Back in New York now. re-integrating. On the subway last night and realized how powerful but subtle the impact was. normally I'm hooded sunglassed and ipoded, not really there... hiding out.  the last two days I'm just sitting there feeling everyone, open, feeling it all. without agenda. Strange I think. what is it that is missing? The agendas. Nothing running in my head. Not much reaction triggering. More presence. More here now. not a lot of thinking. God I fucking love Avatar. I love being me. pure beingness.

It's spring in New York now. spring is here. living in Florida the last few years I had forgotten what spring meant. totally forgotten the significance of it. you just don't get spring in Florida. wow. Spring. It means so much when you live in a place like New York. I sit in the park and notice the grass is growing again. it is warming up. the squirrels and pigeons are back again. they are everywhere. jumping all over the place. it is beautiful. the park is populated with hundreds of people playing with their children on swings. Winter came and went so quickly. It will be missed. I will not know how to dress. What will I do when I don't need to wear my hooded coat? Where will I put my phone and pda and ipod when I'm walking around? I love my coat. I will miss the cold and snow. but welcome the new season.

Ah New York. you forget when you aren't here for a while. there is the man on the subway carrying on a very passionate and complete conversation hand gestures and all with absolutely no one while the rest of us try not to notice. There is the almost daily subway ride with one half of the car filled with people holding their nose and the other half with one passed out drunk sprawled out on the seats who has pissed himself, the smell so bad we’re all running to the next car. no one says anything. New Yorkers are like that. you have to figure that if a man is that far down that he is peeing on himself and passing out on subways God bless him and hopefully help him. no one’s going to say shit about it to anyone; let him sleep. its not that people dig it, but I think people understand and sympathize. Life is hard sometimes. There is the man who stops in a phone booth to let his pants fall to his ankles and pee right there out in public all over the phone booth as if it’s a toilet. There is the man who gets off the bus in front of my apt and walks backwards all the way into his apartment building across the street. Entirely backwards. Why? I don't know. there is the woman on the train last night who was shouting to all of us asking us if we had ever seen a white mans asshole. I swear to God. I don't know what she meant. God only knows. she was really loud and drunk. but I was drunk as well so I didn't mind. I thought it was disgusting and offensive but funny; felt as if I were in the African savanna with a bunch of other wild animals, any minute someone could have walked up to someone else on the train and ripped their head off and started eating their flesh from their neck and no one would have flinched. Sometimes you become very aware of what animals we are here roaming the earth with all our pretense. Just all part of the fold of living here. you get used to it. you get used to everything. after a while nothing shocks you.
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maria was in the hospital. She has been my friend for ten years. she has lambs disease. Her lungs are getting eaten away. filled with holes. They collapse and then she can’t breathe. It is not a good thing. she is young. This makes it sadder somehow. when I got the news I went to the hospital to see her. I brought my guitar to play for her and chill. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism on my part a little bit, just to ease the tension of being there with someone who is really sick... she had a lot of difficulty breathing. Could barely speak. We watched rocky on the TV and I sat with her and played her new songs. Told her I would write her a song so I started picking on different things. tuned to an open G. she told me certain lyrics that she wanted in her song. it was ironic that we were watching rocky and she was laying there sick and unable to breathe.

She had to go to the bathroom and told me I had to help her. it was challenging for both of us I am sure.

To watch someone sit there and tell you that they have done everything they can do to try to find ownership of the creation and yet still cannot discreate it – that they want to live, that they have processed over and over and over again and still cannot heal themselves... makes you wonder... how in control are we really? How much is up to us and how much is up to some external forces that we are just not aware of yet? so fucking frustrating. Watching her sit there grasping for each breath, smiling and telling me that she doesn’t want to die but that maybe this is just the way it is... her karma. Note: when we have tried everything and can still not become source of our creations or experiences, then we resort to believing in concepts such as God or the universe or karma creating for us. fucking Maria. God save her. 

Last screening: state of grace with Sean Penn and Gary Oldman and Ed Harris. Wow. What a great movie. No, a good movie. But some really fine acting. Worth seeing. Stellar cast if not the best story.