If we listen to every question that we ask

I bought my pillow. I also went to buy my favorite blue cheese chips, but the only store in LA that carries them did not have them as usual. I’ve contacted the makers of these chips and ordered from them before, but they have since stopped their online and phone ordering. I talked to many people from this company and told them how hard it was to get their chips which are my favorite and I told them I would never eat any other kind of chips again and still they refused to let me order. When the store does have them in stock, they are usually stale. So if you want to help me out, visit http://www.goodhealthnaturalfoods.com/ and tell them you want to order their chips online because you can’t get them anywhere else.

So I brought home my new pillow and also bought another foam mattress pad. I sleep on a couch/bed thing that is a twin size. It’s horrible. My apartment came with furniture, which I thought was a good idea at the time, but now I hate this place and I hate all this wicker. It looks like some mean Grandma’s house. Actually it looks like a restaurant I never liked in Minnesota called Pannekoeken. Actually it looks like a Pannekoeken threw up in my apartment. http://www.pannekoeken.com/ On a side note, my grandfather built all the Pannekoeken restaurants in Minnesota. He didn’t eat in them, just built them.

As I was changing my sheets and putting the new mattress pad on my horrid bedcouch, I was thinking about how much my life has slipped down/away. When I looked at the mattress I remembered that it is the same mattress as the one that Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character slept on in the movie “Sherrybaby”. In that movie she lives in a halfway house.

As I put the new mattress pad on top of the old one (the bed’s hard so I am trying to add some padding so I don’t have to feel the springs in my back), I looked at the huge Noah (that’s me) sized sweat stain on it. (I do sweat a lot, always have.) Then I looked around my apartment, which didn’t take long because it’s just a small room and I remembered how excited I was a few years back to get a full size bed and to live in a one bedroom apartment instead of a studio. This was Minnesota, where rent is cheaper than LA. I never thought I’d end up with a twin size bed in a one room apartment again. Of course this time, I don’t even really own a bed because this bed is part of the rented ugly couch.

What I am saying is that I have to change my life for good, for better or be done with it. I always lean to changing it for better, but I like to think (love to think) about being done, but no one really wants to talk about that with me. I think about it all the time and it fills me with peace and joy. To be done. To say no, I’m not here. I’m checked out so I am leaving.

I may do another kind of leaving. I might visit Austin. Do you know anything about Austin? I know, it’s Texas, but I’ve heard it’s a great place to live. I’ve never been, but I want to visit in the next couple months at some point. If you have any suggestions about Austin (where to live, what it’s like there, that sort of thing) email me at: theawfulrowing@gmail.com.

I’m not living the life of someone who’s going to turn 34. I’ve been stuck for almost three years now (three years starting November 21st). I need to get unstuck or be done.

Today I have for you a song that helps me a lot. It’s a song about choices, about paths and I find it amazing and heavenly. It’s Dolly Parton’s version of “Stairway to Heaven” from her 2002 Halos & Horns album (a great album by the way). You may think Dolly Parton? Why her? Because she’s an original and she has a sense of humor about herself (something that is missing here in smoggy LA).

I had heard that Dolly Parton did a cover of “Stairway to Heaven” and I listened to it out of curiosity and fell in love with it right away. Then I listened to the rest of the album and I was surprised how much I liked it.

Dolly was in the first movie I ever saw in a theatre, “9 to 5”. I remember going with my grandma and asking her what stoned meant. She told me the truth as she always did (unless the truth was about her), so ever since then I’ve had a special place for Dolly.

Take a listen to “Stairway to Heaven”. Open your mind and really listen to her and the choir and see if you don’t have an experience of lifting. Listen to this song when you need a pathway.

Dolly Parton: Stairway to Heaven
http://www.zshare.net/audio/37969098ea38c3