the manifesto

this blog is a continuation of Shadows of My Smiles, Echoes of My Laughs, And Skeletons of My Tears and Fears. quite the mouthful, eh?

while I'm still not entirely sure what the limits and lack-of-limits for coloring outside of the lines, will be, (and yes, that comma is intentional... what comes next?!), it will be different from my previous blog. it will be rants and rambles and ruminations, songs and videos, news. in all likelihood it will continue to flirt with the line of private diary and public journal, though i will try to make intentional, thought-out decisions.

i heard some shady shit about blogger violating your privacy in regards to drafted posts that haven't yet been published, and really who knows what else, but i have decided to stick with it for now...

but i suppose quite simply put, coloring outside of the lines, will be an examination. of everything. its inspiration comes from this simple yet revolutionary notion: you actually DON'T have to color inside of the lines! this might seem obvious, no duh you can scribble scrabble all over the walls. hmmm, perhaps that would have been a better blog name... but one of the first things we learn, especially at school, is to color INSIDE the lines. (and to cut out along the lines, to only use a little bit of glue, to sit in a circle...). but from the very beginning we are told that our creativity, our beings, WE must fit within these lines. these are rules and boxes that we must sit in silently and in criss-cross-applesauce, these are desks that we must sit at (not dance, flail, squirm, fiddle, tap, doodle on or around). but this is another discussion of our education system... BUT GUESS WHAT?! we don't have to color inside the lines! and this notion is beautiful and applies to everything. men can wear skirts and people can reclaim abandoned lots and guerrilla garden them into eden and grown folks can play make-believe and pretend to be princes and butterflies. and again, it's kinda like no duhhhh, they can do that, sure, but they shouldn't. or something along those lines, you know?

but maybe you think we should, and maybe you do - maybe you're different, or maybe you want to be different... there are lots of people who have said "fuck it" to all of this, these societal rules, whether spoken or unspoken... those who follow their heart and their spirit, who cross the street when the big orange hand is up because there are no bloody cars coming, who hitchhike and couchsurf and dumpster dive their way around the world with no money, the trannies and drag queens, the little kid (or big one) whose idea of good style is a sweet batman costume and wears it everyday, the critical mass bicyclists taking back the streets of the world and the permaculturists healing that same world with good dirt and good sense, the psychonauts exploring the inner depths of our beings and the physicists exploring the outer limits of being, the college kid who defies their parents' wishes and majors in folklore & mythology instead of going premed and the one who comes out to their conservatively religious parents and the one who drops out, the freaks and the geeks and the weirdos, the hippies and the rainbow folks, the kinky ones, the spankers, and the perverts who just can't help it, the poi dancers who aren't afraid to be burnt and the whirling dervishes who dance for god, the vagina monologuers, the faeries and the furries, the yogis and yoginis, the anarchists, the activists, the slo trippers, the runaways, the environmentalists, the wiccans, the scientists and the poets, the adventurers and the explorers, the lovers and the dreamers, the artists, the musicians, the spiritual seekers, the Marxs and the Gandhis and the Mrs. Robinsons and definitely, definitely the Donner Parties... you know, the ones who don't give up, the ones who fight.

so this is for them. for us. for the fighters.