Meta="Cow heart","marijuana","witchcraft","women you can't stop thinking about"This happened about a week ago. I have told it many times before, but never in english language, and i won't speak of it anymore. You'll know why. I live in Porto Alegre, a small town in southern Brazil, by the way the less african-cultured-samba-dancing region of the country. Most of it population is italian- and german- named. African culture has its space anyway, and when i say african i'm not being politically correct. I really mean it. We split off and everything went wrong; i was just too scorpian for her. So one night i asked I Ching how could i forget her, resist the temptation of phoning her, and how get her off my mind. And the book gave an unusual, crystal-clear answer: --- --- / ------- / --- --- { water } --- --- / ------- / --- --- { water } Water is the heart. Water is movement without intention. The emotional, unlogical, non-stoping, non-beginning, instinctive force inside of us. Blood. Water is receptiveness, also. Transparency, sincerity, humility. The first, third and fifth lines mutated into its opposites, so the next hexagram was --- --- / --- --- / --- --- {earth} ------- / ------- / ------- {sky} hexagram 11, Peace. The best of them all, the happiest one! Earth, which has a descending movement, stands above sky, which is ascending. The receptive goes down as the active goes up. And everything takes its place. And in my specific case: go by the heart, Nico, and you'll find peace. Thanks, Jah, and fell asleep. (My usage of english does not allows me to explain it in deeper words. So, apollogize a mistake or two, or go learn portuguese.) As it usually happens after i read that book, i slept like an angel, or maybe - to say it better - i slept like a fish; calmly and happy, but with clear, opened eyes. ........ And then in the next morning while going to my job (which is the same as yours) i t suddenly appeared in front of me. These kind of things are extremely common everywhere, and are usually place in corners. Generally consist of a plate of corn (cooked or not), a bottle of distilled drink, maybe something with the colour of the Orixa (say orishá) that is going to be "called". But this one was to call for Exu, the evil and dark one. It was a dish, a very simple dish, with a cow heart on it; and all covered with roses. A bottle of red wine, a glass of red wine. That is called a 'macumba'. And when your favorite soccer team can't win a match within a month, you start thinking someone has made a macumba on it. They put it there on the street and i did what's in these cases: step beside and not touch it. Otherwise it will (i'm not brazilian, i'm argentinian; i laughed at it too when i first heard it) go with you. (I remembered my favourite tune, and perhaps somebody else's in the Fray, is Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "She Put The Whamee on Me". The part he sings : 'I'm walking sideway_my mind's neutral_you put your evil eyeball.." Is so scary and so funny but this is the real deal, you know, down here nobody messes around with these kind of things. I don't know why i am - hey, we had a story to tell. Well, i spent four hours at my job and i'm not gonna tell you how it is because you already know - i'm a webdesigner, wich is, a guy that deals with computers without knowing a thing about computers. So let's skip the job part - totally unuseful if we discount the fact that i could not forget the red objects i saw. They put it there and they let it all night long. It's directed for somebody who lives in that particular street, or in the nearby. Who could it be? Who could have done that kind of thing, and who would it be directed to? Now that's the kind of thing that awakens our imagination and makes us create stories about things that only happen while we tell them. And speaking of imagination, the day was very unusual: it's been long ago since i don't smoke weed before noon. This guy that sits in a computer beside me is always inviting me and i said, what the hell, a little pesto ain't no evil.
.......... It was a terrible day, man i don't want to remember. Fire and water do not combine, all the work and all the things i had to do had to be settled for the next day, and some of them where not of that kind. I had a terrible headache that accompanied me all day long, and (forgot) passing a phone message to my stepmother, a serious this-is-work-and-no-bullshit one. Of course there is no drama on it, except for two facts (inner facts, as well): I kept remembering the macumba all day. I simply can't stop thinking of her.
Did anyone ever put a whamee on you?
Nicolás Manuel Fano Monasterio {chicoelmono@hotmail.com}
September 14, 1998 One morning in September ... ... I was at work. I don't remember what day it was, but everything else stands out in perfect clarity. I spent half the morning slaving in front of the monitor, forcing myself to finish up that piece of code. Didn't want to do it, but didn't really have a choice -- I was a programmer, after all, and that part of the code was my responsibility. The other half of the morning I spent teaching one of the new programmers there some of the subtleties of C. It was a joy to me, explaining things to him and watching him understand them. That was when I knew I needed to become a teacher. One afternoon in October ... ... I was landing at LAX. I don't remember what day it was, but my feelings stand out in perfect clarity. I was returning from a visit to my friends up in Seattle. I grew up in the Northwest, and have always loved it, but after going to college there, one thing or another always came up and gave me enough reason to stay on my ass in Los Angeles. But my heart dropped as the plane did. I looked out the window and saw the beige haze of smog, the endless grid of pavement and imported palm trees, and thought about all the friends I missed up in Seattle. That was when I knew I needed to return to the Northwest. One weekend in September ... ... 1998, this time, I was in Seattle. Two things happened over the course of the weekend. They're not stories to be told here, yet, but they're important. I have this strange feeling that I'm standing on an inflection point, that the slightest move I make in any particular direction could send me spinning off to who knows where. It's exciting, and it's scary. But I'm aware of it as it's happening, for one of the first times in my life. And I'm going to take control, and try to move my life where I want it to go. This year was the year I took control of my life, rather than watching it drift on its own. Thanks, Derek and the rest of the fray, for helping me see my way this year. Oh, and Derek, by the way: You wrote "Tonight fray gets real." Don't you get it? fray has always been real. It's more real than many people I know. It's touched lives, let people cry out, made people think. Is there anything more real than leaving an impression on the world? S. Ben Melhuish {sben@pile.org}
Here I am a mere 45 minutes away, and had planned on being at fray's birthday party. But I reneged on it to go to my cousin's house, who as of lately is riding my last nerve like there's no tomorrow. There's somethings you regret in life, and this is one of them. So..... In this last year I learned that I worth so much more than I thought. I turned 28 last month and I finally took my mental illness? mental disorder? unique perspective?(we have so many terms for these things now) in hand this past year and found out what it was like to look at the world through 'normal' eyes. Being Bi-Polar makes life interesting, but sometimes at three o'clock in the morning the only lucid thought you have is "Why can't just sleep 6-8 hours like a normal person every night?" in between scrubbing the some part of the linoleum and washing the cat for the twentieth time. People would ask me "Are you okay?" before I got medicated, and my response would be "No, I'm a bit manic right now. I should be fine in two to three days if it doesn't escalate". I got tired of everyone thinking I've been on meth or something. I think the worse was one of my manager’s asking me why I had dark circles under my eyes. Maybe because I wasn’t sleeping, and hadn’t been able to sleep for the past week? It was normal for me to have my mind going twenty different directions at once, overloading my mouth, so that the only thing that tumbles out when I’m finally able to speak is not English anymore.. I learned to make lists and keep them where I can catch a glimpse of them so they remind me of what I'm suppose to be doing, not what I got sidetracked into doing. But I've made some definite improvements. I started to writing and got published, got medicated , have held down a good job for more than a year and am supporting myself. And I found fray. Happy birthday fray, and here's to many more to come..
nikki {mordance@hotmail.com}
A story from my last year? there's too many. the last year has been rather eventful. A year ago I started with doubts about my love. I foolishly thought it was a controlable force. I belived that everything would be OK if I tried hard enough. I felt it was my responsibility. why? Now I have learnt to be cynical, learnt what horrors I am capable of. and learnt how love can die. All that I destoryed this year is unforgivable. We created the ultimate force, that of life itself, only for it to be thrown to the evil wind. The lives of those involved have been irrevocably altered, and I am to blame. I wish a year ago I had glimpsed the year to come. However, this year I have discovered the web really is something special. Special thanks to all fray people, and happy birthday. I wish I was there. Also, while I'm here, can I personally thank derek and maggy, and those like them dedicated to making the web a more beautiful place. dominic {novacane@lineone.net}
The last year...hmmm...well as in all my past years, it's been a whirlwind, from rags to riches to rags...I discovered that my calling as a geek and an observer is fully, wildly fulfilled by sitting at my desk and writing code that then puts the words into pixels and lets some people share. I went from debating Jerry Falwell on MSNBC about a movie he didn't even have the fucking courtesy to go SEE before he pronounced it sinful, to spending 10 hours a day doing HTML and being very happy alone. I blew off writing a book I was contracted for, and while a little poorer, am happier, if only because the thought of this particular book made the neon light above my head which spells "SELL OUT" glow brightly for everyone, and finally myself to see. It was a year where I learned that love is needed, and yet comes in a variety of models...and that not every model is for every occassion (sp)...and that eventually, I will learn to accept that. I can only be happy for finding the {fray} and those who make it, and read it, and do it themselves, because it transcends and expands media in ways that all had thought were lost. Liz Tracey {webmaster@coffee-a-gogo.com}
Ack -- two days after the party (which was amazing) I finally get around to posting here. Everyone has her one pinpoint of light from which everything else related to the web springs, and for me that was the Fray. I had no idea what it would all come to mean two years later -- the people I would meet and the adventures I would have. For believing in me and being my confidante and a shoulder I can cry on when I have had enough and begin to crumble ... Derek, I thank you. You are a wonderful, wonderful friend. Happy Birthday, Fray!
Congratulations Derek. You've done a wonderful job.
Sept. 12, 1997 was the night before our wedding. Sept. 12, 1998, we celebrated our anniversary with dinner and then dancing at the Squirrel Nut Zippers concert. In the space between was nothing we expected.
In no particular order, the highlights include:
It was a really hard year and though I don't have the same problems as I did this time last year, I don't have any less. Life's about going from one set of problems to a better set problems. I came out the year with less regrets than I expected. That's more than I had hoped.
Corin Nguyen {pieohpah@henge.com}
At the start of the year I thought I'd finally settled down into being me. How wrong could I be, growing up just keeps happening. When you realise you don't know half the story is when you finally know something. University, learning, love, friends and finding my creative core. There's too much to say, but I'm a better person. We are so lucky and its so easy for us to go out and do stuff, help others and make things happen if we really want to. Derek had a dream which he willed into life, and I've been enriched by it for the past two years. Its an example, an inspiration and a warning to other web hopefuls. Hope the party went well, keep dreaming. Jason Kitcat {jeep@j-dom.demon.co.uk}
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