From Milla November 2003

Hello everyone! Wow. Finally I have the opportunity to communicate with you all directly! I only started working on a computer for real last year. I got a laptop the year before but somehow never got around to learning how to use it. And apart from looking at this site from my friends’ computers, it’s only recently that I actually got to look at my own site from my very own laptop (pretty dorky)!

I’m usually very wary to see or read things about myself, I don’t want to hold too much mental garbage, so I’m always nervous to let that sort of pop culture/self centering information get trapped in my subconscious, especially something that I have no control over, because most of the time it just makes me self obsessed, negatively critical and self important, facets in myself I’m trying hard to taper off and eradicate!

But when I saw this site for the first time, years ago, I was incredibly flattered and excited that so many people care and support me. That my fans can also let me know about themselves thru it and show their creativity to others that can also relate. First and foremost, I want to thank all of you for all the time and energy you guys have spent collecting my pictures and posting them! I have to be honest with you. Now, whenever I need to find a certain picture, I go on the website because it’s sure to be there before anyone on my team can find it themselves! So you’ve been a huge help to me, keeping all my work organized and not letting it disappear…

I hope that by becoming a bigger part of my website I can make browsing it, a (more) fun and interesting experience. I want to keep you guys updated on what I’m doing as much as I can… I’ll have you all know that I don’t have many friends (I work too much to have any real personal life!) because most of my free time is spent catching up to areas of my life that get naturally neglected when I’m busy doing other stuff. For instance, rather than taking normal vacations when I have time off, I prefer to go into the rehearsal studio with my friend Chris (Chris Brenner - longtime friend and business partner) and Billy (Billy Scherer, also longtime friend) and jam with musician friends of ours or work with my friend Carmen (Carmen Hawk - longtime friend and design partner) on our future clothing line… besides trying to stay on top of my finances and spending time with my family, it can get incredibly hectic!

So, don’t get upset if I disappear from time to time. I’m a hermit at heart and find that I constantly have to take “time out” from everything and just process! I need to read a lot and consume as much (what I think of as) “necessary” information as possible. In the last few months I’ve read a couple of incredible books, some for the second time. The Dancing Wu-Li Masters (an overview of the new physics) is just wonderful! Not only does it talk about some of the most groundbreaking advances in classical physics, it’s also a run down of all the really important ideas since the “Copenhagen Interpretation” (a meeting in the 30’s where some of the world’s leading physicists decided that based on the “observer” effect, reality can only be gauged by relative experience. In other words, when a tree falls in the forest and you’re NOT there to hear it, there is NO WAY TO GET PROOF that it makes a sound. In other words, there’s more to this reality than we can comprehend thru “classical” physics). The Tao of Physics is another good one. It goes through all the different religions (mostly Eastern) that have undeniable correlations to quantum physics. It seems that the ancient Chinese knew things about quantum reality through basic intuition that modern scientists are only now proving through experimentation. Non-locality, string theory, the infinite potential of the quantum wave function, the “implicate” order, etc… well, you should read it, because these are the types of books that I feel like I have to read again and again to really understand fully. Especially since we understand things differently as we grow, so it’s very important to me to read the same books again and again at different times in my life. I know that I’ll be understanding things that, most likely, I didn’t get before.

These next books won’t be for everybody but I feel like, after everything I’ve researched since reading them for the first time at 16 years old, it has all brought me back, full circle to them again now at 27. It’s the Carlos Castaneda series, in particular Journey to Ixtlan. This book has been a constant source of inspiration, joy and also a lot of existential dilemma! So, between these 3, we have the truest approximation (to me) of the “technicalities of magic.”

To go back to the limited time I can spend on the site, my whole outlook on life for the last few years is “ touch the world lightly”. You’ll read a lot about that in the Castaneda book (to be totally honest, Castaneda himself bothers me, but the ancient Toltec metaphysical traditions that he writes about interest me to no end). I truly believe that most of the problems that we have with the world and the relationships that we have within it are because we wring too much from everything. We are more apt to eat too much, love too much, party too much… everything too much. Especially with people, we take as much as we can and others take as much from us as they can, so in the end we get bored of them and they get tired of us. It’s the old “eating your favorite food everyday” syndrome! I don’t want to become stale to anyone I care about and I don’t want them to become stale to me, so I try to become used to drawing boundaries with people and spending time on my own, not being scared of that.

Saying that, I’m really excited about speaking to everyone here, so I will try to post messages as much as I can. I want to be able to send you guys pictures as well, with little blurbs about each one, what was going on at the time, etc… Last but not least, I’ve recorded quite a lot of material since my record came out and I would love to play it for you guys. Ideas in the vein of “More Than 4”, the demo that I posted and older stuff. Since I became computer friendly, I’ve been recording on Logic and Reason and sending the little ideas, just bits really, to my friends over the internet. It’s fun for me because I love to share my expression with people I care for and to see who “gets” my sometimes very “subterranean” lyrics. To me they are pieces of a dream, pieces of my psyche, fragments revealing themselves and maybe at some point later in life, I’ll be able to put them all together to make the picture clear for the first time… on my deathbed I guess (hehe).

Anyway, I’m writing something for you guys about my experience making RE2: Apocalypse as well and I’ll try and finish it as quickly as I can. Till then, be happy, strong and may all your choices carry the world to you. All the best!

-Milla