keep a lid on it.......or not...

Last night I had a dream about a bunch of trash cans.... the ones without lids were $50 cheaper than the one with them.  I woke up thinking how that is such a metaphor for life. We pay a much higher price for for keeping secrets than letting them breathe.  Of course it's not a monetary price, it's and emotional price. But I am a huge believer that money is a representation of our insides.

I always thought that if I told people the truth about myself, that the price would be awful, and sometimes it is. Sometimes the immediate reaction I get is so unbearable at  first because of the actually incident, but secondly, how it brings up my past and how I was attacked by my family because of their own inadequacies.

That last statement is the reality though. If it's hysterical its' historical. Because really if someone does not have the tools to handle my being a person that's really reflection of them not me.  But, when your a kid you internalize it and twist it.

Becuase the reality is, yes maybe it might hurt in the moment, but in the end the reward of freedom is priceless.

My career is taking off again and I'm having so many feelings.  I have so much goodness going on. I'm reminded of how hard it was the first go around. I had goodness but I was so young I didn't have any way to take care of myself. I fed into the darkness. I let it take me down.  The craziest part is that the goodness far outweighed the bad. But because I still had the darkness in me it won over.

This time is so different. I'm learning how to show up for life and really be myself. I've always always wanted to live my life a certain way. I have always been really honest. But people would say, "Sue we're not all like you!" and I would hide in shame. Mind you, I was never asking anyone to be like me. And, the other thing is they all wanted to be around me, my fun and cuteness and love, but they wanted it on their terms. I would buy into that at the expense of myself and eventually the love was gone and grumpy Sue would emerge.

My Dad always told me that I was too much growing up.  To much what? To much love? To much honesty? To much joy? To much funny? To much sexy? Imagine telling a kid that?

He also used to tell me that I couldn't lie no matter what. What a mixed message; he was essentially seeing that couldn't lie and asking me to lie about who I was at my core.  Mixed message or dummy?  He would love for me to have put a lid on it. Just so that he could feel more comfortable.

I am a performer. I am going to Boston for a few things this weekend. The reason I am going is people are paying me to let it all hang out. So I ask myself? Would I rather let it all air out even if that means some people need to stay with the "lids on group?" Yes I'll gladly take the 50 bucks and the freedom and be on my way.

loss and gain.......

I didn't blog yesterday because the Puerto Rican day parade was here in NYC and all the police blocked me signal, so I went downtown to get away from all the hubbub. I love Sundays.  It's my favorite day of the week. I used to hate them. I was so scared of my life that I didn't want another day to come. Well, yesterday we went to friend’s restaurant again and the hot boxer waited on us. So cute, the bartender was saying something to him and he came over to the table and whispered “the bartender wants to take you out on date" I replied "get in line" (jokingly) and then the boxer said yeah behind me.  So much fun.... esp. because I had on a t shirt, jeans and converse sneakers. The rest of the place was dressed to the nines. The boxer said something about my being flexible and I asked my friend how he knew that and she said, "He’s imagining." Its amazing this power called sexuality. It’s not how you dress its how you treat people.

I've been reading this spiritual book and it talks a lot about women’s sexuality and how it’s so important to use it to make the guys feel good, which is the complete opposite of what I was taught. It reminded me of when I went down to hand out food a few days after 9/11. I remember all the cops and fireman flirting so much. I was shocked that they could be in that much pain and still be sexual.  It made me feel really good, because there was something about it being an affirmation of life. That life goes on. It has to, we have no choice.

This spiritual book talks about how your sexuality can be a counter force to all the bad in the world.  Think of that image, we are standing downtown, these guys are digging out there friends form the rubble, we smell burning flesh and gasoline and there is sexuality surviving among all that destruction.

When I left the restaurant, I got an email from a girl from my neighborhood that another girl that we grew up with had died.  I'm not exactly sure of the cause of death, but I know she had been struggling with drugs and alcohol. As matter of fact, last time I was in Boston someone had told me that she was missing.

I cried so hard. I was surprised by my reaction. I was telling my NYC friends about her and how all weekend I had been listening to Grand Master Flash. That was one of the songs we listened to when she and I would go into the Old Harbor Projects. I was telling my friends about the guys we would meet and all the drugs. It just hit me, how dangerous it all was.

I also felt such sadness about how I got out and she didn't. Some people call it survivor guilt, but I think that sounds grandiose. Who am I to judge what someone’s path is?  All I can do is feel my feelings.

Every time I do my show people are like "Sue do you have any idea how poignant it is that you are alive to tell that story?' They are implying that I should be dead, and that most people don't live to tell my story. Or if they are alive, they are so shut down from the pain that they never could re tell it. I've been writing and performing my show for years now, but since going back to Boston it has sunk in even more.

I will say that coming to terms with my past has been an excruciating task. And I'm still going through it. I realized that when I had my success years ago I had to insulate myself. I used all the money and the fact that I had moved away as a buffer.

But as we all know, it’s and inside job. It's easy to stay away and pretend to be something that I’m not. But the true test is, to change and be able to go back as the person I have become.  Not only that, but to be able to maintain who I am in the midst all the pain. To show up with love, and to cry at the things that make me sad.

If I can show one person that there is hope for some freedom, and by freedom I mean, being a person who feels sadness, joy, sexuality, anger ...everything, then I feel like my life is worth it. And I mean show them, by being real about how sad I was as a person and how lonely and scared I was. And to show them that shame is not a necessity.

Like I said, guilt is just another form of ego. I'm very sad that the girl I grew up with no longer with us. And i felt it last night. I cried so hard I thought I was going to throw up.  But like I said maybe she was in so much pain that she needed out.

For the rest of us we need to keep going. We can't let sadness of that weigh so heavily on us that it takes us down too, life moves on,  every second someone is dying and every second someone is being born, though the act of sex. If we all just died, there would be no more world, no more life. If we are going to be alive, I say live until it's our time to go. And part of living is grieving. Feeling the loss and letting it go, somehow some way.

I woke up to an email from a cop I used to date 20 years ago who heard I was coming to town and if i need anything to call him. Sexuality- the counter force to all the bad in the world.

Follow though and Let the sun shine in...

I used to think, why is it when I lose my wallet and then find it; that the joy I feel, never matches the pain I would feel if I couldn't find it?  Simple, I couldn't feel goodness. Well, there's new sheriff in town. I say enough of that! Yesterday I had a day of goodness that I would never have happened in the past, not because the world isn't good, but because I would have found some way to make shit out of it. I would worry and try to control things, based out of fear.

I'm going to Boston next weekend and I'm staying in my favorite hotel and they are hooking me up. I stayed there in April and had  lil prob at check in and now they making it up to me.

When I was there,I worked with Charlie Murphy and I met his publicist. She was so nice that when I got back to Boston, I followed up with her and thanked her. She sent me the nicest email telling me if I ever needed anything to let her know.

Well, I needed to do some radio to promote my show, so I aksed for her help. She sent me the names of a few people that were at the Charlie show. I followed up and they are thrilled to have me on. They thought I was wicked funny.

Like that wasn't enough, I was walking home from getting a massage and a phone call that I had been waiting on came in. I can't share the news yet, but in due time I will. But I will tell you, it was a very nice phone call.

The point of all this being, I never would have followed up with all this because I didn't feel worthy and staying a victim was all I knew.  I thought, who will I be if I'm not the girl who gets f*cked over?

Ah ha !!! I'll tell you. I'll be the girl who gets everything she's ever dreamed of and feels the gratitude from the top of her head, to the bottom of her tippy toes!!!!

if you be a good person good things will happen

hmmmmmmm sounds simple right? I don't even like the word good or bad for that matter. I would prefer authentic or inauthentic. Because as altruistic as it may sound, I believe that every human being is at their core, essentially good.   I don't think that any human being enters this earth with something wrong with them. and I certainly don't think that God breaks people, I think people break people and sometimes they do it under the guise of love. That being said, a friend of mine was talking about the importance of having a strategy for life. In the same breath, he talked about how God was going tt take care of him.  I told him that that concept has always been something I wrestled with. If God is going to take care of everything, then why do I need to have a strategy?

So like everything that doesn't make sense to me, I needed to give it some space and see what came to me. about it. And here's what I came up with.

I think that the only strategy you can have is to understand yourself to find what you really want, desire and refute. Not based on what others will thing but really what's in your gut.  Find out what makes you tick. find out what is ok for you and what's not. Find out the difference between what was put on you as opposed to who you really are.

That is the work I believe we are supposed to do as human beings. I used to be so afraid of going to hell. Then when I was a teenager I thought this was hell. And now I think hell is the burning shame that we all carry around inside us.  I think heaven is right here on earth but sometimes you have to go through hell to get there. I think that we get in our own way. That happiness is the state that we all are in but we take ourselves out with our own self hatred.

Personal boundaries are my strategy, because if we are all children of God then that means i am as well. So why would I treat God's child poorly. The only reason would be because some human being showed me that you treat children poorly.  I understand why kids don't want to grow up,  because what it looks like to be and adult is miserable.

I also think that kids are the closest thing to God that we have. I mean think about, you create a kid, which is close to the word creator. so when we are creating we are closer to our creator.   I think adults can't take the unbearable lightness of being that kids posses because they kids light exposes the adults darkness.

But, an adult would never say that out loud. They have a hard time admitting to what children bring up in them. I mean really, imagine a little tiny vulnerable thing lying next to you. It would to bring up feelings of when we our selves were that vulnerable. Adults pretend that what they are doing for the kid is for the kids own good but really it's just so the adult doesn't have to feel certain feelings. they squash the kid,thus the cycle continues. Not until we all embrace our child within and help that chile mature will the cycle stop.

I think the most spiritual question you can ask is why. Kids ask it all the time.

Catholics eat fish on Friday esp during lent. I wasn't sure why eating fish could make you more holy. I wanted to know why so I googled it, and it says becuae the fishing industry (mafia in Italy) was having a hard time financially so the Pope declared all catholics eat fish on Friday.

So for today, I ask that you to just ask yourself why you do things, what makes you tick, what's your passion?  Also, how much hell are you will to go through to get it?

There was a guy rowing a boat and God was on the front steering it. The guy rowing said "hey God I'm tired can I steer" and God replied "Sure, but I don't row."

What's better foundation or facade?

Foundation: 1. The basis or groundwork of anything; the moral foundation of both society and religion.

2. The natural or prepared ground or base on which some structure rests.

3. The lower division of a building or wall or the like, usually masonry and partly or wholly below the surface of the ground.

4. The state of being founded.

Facade:

1. The front of a bulding, esp an imposing and decorative one.

2.  Any side of a building facing a public way or space and finished accordingly.

3. A superficial appearance or illiusion of something.

I was listening to a song yesterday about a guy checking his hair in the mirror and I made me think about how hard it is to turn the mirror on the insides.  Someone once told me that anything not built on a spritual foundation would crumble.  So I started thinking about how we take such better care of our ousides than our insides. And how the more we build up the facade the more the more weight it puts on the foundation, and if the foundation is weak it will all eventually crumble.

I was thinking about intimacy, real intimacy. How so many people are afraid of it; they think it's because they are going to be trapped but the truth is that when you allow someone, that vulnerability causes the facade to crumble whether you like it or not. Into me I see. You can never know what a person is like until you get close. And you can never know what you are like and "made of" if you until you let your facade down and test the foundation.

I mean think about it, if you buy a house or an apartment you really don't know what it will really be like to live there until you move in. Yes ,you can have someone over to do tests and inspections, but until you hunker in you have no idea.

It's the same with people, that 's why comparing our insides with other people's outsides will always leave you feeling less than. Until you get close and see how people really live and  how you will respond, you really can't build your foundation. A facade with a facade will never make a home.

Last night I was out with some guy friends of mine. I told one of them that there skin looked way better since he's been going to yoga. And right away he's was like "what did it look like shit before?" I was like you guys you can't take compliment. And my other friend said "I can, lay it on me I'll sop it up with a piece of bread." I didn't believe him.  He's definitely good looking but I've been with guys like that before who say they like compliments but if you give them too much niceness they're own self hatred will push it away even if it's what they desperately want.  They were like "Sue's badass... she's glowing, as usual, and look at how ripped her stomach is." I used to hate when people called me a Bad ass. I thought it wasn't girly enough. But obviously girly is a state of being, since they noticed my stomach. Then, one of them said "yeah she will get all Boston on you, all street, and the other one said yeah but if you got street with her she'll turn all book on you."  Again I used to get so mad when people would say that to me.  I've had famous movie stars tell me that they are afraid of me. Alec Baldwin told me that he's afraid of my brain and my mouth. And Colin Farrell told me that I scared the shit out of him because I"m pretty, funny and I don't miss a f*ckin trick.  I guess now looking back, it's a compliment. It means , that I'm in touch with all of me when I'm in the world. Lol  And pretty much what they all are saying is how smart I am which is CRAZY because growing up they told me I that I was retarded.

I'm a big fan of guys,  one of the guys from last night is going to teach me how to play chess and I woke up to this from another guy,  "you have no limits, trust in God and be gratefu,l i see god in you, walk in the sun light of the spirit and fuck everything else xxx"

Last night I was reading this spiritual book that this woman in her 60's wrote. She talked about how her generation made the mistake of becoming like men to get ahead. And how she regretted not holding on to her princess warrior. We don't need to become men, we need to remain feminine and soft while strengthening our foundation so that their insecurities and facades don't take over everything and vice versa.  It's ok for guys to be soft too, if they are soft with the right person, it will only strengthen the foundation.

I do find it weird that everyone comments on  me, lol but at least its matching up; what's at my foundation is supporting my facade. Front, sides and my back side booty.

Look but don't stare..

It's called dristy in yoga.... you are supposed to keep your eyes open the whole time, but open, in a soft gaze.  Also, the word vinyasa means to integrate.  Transmutation-change your DNA- your nervous system. That's what I heard when I first started doing yoga. I wasn't conscious of of that fact that I wanted this when I began my yoga practice almost 10 years ago. But, just like life; bring the body and the mind will follow.  There are 3 levels of consciousness, mind, ego, pure intelligence.  I was a big shopper when I started doing yoga. I remember having thoughts at the time about how I was ever going to stop. I wanted to but i couldn't. I had so much stuff that I couldn't possibly wear it all. Growing up and to this day, my mother shops, and returns and shops and returns. Always at mark down places like TJ Max and Marshalls. She was always looking for something, to get over to get something for less, to beat the system. A convoluted was to get what she needed that never worked. I took on that quality in spite of what I wanted inside. I remember being a child and asking a my mother to please just get me one nice thing for Christmas.  She didn't, she got me a bunch of shit. Because it wasn't about what I wanted, it was about what she wanted or more about what she needed so deparately inside that no bargain was ever going to fill.  So, I learned to just give into her. My needs weren't met, so, I figured out  a convoluted way to get them, I became her. But as  mentioned yesterday, those survival techniques turn on you as an adult. When I first made money, I made a lot in very short time. It was so overwhelming. I didn't know how to spend it. I had lived in deprivation for so long. So like a pendulum, everything that swings one way, will swing the other eventually if you put too much pressure on it. My Mom used to tell us that we didn't belong in fancy stores growing up So, as soon as I had money I wanted desperately to show her that we did belong. Also, I was shocked at how the value of buying something nice. It made much more sense than buying ten shitty things, because it lasted and it was way less time consuming, which left me time to be more creative.  I remember sitting in Amhereins, a restaurant in South Boston with my family. I had on a Giorgio Armani sweater. My mother would not stop going on about it, how expensive it was blah blah. So that Christmas,  I bought her an expensive cashmere sweater set. I thought in my "ego" that I was showing her that we did belong. Guess what? she returned it for 10 shitty things. I realize now, that what I was doing was trying to stop her from being jealous, and to get her to agree with my way of thinking to fill that void. Well my first yoga class the teacher said if you practice yoga, eventually you will not have a need for material things. I was like yeah right.  It's crazy if I walk in to a store now, it literally hurts my nervous system. All I can think is; addicted to the intensity of a bad feeling. Danger disguised as safety. It must have hurt back in the day as well. That yoga teacher was right, it worked. But like everything, nothing is black or white.  So, with my mind, I was able to integrate that  part of my shopping was a way of me trying to not be my past. Almost like  a costume, to pretend that I didn't come from where I do. Then there is the good part of buying those nice clothes; I bought things that I liked,  I still have them, they are still beautiful and I don't need a lot.  I still like nice things, but they don't make me who I am. So, essentially I wear my clothes like I wear life, like a lose garment.

Now to my past. I am going back to Boston to work in a couple of weeks and every single person that I've even been near is coming. It's been so interesting to go back in and re work what I thought was. I think ONE person said something bad about my sitcom and it crippled me. I am so excited that I have practiced my yoga and put down the shopping, so that I have had time to be creative.  To take time to see inside myself.  I'm proud that I reached in  and found the courage  to go back and see that it wasn't so bad. It was just how I felt. It's a coward who stays in the fight, but a warrior who looks for the love. And love is the only truth.  I mean they wouldn't be coming if I they didn't want to? Right? They are all coming to support me and in turn, I will tear it up! Just show them love and how much I appreciate them." Bernard Shaw said it best,"make em laugh and slip it in when they are not looking"  One of the girls that I went to high school with was like "we're so excited and we remember you so fondly." And another girl from my neighborhood was like "Sue I remember the jokes you told over the years and they still make me feel good."  God, being part of the gang was so important to me. I wanted to be just like everyone else and for years I wanted everyone to see me.  I was trying to force it on them, and we all know what happens when you force someone, they rebel and shut down even if what you are saying has truth to it. All I had to do was see myself.   Now I do it through my art. I do what is comfortable for me. And in turn, people see it.  Now I am free to go home and be amongst people that are a huge part of shaping who I am. That's what they teach you in yoga. The community should strengthen the individual. And in yoga, we start in child's pose(birth) and end in shavasana. (corpse pose. )  Just like life, a bunch of births and deaths. I'm ready to let go of the Sue who saw the world through the eyes of her wound.  With death comes sadness. In order to let go,  I need to see that  have been experiencing the world for 40 years thinking something that had nothing to do with who was as a person, or how people saw me. But the bright side, the rebirth, that I don't have to live the nest 40 like that. Now that's pure intelligence.

sometimes i just want a hamburger...

While having dinner with my friends on Sat night one of my girlfriends was telling a story about how she is really trying to work on herself and make her life simpler. She was saying that she used to go on dates and do this thing with guys, where she would be so witty that it would trigger competition inside of them to be witty back. She said it was exhausting.  She was saying that she wants to learn how to not do that because she doesn't want competition, she just really wants a hamburger. That is such a simple statement but it's such a complicated journey to get there. Last night, I saw a commercial that said the simpler things get the thinner they get. And I thought wow that makes sense. In our country obesity is killing everyone, even our kids. I thought about how there is such a connection to weight being a result of not expressing ourselves. There is also something to be said about weight being like armor; a way to hide in public. Because think about it, if you are totally without that extra baggage your are vulnerable to people seeing you and being attracted to you.   You would need to be in your body and learn the boundaries it takes to protect yourself which seems exhausting. The weight seems like an unspoken, easier way to tell someone to stay away from you. But, like I said yesterday, its danger disguised as safety. Never mind vanity, I'm speaking purely form a health stand point. But there is also something to be said about what being in shape (i don't mean skinny) does for your sex life.  There are proven facts that sex helps you stay healthy.

I went to the Moma this weekend and while I was there, I just felt what my body felt like while I was there. I was so relaxed just standing there amongst the art. There were exhibits about poop and penis's and castration and sex symbols. Just people letting it all hang out there.  It reminded me of when Christo and Jean Claude put up the gates in Central Park. I didn't get it. I told an artist friend of mine. And she explained to me that I could walk back through them and feel how my body feels. I did and it was amazing. Then I started to want more. I went to Richard Serra exhibit. There were a bunch of mazes. Some were big and towered over me; I felt scared and very small, almost claustrophobic.  Then there were a few that were really small and as I walked through them I felt so big and powerful. This idea of how your body feels amongst certain situations is so intriguing to me. I mean even when it comes to sex. You could be with someone so hot, but if your shut down inside you can't feel it. They say when you are really in love the sex is amazing. Yeah, but it still has to come from inside. This idea that another person makes us complete seems like a nice idea, but for me the danger disguised as safety comes up again. No other person can make you feel anything. It takes your brain and your body to really feel everything. There is something so erotic about being able to feel such feelings even when you are by yourself.  For me that is spirituality. and for me spirituality is your gut. It's what you feel.

It's not black or white, it's not all hamburgers or none. I have a friend who said she wasn't going to have sex with a guy for three months. She's 40. That's weird to me. Also, very withholding. People think if they can do this one thing, it will keep them from being hurt. It's not true, sex or no sex doesn't do alot accept block your pleasure. Why block your own pleasure to protect yourself from someone else?  I mean, there is a thing called sexual anorexia. It's boundaries, that's what helps you hold on to yourself.  And if someone isn't respecting you, you can remove yourself and the sex goes with that. and, if it was good sex then that's even better. That seems way more powerful than dry humping for three months.

I saw a friend of mine the other day who is 9 months pregnant. She said people always touch her belly. I said it's to bad people don't know to ask first. Her immediate  response was "what am I going to say no?" UMMM Yes...  I told her she could kindly say" not right now" or" I've been touched a lot today" or "Im not feeling so well."  She looked shocked and relieved that there was another option.  She literally told me that her belly has dropped and people reached down almost to her private parts to touch her belly. It reminds me of my friends daughter who said "it's my body and I decide what goes on with it." She was six. Her feelings have not buried her alive yet. She knows what it feels like to be in her body. Just like my other friends daughter that used to masturbate in her car seat. So cute.......  They know how to ask for a hamburger.  But, over the years our needs are not met, so we figure out convoluted ways to try to get what we need. Those  things we used to survive worked when we were little, but somewhere along the way they turn on us and they become the reason for our own demise.

Sleep is no escape from self.....

I read this passage from the Greek playwright Aeschylus last night before falling asleep. "He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." It made me think about how much more I used to sleep. I LOVED my bed for years and I took a nap every day. I used to think of it as an escape from my feelings, but it wasn't an escape, it was just a brief relief, but really it wasn't relief because I wasn't living my life to the fullest, I was sleeping.  I think of the way I used to treat my bed as like a coffin or a womb. I can't really tell you which, but they are the same for me when it comes to being a grown woman. A grown woman in a womb might as well be a grave.  And like the quote above says, we are never relived of our pain, our pain is the touch tone for growth but we have to go through it. Because the more we avoid it, the worse it gets. It affects out sleep, our bodies, our heath.  If you look at not dealing with your pain as a form of immaturity, remaining a baby in the womb,  its like you are suffocating yourself. And if you look at it like a grave it's the same. That little box might feel safe but it's just an illusion. Its danger disguised as safety, you're killing the wrong person. Kill the ego, kill the false self so the authentic self can emerge. Yes it takes a while and a little blind faith. But most importantly you have to feel as though you are worth it.YOU ARE WORTH IT! Just because you are born, it's your God given right. No matter how bad you feel about yourself there is someone out there who feels worse.When you give birth you have to push and if you were buried alive wouldn't you dig ferociously to get yourself out. And once you were out and you saw someone else buried alive wouldn't you show them the way?  When they asked Michelangelo how he came up with the sculpture of David he said he didn't, he just chipped away at the marble and David was already inside. He also said that the piece of marble that he used had been discarded because it had a chip in it.   The only way out is through.   Everything we do in life has a circle. The circle of creation and destruction. Day turns into night and then day again. Breathe comes in and goes out. We take our first breath when we  are born and we release our last breathe when we die. I have hope that as long as the breath is going in and out, that the creation destruction can happen at any second you just have to believe that you are worth it!