10:56 am | 31 August 2004 | it's all the rage.

I woke up inexplicably (or perhaps explicably after all) livid, just murderous with rage. I wish I were a horse so that I could give a horse's outrageous scream, but I just mutter unjust, unjust. I used to fear anger, convinced myself I was some kind of pan-Eastern tranquili-tor, that I was unflappable. I associated anger with violence; or rather, anger was, in my mind, to be expressed physically: since that (obvs.) had bad connotations I convinced myself that I was above all that, that I had no anger within me, that I was all clean and shining like some shitty Zen vase metaphor*, the entire time remaining secretly drawn to violence, which became like my version of an addiction to snuff. It's okay to watch the most hideously violent action movies if all is calm within you. Did you see Swat? They crash a helicopter!! What a crock of utter fucking crap.

I like violence (we are talking about the real world, here, now, not cinema) that isn't fueled by anger. Which is to say, I like painting violently. I clean house violently to get it over with faster, stabbing the floor with my vacuum, flinging forks out of the sink. I have always moved suddenly and abruptly and I drive the way a bee moves: darting, erratic. I like my romance violent. Et cetera. But until recently I haven't "owned" my anger. I thought it would make me lesser or weak if I had anger. I thought if I gave in to being angry I would never stop.

Today I am angry. Today I have wrath, like the wrath of the Old-Testament God, none of this homogenized soft-focus pretty-pretty Jesus. I have wrath like how awesome used to mean evoking awe--awe is wonder, and also fear. I have angst, which remember is not sorrow but is dread. I am dreadful.

It's an important distinction for me to say I have anger�not I am angry. The anger I have doesn't define me, but it's an undefinable entity that I am possessed of in spades. I have been wronged and I have facilitated it and it's scary because owning that anger means that I am that much further along with taking my own power back, taking control of my own life. And accepting power means accepting responsibility. The danger of leaving the secondary gains of victim culture�well, not the danger, per se, but the scary part**�is that you can't blame your life's disasters on external sources anymore. But any other path is plain stupid. Not giving everything you're passionate about your 100% utmost, so that when you don't succeed you can say to yourself "well, it's not like I tried all that hard"�that's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard and, having isolated its idiocy, I'm not about to perpetrate it. But let's call it a bluebird. What do I do, now that I have all this anger? I'm really tired of sitting around and doing all the thinking and suffering for my relationships***. I've never been good at housekeeping, at putting things in their proper place. Where does anger belong? clm.

*Let me just say that I'm not hating on Zen Buddhism, Taoism, or any other path that y'all wanna follow for your own advancement or whatever. I am just referring to people who use it, like any other religion, as a crutch, a badge, and an excuse, all at the same time�you know what I mean, and it's revolting, like it literally makes nauseates me.
**Like the old saw goes, the scariest thing is change, even if it's for the better, for its sheer unfamiliarity.
***Meant in the pan-relationship way to include various friends, colleagues, family, etc.