list of items I want, but no idea where to find a single compilation that has them!

Do you know where I could get these pieces in one compilation?
Curious,
Gail

Johann Pachelbel – Canon in D
Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1
Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
Bach – Air
Mozart Kaleidoscop
Rossini – William Tell overture
Ravel – Bolero
Beethoven – Symphony #5 in C Minor
Beethoven – Fur Elise
Beethoven – Symphony #5 in D Minor
Rossini – Barber of Seville Overture
Rossini – Barber of Seville Largo Al Factotum
Vivaldi – The Four Seasons “spring” – Allegro
Handel – Water Music – Hornpipe
Bach – Cantana #147 – Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
Bach – Suite for Orchestra #3 in D Major Air on the G String
Haydn – Symphony No 94 Surprise Movement II
Boccherini – Minuet
Mozart – Sonata in A Rondo Alla Turea
Mozart – Piano Concerto No 21 Andante
Mozart – The Marriage of Figaro – Overture
Mozart – Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Movement I
Mozart – Symphony No 40 Movement I
Mendelssohn – Midsummer Night’s Dream – Wedding March
Wagner – Lohengrin – Bridal Chorus
Chopin – Fantasie Impromptu
Chopin – Minute Waltz
Ambroise Thomas – Raymond – Overture
Liszt – Hungarian Rhapsody No 2
Liszt – Liebestraum No 3
Wagner – Die Walkure: Ride of the Valkyries
Verdi – Rigoletto – La Donna E’ Mobile
Verdi – Il Trovatore – Anvil Chorus
Verdi – Aida – Grand March
Gounod – Funeral March for a Marionette
Offenbach – Orpheus in Hades
Suppe – Poet and Peasant
Strauss – Blue Danube Waltz
Strauss – Tales from Vienna Woods
Borodin – Prince Igor – Polovtsian Dance No. 17
Brahms – Hungarian Dance No 5
Camille Saint-Saens – Dance Macabre
Camille Saint-Saens – The Swan from the Carnival of the Animals
Leo Delibes – Lakme’ – Flower Duet
Bizet – Carmen – Habanera
Bizet – Carmen – Toreador Song
Mussorgsky – Night on Bald Mountain
Tchaikovsky – Romeo & Juliet (I hate it, but I know it)
Tchaikovsky – Piano Concerto No.1
Tchaikovsky – Swan Lake
Tchaikovsky – 1812 Overture
Tchaikovsky – Sleeping Beauty
Tchaikovsky – The Nutcracker – Waltz of the Flowers
Dvorak – Symphony No 9 New World
Dvorak – Humoresque in G-flat Major
Massenet – Thais – Meditation
Grieg – Piano Concerto in A Minor
Grieg – Peer Gynt Suite No 1 – Morning
Grieg – Peer Gynt Suite No 1 – Anitra’s Dance
Rimsky-Korsakov – Flight of the Bumblebee
Faure’ – Pavane
Sousa – Semper Fidelis (don’t like, but know it)
Sousa – Stars and Stripes Forever (don’t like, but know it)
Elgar – Pomp and Circumstance (don’t like, but know it)
Debussy – Claire De Lune
Debussy – Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Mascagni – Cavalleria Rusticana – Intermezzo
Strauss – Also Sprach Zarathustra
Dukas – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Erik Satie – Gymnopedie No 1
Satie – Gnossienne No 1
Williams – Fantasia on “Greensleeves”
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No 2
Rachmaninoff – Symphony No 2
Rachmaninoff – Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini
Prokofiev – Romeo and Juliet – Montagues and Capulets
Orff – Carmina Burana – O Fortuna
Copland – Appalachian Spring
Chopin – nocturn #2 in e-flat major