"...it is our own wish to be soothed that is the root of the attraction."
I read in the yellow pages, the spine of the paperback cracking and that is underlined
for the second time because I bought my first copy of this book in 1988
and I felt behind the times
Still, I am a "woman who loves too much"

My first copy became so thrashed I put duct tape on it from my grip kit
film school and obsessions with unavailable guys, boys, and all kind of things
I did, drugs and two on one *** to try to make him love me back until a social worker asked me to buy the book and read it

I remember going over to University Village and walking to the back of the store
where the self help books were and there was one copy and I paid 4.95 in a kind
of glazed over way like I'd bought photocopied readers for classes.
Dutifully, sure that this in some way would benefit me although
I wouldn't really know how and then I read it and I was never the same.

"This book says it comes from your family" I remember telling my mother
on my land line with the long cord connected to the answering machine...
and I read that book nearly every day and my life got better and I made a film and got accepted to a New York City graduate film school and I threw it away
when my very serious boyfriend made fun of it
which was a mistake, because if I had kept it I never would have married him, I think.
I still remember it sitting there on a pile of newspapers in a milk crate,duct tape on the spine in the basement garbage room that was so cold with winter's air
and I felt like I was abandoning something alive and now I think that something was me

Anxiety goes up, impulse control goes down and here I am again
I went to a store, some store, I don't even remember which one or where but some
book store this time with desperation to find that book again and there was one copy
and I bought it some years ago and every time some nasty thing happens
there appears in my life some dude
who torments me and who I chase
who I try to extract caring from

Because it is the struggle I know so well
And it's 2013 and yes I am reading it again as if for the first time
And I find, it is my own wish to be soothed.
To have someone tell me, everything will be OK
This, too shall pass
And of course I know this, know this, ingrained and wired in my brain is
it has to come from somewhere else
when really, the only one who can truly soothe me, is me

They all look so young and lively and free on the Berkeley campus
walking and smiling and dancing swing and exercising and studying in internet
cafes and along the college walk there are clubs: pre-dental society,
women engineers, others, worn signs that stay out all year long in California and wear well
like the Clinton/Gore bumper sticker still visible and affixed to the stop sign off Telegraph and I wonder when there will be an avenue called "Internet"
And along the walls of Cafe Mediterraneum are highlights of the sixties, photographed by the dead owner of the place and there are still students studying and wierdos and old people reading books but there is no inspiration here anymore
From my generation, the eighties there are no pictures, and none from the seventies either and from the nineties and this decade has come and gone without notice on the walls
because youth by itself does not renew and innovate and the pressures of culture are too strong to re-invent and
it's not like there's nothing wrong, nothing that needs to be changed in our world today if anything things are worse
but now youth is only thinking about youth and buying low and selling high and there is no more idealism, no more desire to rectify anything, only to establish oneself as part of the middle class or above and have a house and 2.5 children
when the world is quickly being destroyed now just not by war, or an atomic bomb
that would be obvious because it would be loud and white and then there would be darkness and drops of rain and devestation
but I think I want to drop an intellectual bomb on these young people and tell them to wake up and try to change the world again and stop watching Reality TV and
do something that will help the world and put your picture on the wall of the Mediteraneum because you are trying to help the collective good and not just feather your own nest and not just worship the rich and exploitive entrepeneurs and try to emulate them as we were told to do in the eighties because that is just selfish meaninglessness that can't keep being replicated in this world, because it can't withstand it
our land and water can't withstand this lifestyle and the dollar store selling cutesie things made in China are coming from child labor and blood money and this dollar store is on Telegraph and no one cares or notices not even the young,
as slave labor continues to produce goods, just not here, where you can see it
and even if you care about animals, you can think of two million cats and dogs torchured and skinned alive for their fur in China and you , Berkeley are wearing it onn your fur trimmed coats
There is an eeries silence on Telegraph now where there should be the aliveness of debate and not just to get ahead, but to give a voice to the voiceless and alleviate the real and obvious suffering in the world
So youth, you are not so young and fresh you are a dissapointment
you are cowardly, pondering your own navel
and submissive and I expect more
THIS IS NOT ENOUGH
change is frightening, but it is
the only thing
that will save us

abandonment, wired for
panic
how can I explain if but
if you ever wonder why women chase men they don't like
or keep them around when they are hurting them
I explain that
it's the panic of abandonment because to feel nothing
nothing, is worse than pain
any pain of the relationship
because abandonment is more life threatening
to a child,
who is not a child but now an adult with a child inside
and the child panics and the woman
chases the man who hurts her
like an addict chases down a drug

Rejected, contract not renewed
and I hate these people but the rejection still hurts
because no one likes rejection, really even from people we hate and disrespect
which gets lost now because I'm still there and am surrounded by them and
I think I know why this all happened, because I don't fit into the principal's kingdom
where you must have only one drama director and not one and then another one
out there who was just forced out through seniority because she might cause TROUBLE
and it's true I don't fit in because I have gone to excellent schools, even an Ivy, and
I've traveled the world and learned an obscure language and I have so much more
experiences than most of those people could ever imagine having or even wanting

But it's still like the wind has been knocked out of me and now I'm feeling down, so down
and scared, waiting for my next plan--will I be accepted there and what is wrong with
me that I--
must stop these thoughts because they lead me down my dark alley
there was Craig last, who I befriended and tried to love and he could never love
me back and I thought if only I can get him to love me I will feel better and like
I'm Ok in spite of being rejected
and now it's Drew. and I don't like Drew and he kind of likes me
and yet I chase him and spend time with him and I'm not even enjoying
it and he is unpleasant and never says anything nice about me and never smiles
and  is happiest staring at his turtles as they awake from hybernation
and planning his cross country trip that will take all summer combing the country for any national parks he hasn't yet seen
and i yearn for his love and when I've had an awful frustrating time
with him, I ask him when we can get together next because
next time will be better and he looks at me with a stare
and at school a girl comes in at lunch and flirts with him and
i can't stand to be in the same room because its so inappropriate
and his boss struts in wearing high heels and onoe foot in a brace and flirts
and she is married and she gives me resentful, knowing looks
and i don't even like him but this
punch to the gut, this fear now, this not knowing if I'll be accepted back
into the school to get a new credential, the school I left to take this miserable
job. this is driving me crazy like I'm hanging onto a vine, suspended off of a cliff
with water and rocks a thousand feet below and I'm so scared, and every
day cold be another blow and I have only fear and
I must wait and I must build myself up again so I don't chase
Drew, who will only make me feel worse, because he is rude and pushy
as all my friends say and yet I ask to get together with him again.
And I must learn to appreciate myself again so there will be no Drew.
Please no more Drews, or Craigs and the list is quite long.
And one day I do well and ignore him and then as the week progresses
I get tired and it gets worse and I think, that thing, my drug
please I need my drug, and off I go.
I don't need any more drugs.  I need to feel good about me
again, from the inside out
despite the rejection

"Berkeley is anti-business" because
the regulations about water pollution and
there is irony there because there is nothing clean
or natural about Berkeley, that irony I can see but imagine
how much worse it would be...
You surf in the ocean and would you like
to also be surfing with more chemicals
and other nasty by products of human beings?
Really, really, I don't get you...

"I saw what it does to people," you said
with a mixture of disdain and disgust like
you were talking about **** addicts before
and after pictures.
"I hate girlfriends," you said to me after you told me
we weren't going out on Valentines Day because your
ex set you up with someone else and you "have to" go
and who is afraid of Berkeley and all those new idee-ers
The vegan restaurants with rice milk whipped cream
The pleasant outdoor cafes with people learning, studying
the only "Ivy League" public University...
All those things there to open your mind and make you
think differently and you may begin to believe in Global Warming
and even though you don't, those thoughts may haunt you
but I know there are scientists working in labs all over the world trying
to figure out what to do about it ...
Socialism, you are afraid of that too
but what is it when Walmart hands out an application
for public healthcare to all their new hires
since they will never be able to afford their own
and Walmart can't share any money on their behalf
In the Netherlands, mink farms have been outlawed
yet you like to dissect them in your class and
carry around the poor dead skinless creature in
a clear plastic bag around the school
and many of those places prefer to pay the fees
and citations of skinning the animals alive rather than
pay to **** them before skinning
why doesn't that bother you?

He does you ***** once
you don't feel much
you're not involved
a little voice inside says,
stop
but I don't head it
but it happens again
like he's a horse testing you
how much can he get away with
until you burn
every time is bigger
each time you are more of a mess
So get off the first time
and rest