naomiland

i'm taking a break from answering emails and messages to check in with my little blog. my public venting. i love the concept. and i disabled the comments so you guys can only read and not say anything back to me....mwahahahahahaa...this whole youtube thing is funny - i can read 5000 awesome comments people write about me yet it's the guy who says i look like teddy geiger and he thought i was a dude whose words stick...how does that happen? i don't really care about the teddy geiger comment, of course, so don't go feeling all bad for me, like i think i look like teddy geiger now...what the hell does he look like anyway? me, i guess.

hmm...he's cute. i guess i can see a certain similarity in the hair.

ok - here's me:

ya - i don't really see it. but at least the guy on youtube thought i looked like a cute guy - he could have said i looked like jack black and that might have really done some damage.

anyway - i think i'm going to go back to answering emails and messages. this is all very surreal and i'm happy i get to have this experience....

laters...
terra =)

shifting

wow. i'm overwhelmed. [on a side note, i almost used the phrase "i'm verklempt" which, for you non-yiddish speaking folks means "i'm overwhelmed." i think. something sort of like that. translations are hard. after i sang backup for neil young and was walking out of the studio i passed him in the hallway with tears streaming down my face and said how incredibly moving that day was, what an experience, what songs, what a message....and topped it off with "i'm verklempt." where the hell did that come from?!? i felt like such a dork. he looked at me kind of strangely and we parted ways. i think i lost some major points in the cool department with my sudden spouting of yiddishkite. "another hollywood jew" he must have thought. maybe that explains the weird look. or maybe he was just verklmept, too.]

anyway -

i'm overwhelmed at the response to my video for "say it's possible" on youtube. i went away for a couple of days and came back to all wonderful hell breaking loose in my online world. i couldn't have asked for a more exciting birthday present. well, ok, maybe i could think of a few more exciting things, but this was pretty damn cool!

because of youtube i am meeting people from all over the world. they all claim to speak terrible english in the emails they send which are probably more grammatically correct than anything i ever write. those non-U.S. people are amazing like that. all those languages, all that culture. don't they have anything better to do? like watch reality tv? i mean, come on...there are people battling it out right now, eating live maggots for the big win...

i got the news about youtube featuring my video while i was in a tent on top of a huge mountain in espanola, new mexico. it was quite surreal. i was meditating with 1500 other people, my head was swimming with thoughts of the universe and the stars and random existential issues...i was about as far away from the oppressive pull of hollywood as one could get, when suddenly i was yanked back down from the ether and reminded of my earthly beingness...all thoughts of "none of this matters...i am a spiritual being...i am living in this body for a short length of time in order to learn..." - that all dissolved into "YES!!! they like me! they like my music! fuck the people who have told me there's no clear place for my sound! fuck the people who have suggested that i am anything less than completely compelling as an artist! YAY FOR ME!"

and after that part of me calmed down a bit, the end result was somewhere in the middle...where i think i belong.

i am taking a break from answering emails in order to write for a bit. there are literally thousands of messages that need tending to. i'm not quite sure where to start. i guess this is a little taste of what could be. now i need an intern to help me digest.

thank you to everyone who reminds me of why i put my music out there for the public. i write it for myself, but i make it available to others because i want it to reach people and maybe help move things in a positive direction. maybe make life a little easier. say the things people can't necessarily say for themselves.

i wrote a song last night with an incredible songwriter. i learned so much. it was an amazing experience. it's a pop song for a movie. this guy is very successful, extremely talented, and definitely not the cheeriest of humans. he is an intense individual and pretty much the last person i would expect to find writing a teen love song for a 17 year old girl to sing. although he does it often.

at one point he turned to me and said, "i feel like a war correspondent covering the society pages."

and so it goes........

cool as a cuke

my dad used that expression when i was growing up. (which, btw, is an interesting phrase in and of itself...when i was growing up...)

cucumbers are cooling. that's what my yoga teacher told us the other day. and she should know because her teacher once put her on a cucumber diet for 60 days. and nothing phased her. maybe that's what i need. she also said that to get the bitterness out of a cucumber you cut off the ends and rub the cut pieces together at each end. she said it sometimes foams up and sometimes not, but whether it foams or not, the poison from the cucumber comes out that way.

i'm going to the desert for 4 days. it is my birthday soon and it is also summer solstice. and it's the desert. espanola, new mexico. sounds wonderful. just the way the word feels in my ears. and i think i'll find something magical there. because somewhere along the way i forgot about that sort of stuff. and i let "them" get to me. the people who want to tell you that there is only what you see in front of you and that it's ok to do whatever you feel you need to do to "succeed" and that this place is real (cuz it's not) and that the things people tell you are true (cuz they usually aren't or they are partially true but tailored to meet specific needs and desires that usually have very little to do with your wellbeing.)

and before you indulge yourself in saying "wow - she really sounds like she's lost it! she's not making any sense!" know that i am making perfect sense. and if you don't get it then too bad. because i am who i am and i am absolutely how i am supposed to be.

and anyway - why are we wasting time on this shit when the world is nearly boiling over with heat and hatred. it's all part of the same dis-ease. the abnormal warming of this planet, the anger and hatred...

and in other news, the world of inter-personal relations has further evolved....you can now find out where you stand in your relationship with another human being by looking on his or her myspace page. when you've been moved out of the "top 8" position, well, not a good sign! junior high must be so much easier these days.

rock on...................

it's amazing

it's amazing how mean people can be sometimes.

and the other amazing thing is that i have been that mean person, too. and when you are treating someone in a less than respectful way there is always a justification. there is always some reason why it is ok to act that way. for me, in the past, it's been a process of dehumanizing the person until i don't see anything wrong with treating him (it's always been a him) like a piece of shit. and also finding something wrong with everything he says so i can make it his fault that i think he's a piece of shit.

(you guys totally want to date me now, don't you...)

it's interesting to sit back and observe this process from the piece of shit side. i don't think of myself as a piece of shit, so it surprised me when someone treated me that way. and then i thought to myself, "oh, so this is how it feels."

and moved on. not past the person, because i care about him, but past the emotion. although it keeps sneaking back in for moments here and there, nagging me, saying "how could you let this happen? how could you let someone treat you in this way?"

my friend lila and i were talking about past and future last night. we only know for certain what is going on at any given moment. we cannot prove the existance of the past and we cannot guarantee the future. sure, we can present photographs and plans. but neither really mean anything once the moment is gone or until the plan actualizes. and then it's present, anyway....no longer future...

to live in this moment. and to remain neutral at all times. to experience things and let them happen and not judge them in any way, good or bad. to experience them and merely say, "hmm...that just happened...interesting."

that is my goal. to let things flow through me and not react because i am so rooted in the moment. and so grounded in the belief that everything i need is within me and nothing external can upset that.

at some point in all of our lives someone will treat us like shit. that's pretty much guaranteed. oh - the other guarantee is that we will all die someday. that's the only thing we know for certain. we are born and from that day on we are living on borrowed time.

and with that i will go to bed. and hopefully have some kick ass dreams that make me smile in my sleep.

nerds

i had the distinct pleasure of participating in a real blog event last night. i have to say it opened my eyes to the world of blogging like i never expected or even knew to expect.

i watched some extremely talented and hilariously funny writers read from their blogs at the Improv Olympic Theater in Hollywood. i was there to help my friend jessica stover with her reading. i didn't actually help her read. but i did play a song by MR. BIG. oh ya. we rocked.

so i met some infamous bloggers -

• Paul Davidson (well, i already knew paul. i mean, who doesn't?)
• AJ Gentile
• Carly Milne
• Shane Nickerson
• Annie Sertich
• Jessica Mae Stover
• Colleen Wainwright
• Wil Wheaton

it was inspiring. i had never heard jokes about microsoft. or so many star wars references. wow. there is a whole world out there...a world of techies and trekkies and nerds and geeks. i got a little peek into that world and i like what i saw.

this is going to be a monthly event and i would highly recommend it. go here: Subject Line Here.

so if i start writing songs about bill gates or powerpoint or r2d2...well, you'll know what happened.

and who knows - maybe if i start blogging regularly they'll ask me to read my own blog one month. in front of everyone. and someone else will have to play Mr. Big that night.

(as long as i don't have to go after paul davidson because he's just way too damn funny.)

by the way, i'm totally on a blogging roll now and i don't know if i can help myself. look out.