Last Words

tonytohono · Post by **tonytohono** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:39 am

I'm sick of resolutions and goals for the New Year. How about praise for the accomplishments we acheived for this year? Or how about complaints for the things we blew the opportunity to achieve?

Or Whatever.

I had a fucking great year. I went to Burning Man for the first time, after years of unsuccessfully trying to go. I met some of the most interesting people I have ever met in my entire life there - This Year.

I found this site and I have met (virtually, and even several recently in person) some very unique, fascinating, intriguing, cool people. Thanks to everyone of you.

Because of one of those people I got to go to Joshua Tree this past week and even though it rained to Biblical Proportions, I had a great time, and even met few more interesting people through the experience, and got to try something I was wishing I could try 6 months ago. Thank you Regyna.

Anyway, tell us all about it. Right here.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:46 am

I got in touch with my inner fragile flower, but my psyche still hurts.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:47 am

I also discovered the penguins look better on a white background.

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:56 am

I had the living shit kicked out of me this year... which is the same as every other year of this life. It has been great, and I don't think I would have it any other way.

Last word for the Old Year?
I am in love with Life itself, and that love will never die. Love itself (a nebulous and fleeting concept) is all there is, and when you're in love, all things are possible...

Next?

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 12:58 pm

last words=first words.....
love oh and more love

helitack · Post by **helitack** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:06 pm

samtzu wrote: Last word for the Old Year?
I am in love with Life itself, and that love will never die. Love itself (a nebulous and fleeting concept) is all there is, and when you're in love, all things are possible...

Next?

Goddammitt Sam! That sez it all right there. Yep, damn, Wow!

Donita · Post by **Donita** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:20 pm

Last words: Out with the old and in with the fucking new. Hallelujah.

Zulegoona · Post by **Zulegoona** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 1:42 pm

I came to the end of a path I thought I'd be able to be on till I retired, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the fates will weave for me in 2005.

Got to have faith that thing will only get better.

sparkletarte · Post by **sparkletarte** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 3:55 pm

Well, 2004 was pretty amazing, and 2005 will be even more so. I am soooooooo excited to be moving into a new house in a cool little town. One of my friends has said she wants to paint a mural on the outside of the shop. She's a great artist and I'm really looking forward to seeing that happen. THis move is going to do wonders for my business. Plus, I got some awesome new snowboard boots today...I'll try them out tomorrow, what a great way to bring in the new year!

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:19 pm

I shook my whole life like a snowglobe and I'm still watching all the little bits of it settle around me.

It sure as fuck hasn't been boring...

Rob the Wop · Post by **Rob the Wop** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:26 pm

2005 has got to be better than this year.

And it will be. Some chapters are ending. Some chapters are starting.

Some really cool things happened. Some really troubling times appeared.

I'm thinking the next couple of years will be those that widen my horizon.

tonytohono · Post by **tonytohono** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:43 pm

Zulegoona wrote:Got to have faith that thing(s) will only get better.

I could use a good shot of optimism. Thanks Zule.

Lydia Love wrote:It sure as fuck hasn't been boring...

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Rob the Wop wrote:2005 has got to be better than this year.

And it will be. Some chapters are ending. Some chapters are starting.

I'm pretty happy with the way 2004 turned out for the most part. Sure somethings could have been better—a lot better—but at the same time I got a lot out of it. Still, I'm shooting for a better year in 2005 too. And I believe it is going to be better too.

Magikal · Post by **Magikal** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:05 pm

Let's see. Had a very dear friend die very suddenly, which really tore me up. But it certainly re-enforced for me how important the remaining ones (and family) are.

Have another friend who I usually spend New Years' with, but every time I've tried to hook up and hang out for the past several months, he has been "too busy". He didn't contact me for New Years and I didn't contact him. If he wants to talk to me, he has my number, but it surely looks like I lost two friends this year.

Finally got to Burning Man for the first time ever, after wanting to for years. Hopefully the source of many new friends to replace the ones I lost, but I am not a man who makes close friends easily.

Got a new truck (my old one was nearing 10 years & nickle & diming me to death). A few other things, I'm sure, but those are the high points.

Some bad things happened, but overall, a good year. Every year gets a little bit better, as I resolve more "old issues" and learn more and think more and do more. Looking back, it's been one hell of a trip, and this year looks to be more of the same. No, it has not been boring. And if anything, I wish I had gone on (and had) even more adventures. My only limits are my own courage, which serves as a fine life's philosophy.

tisha2 · Post by **tisha2** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:17 pm

this year i've been examining my issues, masks, defensive mechanisms, and closed up places with a vengeance.... it's been very difficult. humbling. downright torturous at times. not sure where it's heading. just that i find i feel so much more alive when my heart is wide open, regardless of the pain i am often vulnerable to... perhaps because of it...

have found some old stuff that i just need to jettison, and am trying out different ways of doing that....writing, ritualistically burning things, talking...next, i think, is painting.

yee-fuckin-haw! what a ride...

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 9:14 pm

Yee-fucking-haw, indeed...

Happy New Year, y'all...

Sam

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 9:45 pm

BTW... one last word on the 'Last Words' thread:

It is not (EVER!) as bad as it may seem. This life is merely the antechamber to a cathedrel of Joy! I used to think that Life was this horrible thing that we were forced to endure. A few years ago I was shown that Life is this wonderful thing that we are allowed to experience!

And that Joy, unlike happiness, flows from the inside of us and can never be extinguished... EVER!! It is always within us and can be called upon at any time in our life to fill the void that has (surprisingly) suddenly appeared. Joy is our friend and is always with us, while happiness is a merry pixie that comes and goes at her will.

Let Joy be a strong mast rising up inside you, holding up the sails that drive you forward on this life...

Hopefully, that is my last word for this New Year...

Mister Jellyfish Mister · Post by **Mister Jellyfish Mister** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 10:02 pm

Thanks, Tony, for opening this thread the way you did. Does everybody know about your excellent taste in music?

I had my goals laminated and posted in the shower, but I got sick of looking at them and took them down before the burn. Here's the ones I wrote a year ago today and can truely say I accomplished this year:

Replaced being right with being present.

My wife and I share a communication and bond that is open and nurturing. I treasure her and our life together.

I feel a shower of abundance in my life. Love, money, and fun rain down upon me. It feels effortless and exhilerating.

Our October "Leaf-Peeper" vacation feels adventurous, fun, and full of natural discovery.

My healthy immune system purges uninvited bugs.

I have a great new assistant who compensates well for my weak areas and helps me shine with my strengths.

That's it. I won't bore you with $ and weight goals. I used a little screwdriver to punch holes in the list for a visceral feeling of accomplishiment. Happy New Year, my friends!

Post by **AntiM** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 8:32 am

Last year was sharply defined by cancer, larry's new trucking career, my friends moving away, and all things Burning.

I feel as though I lived through a series of snapshots, still life arrangements waiting to be shuffled for the next page on the calendar.

Life simply has to be better this year, I'm too tired to repeat last year's low points. If it weren't for the Utah burners I think I would gave gone completely mad.

Oh, and then there's eplaya .... like grout holding the bumpy bits in place.

good times, good times

Ranger Genius · Post by **Ranger Genius** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 6:23 pm

[vapid]Wow, you're soooo brave. You're a hero![/vapid]

gigglesnort · Post by **gigglesnort** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:18 am

hmmmmm, interesting........ {scribbles on clipboard}

subject demonstrates the urge to poo poo on fellow playmates

Ranger Genius · Post by **Ranger Genius** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:51 pm

Didn't mean to poo-poo AntiM, I was just referring to one of what she said was a pet peeve: people who call someone's dealing with personal hardship (especially Re cancer) "brave." I'm proud of how AntiM has handled this particular little (or not-so-little) dark chapter of her life with humor and grace, but I don't think she needs someone to tell her she's brave. I'm quite sure she has, like I have, been scared shitless throughout the entire ordeal. I know she misunderstood me and I apologized to her for that. Just didn't want people to think I'm a callous monster. Not that it isn't true, but I at least want to be loathed for the actions that genuinely deserve them.

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:53 pm

Last words from my favorite ex-Republican

2004: THINGS TO FORGET

By Arianna Huffington

While so many year-end publications focus on what we should remember about the year now grinding to a close, I'd like to continue this column's contrarian tradition of pointing out the things we'd all be better off never having cross our minds again.

Here then is a list of all the things I'd like to forget, circa 2004:

Bernard Kerik's nanny. Bernard Kerik's Ground Zero love nest. Bernard Kerik.

That the woman who dismissed a presidential briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." as a "historical" document is going to be our next secretary of state.

That a man who finds the Geneva Conventions "quaint" is going to be our next attorney general.

Janet Jackson's briefly exposed right boob.

That it took 14 months and public protests from the victims' families before the president OK'd the 9/11 Commission, but only two weeks before the first hearings were held on Janet Jackson's boob.

That the media thought "Don't be economic girlie men" was a great line.

Scott Peterson's love of golf. And that his lawyers thought it was a reason he shouldn't be sentenced to death.

Paris Hilton's new perfume. Paris Hilton's new album. Paris Hilton's new book. Paris Hilton.

"Surviving Christmas," "Jersey Girl," J-Lo: Ben Affleck goes 0-for-2004.

Madrid, Spain, March 11, 2004.

Beslan, Russia, Sept. 3, 2004.

That the Federal budget deficit hit $413 billion this year, and two-thirds of it is the result of Bush's tax cuts.

That Dick Cheney is talking about another round of tax cuts.

What Colin Powell did to his credibility. "You break it, you live with it for the rest of your life."

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

That picture of Lynndie England holding the leash.

The way the administration tried to sweep Abu Ghraib under the rug.

William Hung, recording artist.

Ashlee Simpson, lip synch artist.

Bob Dylan, lingerie salesman.

That George Tenet, who knew that the intel on Iraqi WMD was thinner than Lara Flynn Boyle on Dexatrim, turned into the Dick Vitale of WMD: "It's a slam dunk, baby!"

That George Tenet was subsequently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

That a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich allegedly bearing the likeness of the Virgin Mary sold for $28,000 on eBay.

The 10,000 Web remixes incorporating The Dean Scream.

That of the roughly 550 enemy combatants held captive in Guantanamo Bay, only four have been formally charged.

The Pistons/Pacers basketbrawl.

The looks on George and Laura Bush's faces when Dr. Phil asked them about the "epidemic levels of oral sex" in America's middle schools.

That Osama is still on the loose — and releasing tapes.

That the Kyoto Protocol was ratified — and we aren't part of it.

That Ken Lay has still not gone to trial or served a minute in jail.

That 35.9 million Americans live below the poverty line — 12.9 million of them children.

That 42 percent of Americans still think Saddam Hussein was "directly involved in planning, financing or carrying out" the 9/11 attacks.

That, thanks to presidential cutbacks, we actually have fewer police and first responders on the streets today than we had on 9/11.

Star Jones' wedding.

The Movie Multiplex from Hell: "Alexander," "My Baby's Daddy," "Thunderbirds," "Sleepover," "Around the World in 80 Days."

The iPod Party Mix from Hell: Jessica Simpson's "Take My Breath Away," William Hung's "She Bangs," Britney Spears' "Toxic," Britney Spears' "My Prerogative," Britney Spears' "I've Just Begun Having My Fun."

That Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld couldn't find time to personally sign letters of condolence to the families of troops killed in Iraq.

That Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz couldn't remember the number of soldiers who'd lost their lives in Iraq.

Drilling for oil in ANWR (I've been desperately trying to forget this one since 2001, but the White House just won't let me!).

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:14 pm

http://www.savearcticrefuge.org/

for Arianna and everyone else

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:11 am

last words... jeez...

this year i started to deal with things i never knew were part of me, because i had to. nasty bigoted hatred defense mechanisms shit.... and begin to purge it. i know it's not done, i know it will come back, i know new shit will arise, because last time i checked i was human. but seeing it where it was growing was the first step.. and i walked a few since then. it's good to see where i'm fucked up.

lost friends, gained friends, had ye old fuckin' heart broken in a couple of different ways... and a year ago is so far back on that other horizon that i can't even tell you where i've travelled since then.

i spent this year looking for my quiet place.
in a lot of ways i think that's been ok.

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:28 am

oh year... and i began an epic playwriting project, which has taught me a fair bit about creative persistance.

and let myself be talked into performing my songs, which scares me shitless even though it's exhilerating. it never would have happened without the enthusiastic support of some good friends who, for some unknown reason, can't get enough.

attempted a community living space. learned the ups and downs all the way to extremes like knives and cops and shit.

and i came back to eplaya.. how glad i am that i did...

(how unhappy my employer must be. at least it keeps me quiet)

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:37 am

AntiM wrote: Life simply has to be better this year, I'm too tired to repeat last year's low points. If it weren't for the Utah burners I think I would gave gone completely mad.

Hang in there. I;m glad you made it to the playa and that I got to meet you for #0 seconds. Still have your leopardskin jasper. You're lucky, you got to have pure raw life--you know the kind the we3stern world likes to hide from. Path to wisdom. Never an easy road. (Bows head to take scolding from Genius.)

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:37 am

Got married.
Kept my job.
Threw snits.

tisha2 · Post by **tisha2** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:30 am

i know this may go against the idea of 'last words' and forge on into 'resolutions', but these are just too good... i am so in love with Mark Morford:

Resolutions For The Damned
A new year, a Bush-gutted, storm-ravaged world and you in need of some juicy, heartfelt pledges - By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, January 5, 2005

This is the year.

No, really. This is it. This is the year you resolve to let it all hang out and lick the fingertips of the divine and stop holding back and stop quivering with unchecked anticipation/dread as you realize that, if you care a whit for self-definition and spiritual nuance and hot wet intelligence and deep karmic color in this tsunami-hammered, Bush-ravaged world, you are desperately needed right now. It's true.

Alas, many are dejected. Many of the blue or Democratic or progressive or open-minded persuasion are understandably heading into 2005 feeling a bit out of sorts, depressed and bitter and angry and still just a little appalled at the apparent widespread fear-induced ignorance of a country that somehow re-elected the worst president in U.S. history. Yes, still.

Well, buck up, jacko. It could be worse. You could be Michael Jackson. Or Janet Jackson. Or Tito. You could be Anne Coulter or Bill O'Reilly or Trent Lott, people whose souls have become so infested with rat dung that their third eye is brown. See? Feel better already.

Or you could be Dubya himself, so utterly empty and blank eyed and falsely pious, he is but a lint speck on the coattails of time and you just know that you could poke him with your middle finger and all that would pour out would be sawdust and a bunch of tiny ball bearings.

Did you make any resolutions this year? Resolutions to get you through? To sustain your karmic energy? To act as Viagra for your flaccid spirits? Not speaking here of the quit-smoking, be-nicer-to-cats type of resolution, by the way. This year, you need to dig deep. Get visceral. Recommit. Reconnect. Yank hard.

Do you need a few suggestions? A short list of possible devout pledges for this, the year 2005 of our Lord and Savior, Jenna Jameson? Good. So do I. Here we go:

1) Knowing full well that BushCo loves nothing more than a numb, dumbed-down, slothlike populace too uninformed and uncaring and spiritually comatose to speak out against his nasty war and various aww-shucks policy mutilations, vow this year to blow this inane perspective to the karmic ether.

How? By daring yourself to become better informed about your life. About politics. About your body and your family and your lover and your gods and your genitals and the stuff you put into your body. Resolve to stop tuning out when the info comes at you; instead, seek it, learn it, arm yourself with beauty and knowledge and sex and love and health until you're so full of it you have to start your own annoying but actually relatively cool blog and then beg all your friends to post comments.

2) Say it with me: Enough with divisiveness. Enough with useless and simpleminded, black-and-white dualities: blue versus red, Dem versus Repub, good versus evil, salt versus pepper, God versus Allah, Lindsay versus Hillary. Enough with GOP-bred ideologies that only polarize and demean and reduce the gorgeous messy kaleidoscopic complexities of the human drama into ignorant and childlike simplicities that contain no art or spirit or soul.

Then again, the nation has never felt quite so divided, so alienated from its original founding ideology, its own heart. Thanks to the Bush-brand GOP fear machine, there is now much truth to the fact that progressive culturally astute blue American cities and college towns are now quite ideologically separate from the red culturally bereft God-drunk welfare states.

Yet, the wise ones say that the only way to progress is to find common ground, shared humanity. Either that, or nuclear civil war. Resolve to relish this painful contradiction and figure out a way to use it to your advantage.

3) More dildos fewer sitcoms. Do you know anyone who lives in Texas and I don't mean Austin because Austin isn't really a part of Texas given how it actually has some culture and music and a decent university and a pulse? You do? Good.

Hie thee to divine-interventions.com and order a Baby Jesus Butt Plug and send it to them as a gift and tell them you shall pray hard that they use it to find God. Sit back and wait for the apocalypse with a devious grin.

4) Read more books. Book sales were way down last year, off by something like 26 million copies, and a majority of Americans bought no more than one book in the entire year, and most bought none.

Meanwhile, something like a billion people saw the puerile "Meet the Fockers" last month and actually chuckled at the title and enjoyed watching Barbra Streisand shove her illustrious and obnoxious career into a big vat of toilet humor and bad hair and lame puns. Vow to wish Ben Stiller would knock it off with the annoying neurotic-guy shtick. Wish Ben Affleck would discover Rosicrucianism and move to Paraguay. Wish for more Cate Blanchett and less Kate Hudson. These are things you can do right now. Oh right, and read more books.

5) Casually but unswervingly vow to double nay triple your vigilance over the Bush dictatorship and track their ongoing atrocities and add to your running count of all the major shockingly revelatory Bush-slammin' books (last count: 237) written in the past few years by former Bush staffers or media insiders who are so appalled and disgusted by what they witnessed while serving the born-again Texas daddy's boy they simply couldn't hold it in any longer.

6) More houseplants fewer Pottery Barns. More nipples fewer Parents Television Councils. More relaxed patience less bitter tailgating. More local and sustainable less factory farmed and chem injected. More authentic moans fewer fake smiles. More Nick Cave less Shania Twain. More grass-fed less hormone blasted. More yoga less Monday Night Football. More good porn less Spice Channel. More Whole Foods less Safeway. More truthout and commondreams and AlterNet, less MSNBC and CNN and even the slightest stain of Fox News.

7) Wait wait wait. No. 1, above, isn't quite right. It's not actually about becoming more informed and it's not just about pumping more healthy whole foods into your divine flesh and it's not just about licking more sweet spots on your lovers' skin. Not solely, anyway.

It is, in fact, about doing all those things hand in hand with a sly and elusive energy called consciousness. Presence. Awareness. It is about avoiding the cheeseball New Age stigma that's mutilated those luminous terms and instead choosing to use them to stick yourself to the moment, to the right now, and plumbing it for all its heat -- so when you eat that organic hot dog or lick that lover, it positively curls the toes of your id.

Do you have any idea how to do this? To be this conscious? This present? Do you know what the hell this really means, how hard it is and how unbelievably invaluable? Neither do I. Let's resolve to find out.

8 ) Finally and perhaps most importantly, resolve to do all this even as you laugh more vigorously than ever at the divine circus of it all, at the great cosmic joke, realizing that these next four years are going to be just shockingly painful to anyone with a heart or a whisper of raw spirituality or the slightest hint of true environmental concern.

And yet there you are, shaking your head and sighing and grinning mischievously and moving forward anyway, as you crank your own personal vibration as much as humanly possible because that, really, is all you can do, and all you can ever do, and it is so desperately needed right now I can't even tell you, and because if you resolve anything this year, resolve to realize how essential you are to moving it all forward, making it all better, bringing it all into more divine focus.

See? 2005 looks better already.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... 010505.DTL

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 11:20 am

Thanks, Tish... that was an excellent read.... more consiousness, less robotics... wouldn't that be nice?

tonytohono · Post by **tonytohono** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 8:04 pm

tisha2 wrote:
Mark Morford wrote: 3) More dildos fewer sitcoms. Do you know anyone who lives in Texas and I don't mean Austin because Austin isn't really a part of Texas given how it actually has some culture and music and a decent university and a pulse? You do? Good.

Someone gave me this little fucky hand vacuum for Christmas and it looks like a pocket pussy on the box! Hmm, a vacuum... now that's not so bad now, is it =?

Great little article Tisha~!