Repeal Day

Here I sit, big as a house, while the baby rat-a-tat-tats a little soft shoe from the inside, my internal organs are merely her percussion instruments. Right then, it’s gone beyond soft shoe as she’s gotten stronger and bigger and the space available to her shrinks. She’s moved from dancing to boxing.

I keep meaning to write and then lose track, lose focus. So I’m not going to even strive for a great deal of sensible narrative tonight.

Whenever I see a bay nut this time of year I think of Cassie (aka Indigo.) They’re made of her favorite colors and I keep thinking that she doesn’t realize just how much she likes yellow.

They say that babies know who their core family is because they recognize the voices of people from the womb. Since I’ve been pregnant, we’ve watched all seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on DVD. So I guess she’ll think Sarah Michelle Gellar is part of her core tribe. That’s just wrong.

Yesterday (happy Repeal Day, by the by) I stopped by Goth@m, what remains of a once renowned San Francisco piercing parlor called The G@untlet (they seem to use the same “G” logo) to have a few personal body ornaments removed in preparation of the girl’s arrival. Years ago, the SF-location closed down and one of the piercers started Goth@m. I’ve walked by it several times, it’s a stones throw from the old place, but I’ve never been in. I was in the neighborhood dealing with my tax guy, so I figured “no time like the present.”

A beautiful black man was working behind the counter of this somewhat sleazy looking hole-in-the wall of a place (no pun intended.) (The G@untlet was the equivalent of a clean well-lighted place to modify your body, this place had a rather dingy, back-room abortion clinic feel about it.) The beautiful black man, heretofore known by his nickname, T@sty C@kes (I don’t lie), had awesome tattoos – some of which included scarification, all of which were raised. He tells me that tattoos on people of color are raised because of their pigment. I had no idea and I don’t remember T. Lee’s tattoos being raised and I’m thinking, am I so insulated that I don’t have many friends of color with body art? He let me run my fingers over the tattoos – I love that raised feel.

So the beautiful black man called T@sty C@kes, with the fantastic raised tattoo and body jewelry has me hop up on an old and rickety exam table in a small grey room with a window that looks out into a dimly lit, dirty light well and he’s holding the needle nose pliers between my legs, shaking his head, saying he hasn’t seen a vagina in over ten years and how his Mom isn’t going to believe this. I try to console him by telling him I haven’t seen it for several months either. And I’m thinking, this is one of the things that make me different from other pregnant woman– who talk about the wonder of the baby moving and wax whimsical at the notion of motherhood. Their stories never seem to involve a T@sty C@kes between their legs with a needle nose pliers.

Another Kind of War

We tooled about in San Rafael yesterday morning, gathering parts for the irrigation system (soooo stupid to pay what I paid to put that damnable thing in and then water the lawn by hand… /sigh), puttering about in hardware stores and then we went bowling for a break in the action. I so suck at bowling and at the same time I enjoy it immensely.

I made very licious black bean island soup – spicey and salty and hammy and garlicly. After the mountain sojourn with the Pumpkin Cookie, we perched on the sofa and watched a four part BBC documentary on the German/Russian War of the Century. It was striking, horrific, refreshing and bone chilling to hear German and Russian officers speak so candidly about unspeakable things. The documentarian would ask, would you consider that a war crime? Sometimes they would answer yes, mostly they would respond with a resolute no - it was war, it was the way it was. The Russian soldier relays how at the taking of Berlin he called the German officers to a house, one by one, and personally slit their throats – described the vulnerability of the human body and the easiest way to fell one.

I believe he was the man who responded, when asked if he considered this a war crime, that it was not, who is to judge him, how those years are, as they say, lost in the oblivion of history. But it’s clear those days stay with him keenly, in his mind’s eye, a file recalled simply, with some voice recognition pattern – perhaps a mere image or smell can recall than. Just like that. He’s gifted with no oblivion.

This morning we watched one of the Dog Fight series, I think about F16s. What was different about the men interviewed in the War of the Century and that Israeli fighter pilot in this Dog Fights episode was that the Israeli fighter pilot never stopped smiling and he lacked any (all?) humility. Line them all up side by side and Melnik, I think, was the worst – if there are degrees of evil.

Now that there has been enough viewing of war and human atrocity, we move on to more gentle pursuits – I’m going to see Marion Nestle speak at the Commonwealth Club tonight. I suppose that’s just another kind of war, eh?

Holiday...

T minus 81. I’ve taken this week off work again, mostly because Ed lost his job and we haven’t had time off together, in years. When we take vacations, he’ll spend a not insignificant portion of the time working. That’s just not an option this week, so we’re lazing about, taking little day trips and enjoying our time together. It’s actually something of a challenge for us. When it comes right down to it, we prefer one another in relatively small doses.

On Friday night we ventured into The City for Cookie’s first-ever art opening. It was a smallish venue at Magnet, an HIV testing, counseling and case management center in the Castro. It was sweet and appropriate and I know from talking to folks that purchased items that he sold quite a few pieces. He’s produced a collection of mixed media pieces with a relatively high degree of curb appeal. He seemed quite happy with the turn out and the feedback and we had a great time.

Saturday I spent the day in the garden, finally getting the blueberry bushes in their big pots and the Boston Ferns that arrived last week in hanging pots over the hot tub. I still haven’t planted the citrus trees as I stew in indecision. Wiley, who I’d seen at Cookie’s show, came out for a hike. It was a somewhat unplanned and unexpected visit. He’d mentioned that he wanted to come out and without following up or confirming he just showed up. I’ve mixed feelings about that. I really enjoy people just showing up. I like an informal life that is open to people dropping in. I just don’t feel so great about Wiley, in particular, doing that right now (any more?). By the same token, I’m not willing to disinvite him to my life. (Generally, I don’t do that.) So I’ll just have to sit in my contradiction and ponder it for a spell. In the meantime, I had him mow the lawn.

Saturday evening Ed and I had craft night (something I think we want to make into a bit more of a routine..) We colored easter eggs (one of the fifteen exploded, spectacularly, in the pot – the shell hit me in the eye.. fortunately I wear glasses. That was Easter’s way of spitting at me!) His were absolutely fantabulous. He confessed that when he was a kid he imagined he’d be an artist. He’s totally gifted with this untapped talent, though he contends that he reached the pinnacle of his talent in the fourth grade and never progressed beyond that. I think if we develop a discipline together, it could be grand fun.

Sunday morning we gathered our many colored eggs and ventured into The City to the Pacific Rod and Gun club at Lake Merced where there was an Easter egg hunt and breakfast for the little children of gun club patrons. We ate hash browns while the little kids in multicolored pastel outfits scoured the field in a total of eight minutes. There was no shoot’n that day… amidst the bright orange broken clay pigeons and spent shell casings, children scavenged. It was poetic. This is what it’s come to.

It was still on the early side so rather than make the trek to the South Bay to visit Ed’s mother and have dinner, we trundled on over to Larkspur where the windsurfers set out into the Bay. It’s a lovely view of Ring Mountain and San Quentin State Prison where we toss the ball into the murky waters of the bay and let the Honey Bee paddle and play on the rocky beach.

We went home and changed clothes, took care of this and that, then did that South Bay dinner thing with Ed’s mom and ‘em. They ate honey glazed ham and George made me some lovely scampi. We left before it got too late or we got too tired – so it was a perfect little outing and the traffic wasn’t so bad.

This morning we rose early, puttered around the house, did some cleaning and went off to breakfast at the local Koffee Klatch. I stopped by the post office to get the (gulp) property taxes (I hope it makes it to the Civic Center by the deadline) in the mail and then we dropped Ed’s mountain bike off at the Cyclery. The day’s not over and there’s lounging to be done along with some wandering in the hills with the Monster Grrrrrl.

The MOMA in SOMA

I was absolutely thrilled when I spied a store in San Francisco dedicated solely to the making of cream puffs, only to taste said puff to find it filled with CUSTARD. They should be shot for false advertising. If they want to sell some errant invention called Custard Puffs, let ‘em have it. But they lie and they are wrong, all wrong!

I went to The City today (Saturday) for the MOMA exhibit on Picasso and American Art. It was interesting to see the original Picassos side-by-side with the American artists/art they inspired. It was a small but fun exhibit, thanks to LB (whose place of employment offers their employees free MOMA membership – we all got in free, Gail, LB and I!) There was time to rush through floors two and three as well (before LB had to be back in our cozy town for a dinner engagement.)

The SF MOMA (originally on Van Ness, now in its new location near Yerba Buena Park in the shopping district in Soma) was one of the first museums to recognize photography as a fine art form. It’s thus always had a great photo collection since 1936 - that I invariably draw inspiration from. I spied a great collection of framed real estate photographs that I do believe are going to inspire a fabulous little copy-cat installation of my own. If I get it off the ground, I’ll post the images.

Everybody Lives But Us.

I JUST FINISHED READING Son of a Witch. I highlighted a passage from the book that I felt partial to awhile back. To refresh:

A capacity for interiority in the growing adult is threatened by the temptation to squander that capacity ruthlessly, to revel in hollowness. The syndrome especially plagues anyone who lives behind a mask. An Elephant in her disguise as a human princess, a Scarecrow with painted features, a glittering tiara under which to glow and glide in anonymous glamour. A witch’s hat, a Wizard’s showbiz display, a cleric’s store, a scholar’s gown, a soldier’s dress sartorials. A hundred ways to duck the question: how will I live with myself now that I know what I know?

AND SO NOW at the end of the day, is there illumination. Of course. Of course.

I ADORED THE BOOK, more than Wicked. It’s something of a coming of age story that goes beyond coming of age. The backdrop for the first half is our hero, Liir, in a comatose and decrepit state, being played back to life by the lilting and beautiful music of the lovely Candle. The Sisters left him with her to heal and having no healing power and a soft (near invisible) voice, she picked up her instrument and played with her heart (and the feather of a pfenix) the boy back to life and health. This is the context for our stroll back through Liir’s life to the events which brought him there.

(The Sisters worship the Unnamed God- though while they believe the Unnamed God created humans in its likeness, The Superior Maunt believes that people of the great City of Oz has recreated the Unnamed God in their likeness instead. She’s also attributed with this reflection, Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery, she said to herself, not for the first time. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That’s what makes it mystery. And for some reason all that makes me think of Edward Abbey… I digress.)

IN THE BEGINNING, orphaned, lost and alone, his mother (Elphaba, the Wicked Witch) having been killed by the callous and cruel visitor (Dorothy), Liir goes in search of any family or semblance of kin he might have left. He’s uncertain of his parentage – he knows Elphaba raised him and is perhaps the closest thing to a mother that he knows, but given her lack of maternal characteristics, Liir felt more a charge in her care than a son to her. Be that as it may. He sets off to the City of Oz in search of the Tin Man, the Lion and the Scarecrow. The Scarecrow (who will later rule Oz for a spell) relays the following:

”The Tin Woodman has left to cultivate the art of caring. He has his work cut out for him, poor sod. The Lion is suffering severe depression; his cowardice was his sole identifying trait, and now he’s pitiably normal. Neither of them can help you much, I’m afraid. You should get yourself out of here while you can. Start over.”

“Start over? I never started the first time. Besides, it’s not getting out that I need to do. It’s getting in.”

SURELY LIIR goes to the darkest places in Oz in search of the allusive family, the allusive belonging. He explores the country, betrays, amends, fails and redeems. He learns to love and be faithful. He slays the dragons even though the blasted demons stole his broom (the only remnants of his connection to his mother) and nearly stole his life (the reason for is desperate and near death state which Candle plays him so vigorously out of.) It is after he is played back to life, however, that he goes battling his real demons. And yes, he slays the dragons so that the skies might once again be safe for the birds to fly and with this, of course, spring can come again – because so many know springtime by the coming of birds!

It is that one quote that I pulled out earlier, however, that is the heart of the matter, the what of the what, the is of the is. The novel is about unmasking the masked so that they may finally live fulfilled and complete – so that they might know themselves and live with themselves and as who they are.

Early on in the book there’s this foreboding line:

”Everyone dies. It’s a question of where and how, that’s all.”

THIS MIGHT SEEM SIMPLE, but Liir has met an Elephant, disguised as a princess, who only wishes to die as an Elephant and a major part of the drama is Liir making his way back to her, with Candle, to shepherd that transition back to herself, unmask her, so she might die as her true self – unmasked and revealed. Exposed. Where and how is quite important in this instance.

(I loved this part, not relevant.. or maybe completely relevant, I’ve yet to stumble on the connection: In four different hands, applied at four different opportunities, to judge by the aging of the text the wall read ELPHABA LIVES! OZMA LIVES! THE WIZARD LIVES! And then EVERYBODY LIVES BUT US.)

SO HERE IT IS in the culmination, the final moment, in the chapter titled No Place Like It (home, of course):

The colossal might of wickedness, he thought. How we love to locate it massively elsewhere. But so much of it comes down to what each one of us does between breakfast and bedtime.

Remembering Princess Nostoya [the Elephant disguised as a princess] he thought: Sever us from our disguises. Then he flinched, almost in disgust. Was that a prayer?

WHAT A LOVELY ENDING! (That’s not precisely the end, but maybe it should have been.)

Wild Cat

Bunny, Rose, Ed, G and I all went to see The Good Shepherd last night. What’s the casting of Angelina Jolie? That was weird. I liked the movie, however. Matt Damon was indeed stellar and I like the kid who played his adult son. We went to a six-something show and were home before ten, leaving an evening of concerted bundling beneath blankets and robes as the temperatures plummeted in these parts. The thermostat, which was turned to nothing before slumber, didn’t stop the heater from cranking out as the interior temperatures were below 40 and the thermostat doesn’t go lower than that. That’s some crazy shit.

Despite myself and the icicles dripping off the still flowering (though sad and frozen) potato vine, I rose at 7:30 and pulled on layers and layers and layers, grabbed the yoga mat and trekked the few blocks to the women’s gym for an early Saturday morning class with Kaye. After bending and twisting and stretching and yanking my body here, there and ways it ain’t suppose to go, I was sufficiently warmed and even took the Honey Bee out for a stroll. Pools of standing water were frozen and icicles dripped from the outdoor fire-sprinklers on the patios of the units at School Park Plaza.

LB called at 11:30 suggesting a hike. I told her she was crazy and high and that perhaps at 1 pm, but anything sooner was just out of the question, even with these layers piled on like they are. So we’ll be heading out within the hour yet, but I’m holing up in the warmth until the last possible moment.

I’m worried about the birds. Have others been following the story of the dying birds in Australia?

Yesterday afternoon, instead of the regular pilgrimage to Bon Tempe that seems to have become routine, we took the dogs to Deer Park on the old stand by that I call the Long Loop. On the Buckeye trail (which joins a fire road with a switch back trail by way of narrow and exposed ridge trail, the same one which my mother tripped on – leading to a fall and the fateful broken wrist a few years back) I spied something unusual on the hillside above us, near a spot that forms a natural stone alter of sorts. Succulents will grow out of the black rock there which in the wetter season is decorated with some kind of orange lichon-looking stuff. It’s a favorite sunning spot for the western fence lizards and lots of wild flowers blossom about the place in early spring. There are two stones on the bank of the downward slope side of the trail – perfect for perching and enjoying the sun as well as a stellar vista of rolling hills and valley. Anyways, above this spot, about twenty yards up the hill, I pointed out something I hadn’t seen before but I couldn’t make out what it was.

As we drew closer to the spot, Peter guessed a bird, a stone, a log. I asserted I suspected it was a cat. First I proposed a common house cat, then perhaps a wild bob cat, but as we moved closer and given its size, maybe even a mountain lion cub? It had to have been near thirty pounds – quite large for a bob cat. I took a few pictures and when I was able to really zoom in on the pictures it seemed quite evident it was a bob cat, though up close and personal, in real life, it was easy to mistake it for a puma. It was ginormous! (Also upon further inspection, it was hissing at us.. heh. Good thing the Honey Bee didn’t hear and take on that challenge.) It made for quite a bit of excitement on the trail. We moved further down the switch back and were able to look up and fortuitously see it leap and pounce on its prey. That was cool. I’d post a few pictures but they really didn’t turn out that well.

The Fun's Just Started

The world keeps ending but new people too dumb to know it keep showing up as if the fun’s just started. - John Updike

I’ve recently discovered Eddie Izzard and I love him. Maybe this is like my discovery of the reality TV show, Survivor. Everyone rolls their eyes, and I can actually hear them thinking “that’s so last millennium.” I suppose the result of not having a television is that I’ll never be a hip trend setter in the glamorous world of pop culture. If you don’t know what’s happening until it comes out on DVD, it’s hard to even feign being bleeding edge about such things.

I do in fact feel a great deal of optimism about the aught seven. It’s going to be a good year.

It’s been a terrific day. I woke to morning coffee – soft and lazy, blog reading, internet perusing like some people read the newspaper (but without the crinkly pages or newsprint on my fingertips.) LB called and asked if I wanted to hike today, so I took a shower, did a few loads of laundry, emptied and filled the dishwasher and dressed for a sojourn with the Honey Bee. It was a brilliant crisp blue perfect day. I took my camera but I wasn’t inspired to take pictures. After all was hiked and done I walked to the post office (tubes on the way, Alison!) and then to the bank and then home. Secret loves these little tool about town things. She walks about like she owns the place, little captain of her band of grrrrrrl gang.

I heated up some perfect chicken vegetable soup. Have I mentioned what a soup kick I’ve been on since the weather turned? Each week I roast a chicken and after a fabulous feast of that I start deconstructing the bird for all its pieces, the good meat in this pile for the soup, the stuff we don’t like for the Monster Girl, the carcass in a pot with an onion, three chile d’arbole, celery scraps, garlic, parsley, a whole mess of seasoning for a three hour boil and simmer into stock. The house smells brilliant and alive. There’s something about using the whole thing that feels so graceful. When the time comes the next day to add the potatoes, celery, carrots, corn and onion (when I’m feeling frisky a daub of chipotle paste for a kick) it feels wholesome and good. Anyways, that was lunch, a small bowl – a late lunch, around four.

After this I hopped on my mountain bike (which is in bad need of biannual maintenance) and road for a good hour up the back side of the mountain to five corners, from Phoenix Lake, down through Deer Park and then back home. I’ve been rather lazy and I haven’t done this trek in a while (I could tell.) My back (ouch) felt it more than legs or lungs (yes, I’m even optimistic I’ll lose that weight I gained when I stopped smoking frill’n three years now…) So after the last mile or so, which is a lovely coast down hill the whole way, I pulled up to the house, tossed the bike aside, tossed the clothes aside and plopped in the hot tub with a shot of top shelf Captain Morgan’s spiced rum and wallowed in the warmth under a quickly setting sun. Stars illuminated in a deep indigo blue night sky behind the silhouette of the towering redwood trees.

Once the heat had found its way deep to my marrow, revitalizing a kernel of me that felt spent and done, I dressed and LB and I went to my favorite fondue restaurant for a seven oclock reservation from which we just returned, just a shy bit before ten (talk about slow food!) It was awesome (as always.) I just finished folding the laundry of which I spoke earlier and I’m cozied up to the fireplace with a good book, a tall cool glass of blood orange Italian soda and that electric throw (which mom contends will give me cancer, but three cheers for the deadly electric throw! Every home should have several!) You know, if sort of feels like the fun just started….

A Farmhouse In Flanders

Rather than be confronted with an overwhelming proof of the limitations of our understanding, we accuse the dreams of not making sense. - Erich Fromm

Just because someone boyishly etches, mixes creamy pastel watercolors and dabbles in daubs of oil paints doesn’t mean that they have a heart – doesn’t mean that they are anything less than evil. My mind keeps drifting back to this the past few days. Is it really possible to discover the heart of a monster in a farmhouse in Flanders? And even if it is, who sees the value in that lump of coal? Does someone really believe that the pressure of history will turn that blackened, shriveled thing into some diamond? Clearly, yes. Obviously yes, people will pay richly and imbue it with value. Is it the saffron of historical voyeurs?

I want to make lavender extract. Ideas on how to do that? I’ve read to soak 48 flowers in 16 oz of vodka. Does this make sense to you?

93

I just got back from seeing United 93. I’m stunned. I’m reeling at how gripping it was, how difficult it was to watch and how affected I was by it. This from me – jaded, compartmentalized, heady and detached? Wow. It’s saying something, isn’t it? I’m vibrating. I certainly never believed that seeing the planes hit the towers would ever have an effect on me again, having been so visually and emotionally numbed by terminal repeat of major news outlets. But on a big screen in a context, it left me breathless.

It didn’t have that Spielberg-I-can-manufacture-precisely-one-emotion thing going. It conjured many. I would have been angry had the messages been overly political or patriotic. Sure, it’s a political event, it’s difficult for it not to be political. But this film was amazingly raw. We all know the outcome. I wasn’t left with feelings of nationalism. Strangely, I think that would have cheapened it. That might sound odd – it’s how I feel.

The Little Brown Shoes

I watched Rent the other evening on DVD. It served to make me angry. I found myself yelling at the screen from time to time – things like grow up, shut the fuck up and you arrogant, misguided, cowards. I’d seen it on the stage in San Francisco in the 90’s. I didn’t have this reaction then. I’m still rather surprised at how angry I am and how the anger lingers.

So what’s it all about? It probably doesn’t make sense to the average onlooker. I can’t remember. Do you ever, randomly, realize that you’ve been holding your breath? This happens to me often – maybe for the last two decades or so.

I have an unmitigated anger toward New Yorkers. Not against any particular New Yorker, but New Yorkers in general. As a group they are arrogant, self obsessed, myopic creatures. They are cowards masquerading as cool. Put on any clothes you want – it doesn’t change who you are fundamentally. Frauds. And if you’re a New Yorker or you have some adolescent obsession with New York and you’re feeling offended, just go have a cocktail and buy yourself a new pair of shoes. I’m sure you’ll forget all about it - it will pass.

Cassie was in my dreams last night. We had breakfast at 9 am and then she was coming back to pick me up for a conference I was to speak at at 1:30. In the meantime, my old friend T*dd came to visit. I haven’t seen him in a decade. I adore him. He doesn’t know it. He thinks I gave him my guitar and the comfortor I made when I was a girl, the one made out of old sun dresses and the whatnot, because I didn’t want these things anymore – not as any sentimental gesture. He was wrong. I gave him these things because I wanted him to have them. Because he wanted to learn how to play guitar. Because I didn’t want him to be cold. Because I’d given him money and I couldn’t give him anymore money. Because he lay shivering from a fever from the HIV, from the Hep, who knows, on my living room floor, still tweaked out on speed – but still found it in him to make heart-attack spaghetti. (He got his test results on an April first – I thought he was kidding. We ate Thai food. They told me I was positive and handed me a brown paper bag. What’s this, my do-yourself will and a list of hospices? I threw it back at them.) Because we got stoned and lay on his bed on Hayes and listened to Morrissey crooning the Queen is Dead. Because he is probably the smartest person I’ve ever known and he feels. Because we just had so much fun together – we always did. And then for a whole bunch of reasons, most all of them having something to do with speed, it just wasn’t so good that we hung out anymore and I’m not sure even if I found him today that we could retrace steps to all the laughter. I’m sure he lost or sold the things I gave him. He gave me a red cut glass candy dish. The red color, he told me, has to do with gold being mixed in with the glass. I still have it. I miss him. I miss who I was. I miss who we were then too.

So anyways, what does this digression have to do with Rent? In the dream, T*dd began singing one of the songs from the musical…. we’re living in America, at the end of the millennium.. He sang it over and over. He wore a black leather jacket with black keds – this very young, very blond, very earnest boy – bounced ahead of me down the street – mockingly singing this song. He laughed and everything became playful. I was serious – stoic – and he kept singing until I started laughing. It’s what we were – playmates. And there he was and there I was and we were laughing together – just like that.

He described it best from a short story he’d read. A drop of blood falling on a clean white cotton sheet – absorbing and spreading out in the fibers. That’s what A1D$ is like, not a fucking musical. Not fashion.

I loved his anger. More than mine. I wonder where he is. I saw him on the street in the Tenderloin many years ago. Seemed things were better – maybe – it’s hard to tell. But there was so much stuff… I hate that fucking musical and I hate New York.

Step Back

Greetings from the desert – sunny Palm Springs. I flew down on Thursday for a conference that ended today. Yesterday there was only a morning session so mom and B, my brother, drove to Thousand Palms preserve for a walk and to see the desert pup fish. The wind was howling – it hurt my ears and we were pelted with sand. You’d think it would serve as some kind of natural exfoliation. Really, I just got sand in my hair.

B was out for a conference in San Diego and rented a car – he’ll be staying until the 8th. I’m flying back Monday early evening. Every time I turn around, mom is putting food in front of me. Lemon-caper chicken with asparagus baked in garlic and olive oil, baked ziti, exotic quiche-like pastries heavy with cheeses, creams, and pancetta. Everything is fabulous and seemingly effortless. It’s not effortless. Emphasis on seemingly. She’s just amazing.

On Thursday morning we hiked Palm Canyon, the Murray trail to the seven sister’s waterfall. I brought the camera, but I’m not seeing what’s in front of me. And when I do see something, I’m sloppy with the camera settings. It’s interesting that on the mountain, at home, I just can’t get close enough. Here I wish I had a wide angle lens and wish I could get further away. I’m not accustomed to looking at things this way. Not used to wanting to back up. It takes practice, like standing on my head or reading upside down.

Shelter

I’ve was tagged again.. this time five most embarrassing things. This task has stirred no small amount of distress. I’m low on the spectrum of someone who does foolish things and/or if I do them I’m simple enough not to be embarrassed by them. I’ve had fun inquiring after the most embarrassing moments of friends and acquaintances – but this has not jogged my mind to produce more of my own.

1) I went to the store and forgot to wear my pants. I was at the grocery store and it suddenly dawned on me that I was only wearing a t-shirt and underwear. (I wasn’t drunk and hadn’t been drinking. I have no excuse. No, I was not wearing a thong.)

I’m certain I’ve had many embarrassing moments – I really just can’t think of them. Denial is powerful. I can’t keep the love on that one going because it’s just too difficult.

Wiley showed up for a surprise visit this past weekend. Back space. On my way to DC on Thursday the tail wind was incredible. We broke the sound barrier over Ohio and arrived an hour early. Fighting nature all the way back, we were an hour late arriving home Friday night. I met Cassie for coffee Saturday morning. Surprise. She was wearing a beautiful hat and I took pictures of her with my new camera. The wall behind her was mustard color – I didn’t even notice until after I downloaded the images. Just a perfect color.

Anyways, M bought me a bitch’n cool lens for the camera – just as an out-of-the-blue gift. He said I can’t have such a cool new camera without having an awesome lens. I was never happier to receive it because his heart seems to be working – the angioplasty has relieved symptoms. Damn, it’s so nice to have something make a difference for a change. And for some reason this allows me to really appreciate and indulge in enjoying the gift and feel even more grateful and happy about it. I love it!

So Cassie and I arrive home after a nice lazy morning with coffee that reminded me of when we first met, in The City, when we’d just sit in cloudy cafes and drink coffee for hours and talk about nothing and everything – you know, back when I smoked cigarettes (sigh). So we arrive home and there, surprise, is Wiley – he’s come for a weekend visit. Surprise. With him he returned two books I’d leant him forever ago – Paula (Isabel Allende) and Shelter (Jane Anne Phillips.)

For the observant among you, you’ll note that Jane Anne Phillips is listed among my favorite authors. I loved her collection of short prose Black Tickets. This, her novel, Shelter is quite another story – I’d call it a delectable mountain in its own right. (Betraying, of course, that cummings truly was another of my favorite authors and this betrays my highbrow ways – I’m not a fly by night fan of cummings recounting memorized poems recited in dubious chick flicks, but the harder stuff – ami, the enormous room, the non-lectures, every last piece of him…) I remember when I read it, cozied up in a window seat of the Morgan House at Irish Beach on the Northern California coast. The Morgan House is on stilts on the bluff – in the window seat there is a view of nothing but ocean forever. I cried just because it was so beautiful – not the view, but Shelter. Though the view was something too.

There is a temple in Mendocino, when I sit on the front stoop I feel a vibration, an energy, a tone of bliss. It’s unmistakable. If you’ve ever been to Mendocino and stopped by this temple, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Irish Beach is about twenty miles south of Mendocino on the Coast. I have so many good memories that were born there. Like reading Shelter the day of the night that I saw Gary Oldham play Mozart in Beloved.

2) I was a late something-teen in Mexico and my sister and I went to a night club in Manzanillo with two Mexican boys we’d met at Las Hadas. I wanted to say that the swimming pool at the resort was beautiful. Instead I said that the goat was beautiful. When I went to say I was embarrassed, instead I told them I was pregnant.

Paula is a beautiful… a beautiful… what.. memoir? She wrote it for her daughter, Paula, who was in a coma. If she came out of the coma, she was sure to have no memories. So as she sat at her daughter’s bedside for months, she wrote her memories, so when she surfaced from that sleep she could relearn herself. This is who you are. This is who I am. This is where you’re from. I don’t remember where I was when I read that.

On Sunday Wiley and I walked the crest trail to Phoenix Lake and wandered slow back, the short loop to Woodlane, passed the stables home. But Saturday night Ed’s friends from work showed up and watched zombie movies until the small hours of the morning. I need more time alone and more time together, all at once. And I like having the books back. He even brought back one I’d never leant him.

Lonely Trees

Lately I’ve become taken with documentaries about skateboarding. I’ve seen most of the surf movies – move on to Dogtown. The appeal? I don’t know… some stream of conscious esthetic that’s physical and poetic? Something that happens in a split second, art, an experience, and the wind perhaps convening for inimitable moments of fleeting beauty – or something. Like I said. I don’t know.

I snuzzled on the sofa with the Honey Bee and the laptop on Sunday evening, after a chore-filled day. Ed bought a new computer. I’m SOO frill’n jealous – it’s awesome. He convinced me not to impulse-buy driven by envy and wait it out – consider if I really need a new computer. I don’t. He understands all too well. “I felt exactly the same way the last time you got a new computer,” he tells me. So the compromise was upgrades to the wireless - now I can pretty much be on mars and still be on the internet. Why look at a tree when you can google one?

Speaking of trees, I bought three pictures of trees. Yes – canned art. The kind you buy at chain home furnishing stores for $19.99 each. They’re photographs somehow printed on metal (tin? Aluminum?) and the metal picks up the colors around it. Two of them are a little beat up around the edges. They’re lonely and fragile and yet so, hmmmm, tenacious? Something about trees – I can’t put my finger on it. Yes. Certainly, I find the Madrones and Buckeyes impressive, but I also have a handful of favorite trees in the forest – one particularly impressive Bay, a fine lone Oak on a hill and so on. I fussed in my head for weeks over what I felt about buying art like this. But I like them – so fuck me for being such a snob about these things. I have them. They’re mine… and I just need to get over myself. They’re lined up against the wall – waiting to find their place in this room.

So as I’m writing this, Ed walks in the room and I ask him, “so what do you think of the trees?” He replies, “honestly, I’m not so hot on the trees.” “Really? Why not?” I query. “They’re lonely,” he says.

Helena Handbasket

I pulled out the watercolors and did a first draft on a few star gazers. I haven’t had the paint out in forever and it felt homey and wonderful to splash around in colors. They look perfectly awful! There’s something so freeing about being able and willing to create really bad art on a whim, and something so titillating about feeling so happy about it.

Today was the first day back at work since the surgery. It was a little slow and grumbly for the knot in my belly and the way my body is screaming no, no, no!! I’ve gone off all my meds, including over-the-counter versions that are supposedly more benign, due to side effects. The beginning of the end, I tell you. The beginning of the end. Didn’t I just predict that the surgery was gonna kick off a string of events taking me straight to hell in a handbasket? Here we go… wheee!

I’m really not gonna worry about it. I’m really not gonna worry about anything anymore. Phew… that’s a relief. Off to bed.

D'oh!

In the art gallery I giggled over a series of fabulous paintings by a man named Jonas Somebody. A parrot eating a plate of spaghetti, a lion with a cockatoo pull at his whiskers, a lemon with a nail in it. The gallery clerk was more than excited to talk to me about his paintings and showed me how his style was evolving to seascapes. I whispered to her sideways that she should inform the artist he should stick with the funny stuff. She told me in that same sideways hushed way that the artist was her husband. How terribly embarrassing.

Nada

I bought new carpeting for the living room. A sage-ish colored thing to go with the new Luca photograph. I won’t hang the photo until I’ve painted and so invariably there’ll be a photo in bubble wrap on the floor of my study for the next year. Predictable? Am I predictable?

Cassie returns from Spain today. Any moment I’m expecting the telephone to ring and hear her sleepy jet-lagged voice squeaking, “I’m home!” But alas, I’ve determined that she’s invariably been a curmudgeon with a customs official and has been detained in some holding area while she proves she has no contraband. I’m guessing, however, that she’s smuggled in some barnacles and has some explaining to do.

Thank You, Luca Battaglia!

Thank you Luca Battaglia. I bought one of your photographs (Vetri rotti) this past weekend and here it dons my study wall. The frame is cut out of the hood of a 1969 Chevy Impala. It’s beautiful – the picture and the frame. No doubt it will bring me boundless inspiration for years to come. Thank you Luca Battaglia.

I stretch and the world relaxes. Wistful and sleepy this afternoon.

Blessed Art Thou Who Blossom

Blessed art thou who blossom. Hand in mine - bone, blood, flesh and air. Finding our places with each other. It's so surprising. I rode the bus from Divisadero to Arguello and I was somehow amazed at the number of people in this world who I'd never seen before - that we've never talked or shared a single moment. I go from zero to intimacy in two point four seconds and no one bats an eyelash. It can be so beautiful and overwhelming and kind.

I wandered to a consignment store on Clement. I'd seen photographs there over a year ago and haven't been able to stop thinking about them. They were close, intimate pictures of windows, doors and walls. The frames were as illustrious as the pictures. The artist cut them from old cars, mostly steel, smoothed and rusted. Each photograph comes with information about the car the frame was cut from - the year, make and model.

I'd gone inquiring after the artist whose photographs haven't donned the halls for many moons. The owner, who I recollected as rather maudlin, seemed cheerful and enthused. She'd just been thinking about the artist, she told me, and had set up an appointment with him for the following week, to view his work and bring some back into the store. She would call me when his work was in and promised to take photographs of other work he had available. She paused and eyeballed me from head to toe. "They cost about four hundred dollars," she said, seeking an expression, "is that in your range?" I told her that I'd like her to call me when the pictures appeared and refrained from answering her question.

When I left the store I looked at my shoes, checked out my boy-fit Capri blue jeans, my ragged black oversized T-shirt and vibrant yellow rain slicker with dirt around the sleeves where I've cuffed them because the slicker is way too big. For the life of me I'll always dress like a pauper. It's partly why I don't fit. Insisting on comfort. I insist on comfort. I'll buy seven feather pillows for my bed, flannel sheets, plush cotton robes, that seven hundred dollar chair with perfect lines and an artful design and is comfortable. It has to be comfortable. I sat in thirty desk chairs before I chose the one that acts as my throne. The desk is too high and in elevating the chair my feet don't touch the ground so as I sit in my study my feet rest on three books, the top one a dictionary. I stand on words and their meaning. What else do I have? I need these things. I rely on them.

She called me Wednesday, the woman from the store. She'd chosen four beautiful pictures and handed me a bundle of photographs that she'd taken of his other work. He'd only let her take four pictures, she explained as she splayed photographs across the sales counter. I gathered my selected rejects into a pile and asked her if I could take the others to the window to study them as I viewed the four she'd had hanging. I decided on a corrugated steel structure with a wood framed window housing broken panes of glass. She'd have to call to see if it were still available, would I wait while she rang him and save her a call?

I listened to her on the telephone, "The woman is here, the one I was telling you about" - I felt awkward and a little titillated to be "the woman I was telling you about." I wondered how it was I was "told about." Was I a women who came in with a floppy soiled slicker who probably won't buy anything, but isn't it uncanny that I called you last week and someone came inquiring after your work? However that was, he'd be bringing the picture to the store on Monday and she'd ring me when I could pick it up. I paid and left.

All I have this evening is a receipt for something that's yet to arrive. Something that I've already paid for, that's truly a thing of beauty, and in the meantime it's merely something to look forward to. When it comes I will react as though it's a surprise. I know myself like this. I will go to retrieve this thing in only a few days and I'll receive it as an unexpected gift, with genuine appreciation. I laugh at myself, the way I do this.

Yet somehow this evening, fumbling around the notion of how I crave comfort, dismiss convention, stand on my ream of words and their meanings, await the arrival of that which I have already paid dearly for and approach it all as an unexpected surprise sits in the cradle of my thoughts. One day you will say enough, and it will be enough, and I will leave. Those are the words it makes me feel. Yes. Feel. Strangely disconnected. Because at some point I'm suppose to leave, tired of stumbling after you trying to explain myself. Those are the words that follow. It's so difficult sometimes to take responsibility for the lives we've created. This glass of lemonade is my witness. You can change your mind, but not once the photograph has left the store. Facing one another with our palms up and hands empty, frustrated and speechless. I'm not talking about my lover or my friends. Should we conspire to find the wisdom in it, this awkward speechless moment is the cost. Yet we sit dumbfounded and amazed when all words fail us. And it's almost easy to miss, in the midst of our exasperation, that this lump of clay changed shape and something that was out of sorts was suddenly set right. Blessed art thou who blossom.