I am almost there.

I will post it soon. and I am embarrassed by my soul, by what I feel but I can not turn aside. It is who I am.

it is my fondest wish.

I am on twitter as EFNG and Facebook as Matthew Gallaer

Almost a year since I moved to this city.

MY city.

this is no longer san francisco - this is home. I know the streets, I know the places, I know the people. I know who I am.

I have never had the feelings for a place like I do for sf. I have never felt so at peace with a place, so delighted just to live where I live.

SF is a lover, a friend, a teacher. SF is a place of peace for my raging soul, a garden of growth for my wounded self, a
den of delight for hungry my intellect.

Last week through my life into question. this weekend was an affermation of who I am,of what I am doing.

Before you can have the answer you must ask the question.

too much to detail now, too much to not mention.

Mimes,friend,country men lend me your sausage. For this is the winter of our deepest content. better to dance in the sun than to never have danced at all.

When did it all go right?

yup. This is still matt/mrbuttboy/what have you. Now know as efng. More to follow later, as if anyone cares too much but the name change sprung itself on me, just went and changed a couple accounts to efng. I didn't have much choice really.

Eternal Fucking New Guy at your service.

This past sunday I was at a party, sitting around having a good time, just enjoying myself. Little did I suspect the danger I was in. The 2 small containers appeared on the table and seemed harmless when opened. Inside they contain what appeared to be merely ice cream: one white with black specs, the other a smooth,pale green.

I was told the names: "Salt & Pepper" ice cream and "Thai chili lime" sorbet. "Surely these are just names for some other ice cream." No, no it wasn't. It was salt and pepper ice cream, it was Thai chili lime sorbet. And it was AMAZING.

I can not do them justice, I can not describe what they were like. It was as if a musical was in my mouth, as if I was high. It was 2 separate parts of my brain coming together to talk that just don't see each other often. It wasn't something you eat, it was something to experience.

What did they taste like? Like what they were named, no more can be said. To try and describe individual elements would be a crime. What I can say is that, for me, it was wonderful. I am still talking about it a week later.

Go to the store and try some. Here is their website and a list of what they have:

http://www.humphryslocombe.com/|_Flavors_|.html

If you are lucky, there is a moment when you "get it". A moment when everything just flows right,when obstacles just melt before you no matter how difficult. When walls become windows, doors become archways. If your blessed you are aware of it when it happens.

We don't get to choose these moments, when they start or when they end. All we get is the chance to have those moments, the chance to be them. In those moments we are the will of the universe, the heart of the world. In those moments we are gods.

Tiny moments. Walking for the first time, driving for the first time, loving for the first time. So small the the stars that shine at night do not shake, so small walls do not crumble, so small no one notices.

Just a leaf on the wind, see how you fly.

This virus found me on facebook and I spent enough time thinking about it, I thought I would put it here. I'll just drop the payload here and spare you the vector. So here are 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about me.

( 25 things )

There is a moment when you see the difference. there is a point in time when you realize your world is different.

when you realize you dreams are made manifest there is a moment of virtgo. when you see the world that you dream and the world that you live are one and the same.

I can not say enough,I can not speak the words you will hear. my second family , my second life is more than I ever wished.

I am happy.

I struggled with those words, i fought with them. Unsure if they were true. Unsure what they meant.

They don't mean this was an easy year. They don't mean that things went the way I wanted. They don't me I have any answers.

They do mean I have made the right choices. They do mean I have found San Francisco to be my home. They do mean that I found family I didn't know I was looking for.

This year just past has been nothing like I have had before. So many excellent things this year. So many things I feel blessed to have in my life. So much meaning found. So many lessons learned.

This year has been good for me in ways I never wanted but certainly needed. It has been a year that I am deeply proud of. All of the mistakes were gloriously mine. All of the happiness deserved.

There is no one event, no one person, no one action that shaped my year but the shape to me is clear: This was the year I found my voice.

2009 is the year I shall speak.

Went to santarchy again this year. Had such an amazing time. 2 years since my first one,a million miles away.

I could not ask for a better experience. Filed with both fun and thought, old and new friends. a sense of belonging. peace.

So many little moments that I want to capture, so many details to detain, all of which will miss the mark of exactly what it was.

I can say this: if you didn't go you missed a good time. It isn't every day you can go easter egg hunting,get attacked by zombies or have a snow ball fight - all while being santa.

And even the day after was wonderful. I got home at about 11am sunday and crashed in the living room. I woke and slept as my body desired. I was brought food,water and conversation by my fulton family.

I sent a text to sean just after 11pm while i was at anon salon and it sums up how I felt now and then, how I feel so much of the time:

Lord I am lucky to have this life, at this moment, with so much love in my life.

Lying on a soft green carpet,listening to bag pipes drift across the woods. Warm,content and spent. That special kind of tired that comes from working to be in the right place,getting there, and knowing it.

Totally at peace.

It is not that everything in my life,in me, is as I desire. Problems galore, challenges endless, issues neverending. But right now,at this moment I have a smile. A stolen moment of joy. An afternoon of sun. A stroll on the beach. The smell of trees and clovers.

And bag pipes.

To awaken on the train.

At peace with life,looking forward to the coming day filled with family. Looking forward to the coming life filled with friends. To feel connected to life, to be a part of a whole. To know so many,have been touched by so many, to have been loved by so many.

Sun and shadow on stone,trees racing by. A joyous life being led. To open my and see the world I have.

Thank you.

I am finding my sea legs.

we live in an ocean of choices,sailing towards an unknown destination. all we can say is where we have been and where we would like to go.

so much happens these days that once would have been special for me,remarkable to the sheltered youth katrina meet so many years ago. now I take in stride something that would have left me giddy just a few years ago.

I have pegged my interal age at a worldly 15. On the cusp of so many choices,possibilities that seem all most endless. I am learning who I am and beginning to place deamons in the past.

I am becoming a special sort of adult.

The eternal me begins to rise,begins to climb the cliffs of insanity. Not knowing what waits above but knowing I must go there. trying to trust a universe that has been capricious at the best of times. Wondering what awaits me.

I think I am going to make it.

I just signed up for a new site someone pointed me too, i got a tiny be careless and what happened? It sent an invite out to 200 email address from my gmail account.

mother fucker.

I know it isn't a big deal but it isn't something *I* do. I avoid that sort of thing like the plague. I don't care if someone invites me but now it feels like a part of me was stolen. ARGHY!


Sigh. Need to be more mindful.

Not sure if i am even going but i thought there might be a few people on my list would be interested and not have heard about it. If nothing else, the more people hear about it, the better.

http://protest8.blogspot.com/

See, the world moves and we move along with it.

Or some of us do anyway. Recently, with a number of different people, I have had a discussion about the nature of people and if they change. Most, nearly all, seem to think people do not change, that there is a direct line from past to future of who that person is. One person recently used the clever word "temperament" saying that other things can change but temperament does not. This is a perfectly reasonable and commonly held view.

Bullshit.

We all started with hope and joy. We began this world in sunlight and love. Something went wrong, we became corrupted. Life, so very often, beat us down. Demanded we accept a harsh world. Become "practical" and not hold true to who we are. Give in here so we can get what we want there. Each day we die a little more, unwittingly waiting for the moment that death becomes complete.

Bullshit.

Some of us start life as strong pillars, made of marble that is demolished by time and love. Others are rubble from the start and go nowhere. A precious few of us start as mere stone and become monuments to greatness, examples of how amazing we can become. These edifices to awesome seem remote,grandiose and distant. We look upon ourselves and all we see is dust, scree with no potential.

Bullshit.

We have a choice, every minute of every day. Sometimes we choose hope, sometimes we choose pain. While each choice made us who we were, no choice makes us who we are. Each moment we can become someone who we never were, someone far greater or far less than had ever been.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

and if i am not careful, i won't even remember it all. Friday at burning man is already getting a bit fuzzy and it was a massive turning poiunt for me.

Onto more important news: I am a complete convert of facebook and recommend it quiet strongly to any who might be interested. It doesn't replace LJ if you ask me, it is an adjunct to lj. different boats, different floats. And comparing it to myspace is like comparing os X to msdos.

And lastly: if you are a geek type person and you are NOT reading XKCD, you are a bad person. for proof all you have to do is see this comic.

Just got back from a camping trip at lily pond. Describing the trip in detail will be for another post and will likely fail to capture the event well for anyone not there. So life goes.

But when I pause and look back at the last month I am flabbergasted - this has been my life? Starting with BM, I have amazing week after amazing week.

It has been so full,so meaningful, that I am at a loss. To try and contain what has happened in words seems hopeless. I can only give a shadow of what has happened,of what I have felt.

I think this has been the best month of my life.

I am not comfortable with that statement. I don't know how to feel about that but I think it is true. It is not just having a good time at some party. It is about changes within,about crying for the sheer joy of life, about feeling connected to who I am,to my source.

It is about feeling alive.

Time passes so fast. Already 2 weeks back from the Burn and so much I haven't done,people I haven't seen. Hell,so much I haven't written,just to remember what has happened there,what has happened since I have been back.

Even just picking the top moment from the last 2 weeks is hard. Picking the one that is easily conveyed is simple:

walking through chinetown at 1am with 3 professional female opera singers,listening as they sung arias first to an empty street then to a young newlywed couple.

But that is only in my top 3 for the last 2 weeks,let alone the last month!