dust

There was a power outage at your work today so you were brought home early and I asked you to meet me at the corner cafe. We sat outside in the wavy heat sipping ice coffees out of tall glasses with our straws. The sun blinded me but made a halo around your silhouette - how fitting.

I am melancholic this day and you took my hand and made me walk with you in the twisting hills of our neighborhood. We arrived at a tall hill of dead grass among the chaos of cubic houses, and you led me upwards along a sandy path. I just sunk my head down and watched my feet gather a coating of dust as the rocks pierced my feet through my cheap flip-flops. At the top the wind wrapped warmth around our shoulders and we sat on a high green bench which made our legs dangle back and forth like children. You pinched my leg and pointed at it saying "dangle-dangle". I was about to cry.

We spoke to a stranger about his darling dog, and I pet her the whole time as she endlessly shed her fur, I was fascinated by the tufts of it which were immediately lifted by the wind and carried away and dispersed into nothing. I would like a stranger to wipe away the dusty layer which coats me these days, before I cry and it turns to mud and weighs me down making it impossible to move.

When I visited here as a teenager I rode the train out of the city and cried because it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, the hills coated with cozy houses...I envied the flesh that spent its days there, the eyes that scanned that awesome view every morning they woke. Now, it's a clutter of hideous - soulless pastel houses. No matter where I flee to I will always eventually see the flaws. It's true love when you love despite the flaws, so where does that leave me?

bluegrass festival

A friend just told me that there is a free Bluegrass Festival this weekend in the park. I am so excited that everytime I try to sit down I start floating up off of my seat and it makes me buckle over and laugh. It is a 2 day - 5 stage set up (Banjo Stage, Rooster Stage, Porch Stage, Star Stage, Arrow Stage).

Some of the performers: Earl Scruggs (whom I'm most excited about), Steve Earle & The Bluegrass Dukes, Doc Watson with David Holt & Richard Watson, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Roseanne Cash, Emmylou Harris.

All free...as much as I tire of 11 years in this city, it's the wonderful events like this that make it truly sparkle to me. I just went and saw Spearhead for free in the park at The Peace festival, and 2 years ago Willie Nelson was free in the park, and a year before that Arrested Development was free...

finger picks

I bought my finger picks for Birdie last weekend and wore them all day yesterday. Last night I learned the last leg of Cripple Creek WITH the picks. I have to say it was truly akward wearing them at first and I had to start off at square one again, frustrating. It didn't help that for the first few frustrating days I was wearing them backwards. Blush. In any case, thank sweet jesus for the internet and some kick ass banjo instructors who have very pictorial sites instructing dummy beginners as to the basics.

Yesterday I spent hours and hours researching the best DVD's to learn the basics and then I purchased 2 of the best ones out there as well as a beautiful strap that Birdie approved of, a tab booklet with a CD of the songs, and 2 Earl Scruggs CD's. I contacted a few local instructors...$40 an hour. So that helped make the decision to start off with the DVD tutorials so that when I'm ready to learn from an instructor, I will at least know the basics, how to read tabs, know the basic fingering, rolls, etc. That will be a happy day won't it Birdie!

multi-talented roofers

It appears as though our Indian Summer has finally arrived and the air smells sweet and warm as it slides in the windows. The roofers have not arrived today and 2 cleaners have been vacuuming and cleaning my office for the past 2 1/2 hours. Granted they said they would be professionals and when I opened the door the first thing I blurted out was "Aren't you one of the roofers!" and the man with the vacuum nodded yes....hmmm, who cares! I actually have my blinds open and the windows cracked and I'm not wearing earplugs for the first time in over a month! Just those facts alone almost compensate for the fact that they finally put in the new windows a week ago although they are frosted and won't open therefore creating an oven in the office on hot days, and eliminating what was once my favorite view in the house as the windows start at a waist level height and stretch up to the ceiling. Now it just looks like 2 cheesy chicken-wire embedded shower doors....but at least I have that roof and those windows over my head and for that I am more than grateful!

she must go away now

I haven't even picked up my camera since my Southern trip two months ago. I miss it. I never had a moment to absorb it when I returned, everything immediately went dull. We went directly to a party and I wore my dark sunglasses to hide my eyes, there were no words for my friends, just a big fake smile. I never pick my phone up when it rings anymore. I'm a loner these days and I'm trying to teach myself to accept it and not feel guilt over it.


I'm born to travel and roam. I become irritable if stationary too long. I grumble at strangers. But they deserve it the bastards. Yesterday I walked up to a stranger's car, leaned over, smiled, and thanked him for backing his town car containing his miserable lazy ass 4 feet out of my way so I could park on the crowded street. It took a bit of back and forth before he finally started his car, let out a dramatically loud sigh, and reversed. His window was open when I thanked him and he simply glanced up at me, sneered and then looked back down at whatever he was reading without a sound. I almost punched a huge bush as I walked up to my house. I wanted to destroy him.


I left part of myself in this photo and now I only know dullness. I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and when I look out my windows at the sprawling 7 hills of light and water all I see is pavement, phone lines, and cement clutter and it suffocates. I miss empty backend roads with run down diners and curious porch dwellers. I miss getting out of the car and stretching my limbs in the heavy heat, barely clothed. I found out I'm free to roam in just one more month. We will take a road trip to the South West I think. Meanwhile in October I will continue my hibernation with Birdie.

When I see this picture now I wish you would have climbed back in the car and drove away, leaving me there to open my eyes, this is what I would have liked you to see in your rear view mirror even though they say you should never look back. I would have broken into the abandoned house I was photographing, crawled into a ball on the floor, laughed, cried and then whispered something like ... "....the horror...."

absurdus tyrannus

If anyone has seen the Martial Law DVD and has info refuting Alex Jones' I am highly interested in hearing it, in the meantime here are a few links from that documentary - albeit some of it I don't buy as it is a bit too much of a conspiracy theory, they are still worth a dig around:
www.prisonplanet.com
www.infowars.com
www.arnoldexposed.com

rise of the police state

When I was back East this summer my oldest brother gave me a copy of the documentary Martial Law 9-11: Rise of the Police State. I didn't watch it until today, and the only reason I put it off was because my oldest brother is a bit radical in his beliefs at times so I thought the film would be one of his brainwashing conspiracy theories. Two weeks ago my other, more sound-minded older brother called me from the deepest blackest hole...he had just watched this film and urged me to watch it. Just this last Friday I received two phone calls from my mother telling me that she watched this film and that I should watch it now.

The second call Friday from my mother was from the bus station she was waiting at for two of her best friends because they were all meeting up and going down to Washington D.C. for the Saturday protest. She told me that my oldest brother was also driving down with a bunch of his friends. There was a huge protest in my city yesterday as well but I am ashamed to admit that I spent my day driving around to numerous music stores in search of finger picks and banjo straps. Besides, every time I go to a protest I just feel helpless and frustrated and the media always downplays and twists it. So yesterday I opted to skip out on it.

My sound-minded brother has been depressed for the past few weeks as it was he who used to call me Anti-American and ganged up on me with his friends about how wonderful America and our government was. It is the one thing we've screamed and said things we regretted to each other over. His ignorance on the matter had astounded me and made me drift away from him back in the day...in any case now he's beginning to open his eyes and it's painful. He told me the movie would be easier on me as I had always known these things and had tried to tell him for years and now he finally believed me and he was sorry for being so blind and brainwashed. It broke my heart to hear him tell me just a few hours ago that the other day he was looking at the American flag from his office window, a symbol that had always made him feel so safe and proud in the past, now made him break down and cry in his office.

When I watched this video today I paused it and fell apart into an uncontrollable crying fit. My mind could not wrap around many of the facts that Alex Jones was spewing out specifically in regards to 9-11. If you find the time please watch it - my brother said you can download if for free on www.infowars.com but it appears to me you have to purchase it, if anyone is interested I can try to send you a copy - just email me your address.

On a semi-similar note here are two other great documentaries that I recommend highly:
The Yes Men
Outfoxed
(and something else for you to see that is Fox/Bill O'Reilly related - just click on the movie links under the Phil Donahue vs Bill O'Reilly section)

home alone but utterly unalone

I'm home alone tonight and so happy. Since Hubby is out with the boys I am submerging myself in Civil War stories. Crying here and there. Pickett's Charge....crying for them.

Last summer I set up an appointment to look at Alexander Gardner's photographs of the Civil War in the George Eastman House archives. I dragged Hubby and Momma-san along with me. They sat on either side of me as I was the only one allowed to touch the prints. I wore their tiny cotton gloves. My hands were shaking, my cheeks a shade of crimson, my eyes burning with tears, my jaws clenched tight...bite...release..bite...release...a rhythm.

When we stood up to leave I asked the man running the archive if I could see the Lincoln Assassination photos and he perked up asking "How do you know about our collection of those?" I said I assumed that if anyone had them it would be the George Eastman House for it was pointed out to me that they essentially are a warehouse storing over 3 million photographic artifacts and images after all. He excitedly disappeared and then reappeared wheeling a tall cart with a photo album on it. He said they just acquired it from the descendants of a Union Officer who had kept the newspaper clippings and original prints of the assassins before some of the glass negatives had broke and cracked which is why many of the images we see today have horrid lines running though them.

All I wanted to do was break down and cry....my eyes welled up. I told Hubbs and Momma-san everything I thought they would find interesting about each of the images I flipped to in this album. I came across a portrait of a man I had never seen before and I was stumped and disappointed at my lack of knowledge "I can't believe this...I have no idea who this man is...I don't understand" I told them. Then I heard the Archive Man's chair squeak back and he turned and looked at me from his desk, repositioned himself in his chair and said "A few weeks ago we had a Lincoln expert in here, a man who has spent the last 20 years researching Lincoln, and he didn't know who that man was". The disappointment dissipated.

Image 1: Union vantage point of the Pickett's Charge field
Image 2: Ford's Theater
Image 3: Bed Lincoln died in

I love you most on sundays

On the trolley home tonight I saw two male lovers embracing and when the taller one placed his hand over the back of the neck of the other in a protective and deeply loving way, I thought of you and of our last Sunday, and that's when I realized that I love you most on Sundays.

Sunday afternoon we sat outside a bar at the crowded picnic tables with a pitcher of beer in the company of whom I like to refer to as our New Friends, and I hated it. When we got there I so badly wanted to sit with the friend we ran into up at the bar but there was no room at their table for us, or at the New Friends table for them. You thought for sure it was our good friend Niles who text messaged you to meet him there in the first place and then we couldn't understand why he didn't show up and why he wasn't answering his phone all day. Then it turned out that the guy we ran into at the bar was the one who text-messaged you and we didn't even hang out with him! I digress.


I just wanted to flee and run home with you to Birdie. So we left, and I took your hand and ran through the people, skipping in my anticipation and excitement that you consented so quickly. You knew it was deeply boring too perhaps? On our slow walk home we both suddenly and simultaneously had to hit the restroom due to the pitcher of Stella we just drank, so you suggested using the one at the bar across the sreet form where we happened to be standing at the time. "Yippee! They have a foosball table!" said me and I grabbed your hand and darted us directly into and across the middle of the street. It took me a minute to warm up on the table but I kicked your ass again and again.

Then we left and wandered off to a clothing store where the beautiful gay men offered us champagne. We looked at each other and giggled and then turned to them and said "why not!" They brought us each a glass and then we went into a dressing room together so I could try on a $103 t-shirt. It didn't have a price on it so when I found out the ridiculous cost I placed it back on the rack immediately and you sung tipsily "teehee, I'll buy that for you Baby, I'm a bit tipsy so I'd take advantage of me if I were you".


Then we strolled in and out of whatever stores we passed: a hardware store, a beauty store, a leather fetish store (you told me to go in and ask if they sold banjo straps and when I did the man made me ask him three times before he yelped "Oh my goodness Dear, we certainly do NOT!" You just stood outside watching with a shit-eating grin on your face and I ran out and punched your arm and shouted "Why did you tell me to ask him Baby! They sell sex stuff in there, not music accessories!"). I think you did it to get back at me for wanting to buy a black leather fetishy looking strap for Birdie (that you happened to hate) just the day before. I know you, that was your passive way of telling me what the strap looked like to you without in fact having to say a word to me, because you didn't - you just scowled at it when I showed it to you Saturday, and every time I brought it up again after that.


We finally made it to our hood and we had to use the restroom again so we stopped into another bar and sat and had a drink. It felt like we were kids left home alone for the first time, just going with the moment...We laughed our asses off and due to the alcohol I told you a few details regarding me I never shared with you before and it just made you sit closer to me pressing my hand in yours.

Sunday night I always get anxiety and now I know it's because I always have so much fun with you no matter what mundane activity we do. Over the weekend I fill up on you and get used to you all over again. Then by Sunday, when I become painfully attached, the cursed Monday rolls around and severs me from you, and as a means to protect myself I slip away back into my own mind and separate life.

little birdie the banjo

Yesterday I went on a hunt for the 'one', and after 4 or 5 stores I went back to the same store I visited 2 weeks ago and approached the banjo that had made the ceiling disappear. There was my little Birdie. After a few moments I placed her back on the stand and a little 8 or 9 year old boy came and picked her up immediately and played the dueling banjo song. I turned my back to the kid and stared at Hubby with wide eyes and mouthed "ho-ly shit". [If you read my Tuesday, September 6 entry some of this will make a little more sense]

As soon as he put her back I took her up to the counter. It may have been there that I saw the eagle painted on the back. I was wearing my eagle shirt that day, one of my favorites which I haven't worn for quite a while due to seeing a sucky girl wearing it on some sucky TV show. And above the eagle there were 3 gold stars. My temples glittered happily and my eyes stared hugely at Hubby who had no clue the connections my mind was making. There is a solid black star tattooed above my surname on my back. (My 'gang tattoo', as people often mistake due to the bold old english lettering).


My fingers are raw and my neck is sore. I am practicing the scales and my fingering and learning "Cripple Creek" (click on quicktime icon next to the song) until we can find the music for "Moon River" which I will some day play for Petunia. By the way P, before I went to bed last night she told me her name was Birdie, and by the time I woke this morning it had solidified.

my blue light music

This is the music that helps make my days pass quickly and quietly.

01. Jealous Guy - Elliott Smith
02. Out On The Weekend - Neil Young
03. Wandering Angus - Jolie Holland
04. Stepp, Min Stepp - Jan Johansson
05. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child - Odetta
06. Love In Vain - The Rolling Stones
07. Gorecki - Lamb
08. Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
09. Wished For You - Squirrel Nut Zippers
10. I Put A Spell On You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
11. Organ Donor - DJ Shadow
12. Aint No Sunshine - Bill Withers
13. Famous Blue Raincoat - Leonard Cohen
14. First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - Johnny Cash
15. In My Home Over There - Mahalia Jackson
16. I'll See You In My Dreams - Django Reinhardt
17. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart - Al Green
18. Fade Into You - Mazzy Star
19. Lorena - Jay Ungar
20. Darling Do You Remember Me - David Johansen
21. Pink Maggit - Deftones
22. Not Even Jail - Interpol
23. For The Damaged - Blonde Redhead
24. Bankrupt On Selling - Modest Mouse
25. Coney Island Baby - Lou Reed
26. If You Go Away - Emiliana Torrini
27. Le Ciel Dans Une Chambre - Carla Bruni
28. Over And Done With - The Proclaimers

these chickens can fly

Petunia, you asked on your blog if any of us were psychic.

When I was 15 I was deathly sick and bed-ridden for a month with mono. One day I was overcome with the idea that someone in my cousin's family was going to die. I begged my mom to take me to their house and I yelled that one of them might die. I told her every action creates a reaction and that we could alter their future if we unexpectedly showed up and changed the course of their actions, altered their plans, I KNEW something bad was going to happen!

At that time my cousins were in their mid teens and younger. They were all jocks and my nickname from them was "Punky Lorena". They used to make fun of me and my gothic/mohawked/shaved headed girlfriends, etc. So, needless to say I hated them then and dreaded going over there. My mother didn't understand what had come over me and reminded me I hated seeing them, and eventually annoyed at my insistance she angrily yelled at me not to talk that way anymore and hushed me back to sleep.

I fell asleep and was out for another day or two and in that duration I had a dream that my little cousin B stood holding onto my legs and cried and begged for me to not let "them" take him. I stood at a large gate of an old building. I leaned down and told him that it was all going to be ok, and to not be afraid. I woke up eventually to my mom pushing at my shoulders and crying. She told me my little cousin B was hit by a car and that she was going immediately to the hospital to see him.

After my mom left I lay there for hours in the darkness. The door was ajar about 2 or 3 inches and the hall light was leaking into the bedroom. Suddenly a very indescribeable happiness overcame me and I knew I wasn't alone in the room, and next thing I know a blackish cloud came next to me at my bed and stopped. I whispered something to B because I knew it was him, then I smiled wide and reached my arm out to him, told him I loved him and then fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up to my mom clutching me in her arms, rocking back and forth and crying hysterically. She didn't have to say a thing but she told me anyway with a tortured face. She told me that my younger cousins were all playing tag in the front yard of their farmhouse. They had a big white fence around the horse pasture which stopped about 50 feet in front of the road. They all knew their whole lives that they weren't allowed to go past the end of that fence line under any circumstances.

Anyway it was B's turn, he was tagged, and he started running directly out to the road right as a car was speeding 60mph by. His siblings stopped at the fence and watched him continue to run and they started screaming at him to stop. For some reason he kept running and the car hit him and he was thrown 20 feet into a ditch. When they rushed to the hospital in the ambulance my aunt told him to squeeze her hand if he could hear and understand her and the first 3 times she asked him he squeezed her lightly and then never responded again after that. At the hospital they kept his body alive on machines for almost a day until they decided to turn them off.

A week later at his funeral the priest said that all of his chickens had died one by one right after that and they were all flying up to heaven to be with their angel. B was 8 years old.

sneak

Part I :: 08.15.05
I'm sneaking this post into a past draft because who wants to hear this - no one. I can't breathe. My eyes hold wet dust and I cannot see. My heart is a piece of tracing paper. These days I only photograph at night in my dreams. My shoulders feel pinned to the walls. There is no motivation. I want to crawl inside the music and hold your hand. Feeling sick to death with loneliness.

Part II :: 08.16.05
And now a photo stalker phones and leaves messages. He wants to meet me and talk about photography. He wants to show me his work because he thinks it will have the same effect on me that mine does on him. He's called twice now in two days. Apparently he overlooked the email link on my site. I made Hubby take my address off of it. Hubby suggests I explain to him that I am a private person.

I'm a hibernating bomb waiting to explode and I can't wear the happy optimistic bullshit mask these days. I scare my friends with my dark frankness and that's when I realize that hardly any of my friends here even have a clue who the fuck I really am. I came here to hide, I ran away from my life 11 years ago in N.Y. because there were horrible secrets that were pushing me to the brink. I just spend a lot of these days with tears seeping in my lids, sometimes I sit real still and don't let them spill over, I like to wait for them to dry up instead.

Hubby makes me laugh, makes me happy, makes my heart burn but he's so innocent and pure he can never possibly understand the empty hole. When I was a little girl I used to imagine dead people whom I worshipped in some way: writers/artists/musicians what have you. I used to have to imagine them following me around to make the days feel special and not as lonely. And then that loneliness went away as I grew older but for the past few months it's come back and now I have to imagine my dead hero's following me again. I feel like a child. Last night we went for tapas/dinner and suprised a new friend for his birthday and while we were at the restaurant's bar 2 men didn't take their eyes away from me so to not hate them and to make the night more interesting I injected Lewis into one and someone else in the other. An evening that felt painfully dull suddenly came alive for me in my imagination. Both of those new incarnations stayed true to my game, they stared the whole time we sat there. Stupid game. Stupid girl. A dead would-be assassin...brilliant way to spruce up the evening.

The night before I didn't need to do that when I was with you A. You were perfection, every second had meaning and you and I didn't want to walk away from eachother when we went outside after our sangria at the piano bar in our hood. You bent over to look at the playing cards that lay on the street and sidewalk, There were 3 of them. A jack, 8, and 10 of hearts. And I shouted "Don't you even start, they don't mean anything!" You knew I was lying too. The next day I emailed you to assure you I thought you were darling precisely for your little wonderful way of seeing signs in everything. That you knew I was the same, it just weakens with I'm with you, and you said you were just thinking about that too and were about to email me thanking me for the perfection.

I need to take another road trip. Need to get away. The cement infested landscape makes me want to scream. I'm ready to run away again. It's hard being married when you're used to getting up and moving to the other side of the world at your leisure. It's a constant battle that eats at me at least a few times a year. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll forget that I'm married and just wander off somewhere. Perhaps thats my father in me, the constant desire to run. I just spent the past half an hour searching his name again. I wonder if he ever searches for my name. I wonder if he is proud when he finds me. But I'm pretty sure he's not. He never wanted me to be an artist. He never wanted me to be "different".

Part III :: 08.17.05
This must be a nightmare but it's not. The fucking roofers are here and it's Saturday morning! Pounding and drilling on my bedroom ceiling! Thanks for the warning yet again c--k suckers!

henna

Here they are. I want to freehand something similar for my next tattoo. Once I concretely determine where, the rest will be easy.

opera + charcoal

I was just searching through an archive of my old artwork in search of my henna freehand designs because I want to design my next tattoo based on them. Then I came across my old figure drawings from college.

I remember that figure drawing class. I used to listen to opera in my walkman (that word sounds ancient) as we'd sit in the darkened half circle on our drawing benches. I loved the smell of that room, and the feel of the wood which held me. I would carefully set all of my charcoals out, tape a fresh sheet of paper to my clipboard, and press 'play'. Those songs used to surge my heart and so often I'd just let the tears run down my face as the song would climax, freezing my head and sending chills over my flesh... sometimes I would drop my charcoal and grasp my headphones, close my eyes and press them deeper around my ears. At those moments no one else in the room or world existed except for me and those divine voices. Those were some of my strongest and happiest moments. The rush of the charcoal on paper, watching it blacken my pale hands, the darkness that engulfed the room.

I was invisible until one girl sat next to me one day and told me she used to just watch me and was determined to be my friend. "Oh" I replied half disturbed by this. We became friends quickly despite this and I moved to Italy with her a few months later until she went psychotic on me and I kicked her out, but I don't wish to digress.

Anyway my professor used to circulate slowly around the class and I'd feel him standing beside me suddenly and glance up at him to watch his mouth move as he looked at me, then I'd drop my charcoal and lift my headphones off of my ears and he'd bend down and say "Ah Norma, beautiful opera Lorena" and he'd tell me how his mother used to pack him and his siblings up and take them to the opera when he was a young boy in Italy.

Every Sunday they'd go and she would make a picnic basket for them to eat outdoors later. They didn't have a lot of money but the opera was one of his mother's greatest pleasures in life. They'd sit in the commoners section and watch their mother weep to the angelic voices.

My professor used to enjoy standing behing me and detecting which opera I listened to each day and he was always right when he made a guess. It used to embarass me that he could hear them that clearly, I had the volume maxed out on that dinky yellow "sports" walkman. Sick.

I remember the day I drew this one. I was miserably depressed and her position made my eyes light up because I wanted to crawl into a ball and dissolve like her.

I hated the insuffferable loneliness I was experiencing in my suffocating and abusive relationship with the Greek. I had lost over 40 pounds and was a rail the 4 years I dated him. I would make food then sit and cry over it and take it directly to the trash can, empty it out and then go and lay down in this fetal position. Deep down I knew that dickwad didn't care about me so I wrote out "never cared" along her back. I used to do that a lot, fold and blend words into the figures because the words would just be screaming repetitvely in my head until I released them there. It's funny how your mind connects memories, or what stimulates certain memories.

guns, germs, and steel

Hubby bought us this last DVD last weekend. National Geographic made a documentary out of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. - William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books

When Hubby read this book years ago he reiterated basically everything he read to me over time so I didn't feel the need to pick up the book. Watching Jared Diamond take you through the jungles of New Guinea as he explains his theories and the results of his studies is definitely worth your netflix while.

homeless

We went out with about 10 friends last night and strolled around the Mission district for about an hour trying to decide on a location everyone approved of...so annoying. While standing outside of one place deliberating a homeless man sat and offered us information about places to go and everyone ignored him as if he didn't exist. I tried to listen and contribute to my friends conversation but kept turning and thanking the man for his recommendations.

At least 20 homeless asked us for change as we strolled back and forth down the street and everyone filed by ignoring them but I apologized to every one. And I am sorry, sorry that the world is such that because people suffer from mental illnesses they are neglected and although they need the most attention they receive the least. I'm not saying they are all mentally ill but it is very evident in this city that illness is highly prevalent among them.

Last night one man asked for pennies and everyone walked by him but hubby ran back to him and said "wait...you need pennies?" and he dug in his pockets. I don't give money anymore, I give food. Leftovers from restaurants, or bagfulls of leftover food from photo shoots which normally gets deposited directly in the trash. Bagfulls of perfectly good food gets thrown away at these things if I don't take it. What's sicker is that most of these photo studios are on alleyways full of homeless people so it's not like you have to go far out of your way to give it away.

Once an old blind man stood mumbling and holding a cup in his hands as he stood in the middle of a sidewalk. I was in line inside a cafe watching the people shove by him as if he didn't exist. I went out and placed my hands over his and told him something loving and his milky white eyes darted to the side and he smiled and moaned back at me and my eyes spilled tears before I let go and walked away. I almost had a nervous breakdown on the rest of my walk to work. What I fucking hated is that the business men and women that walked by me as I held his hands sneered at me in disgust, they didn't notice him they noticed me, and what I did was clearly abhorrent to them.

I'm not saying I don't ignore them sometimes too. Once a man spit in my face because I only gave him a nickel instead of the quarter he requested. He also thought it fitting to call me a "white bitch". I ran inside and cried as I splashed water over my face. I didn't want to go outside for days after that it got me so down. I think my tolerance went to zero for a few years after that incident.

random rage soaked words

I'm having a small cocktail alone (which I hate to do and only do it about once every couple of years) because I want to fucking murder someone or throw everything out the huge gaping holes that are still in my debris covered office. Oh why don't I start with the debris covered monitor and apple tower that suddenly won't work AT ALL today, or no why not throw the airport out the window or your grimy fucking roofing tools and motors which are cluttering my balcony. I stood at the window and stared at it for about five minutes just now, envisioning throwing it over the ledge again and again and again and again, and each new vision had one of the roofers attached to it in various ways.

Yesterday they (the roofers) sat at the gaping hole in my office and belched open-mouthed about 358 times and finally I stood up and screamed "you sick fucking animals I fucking hate your mother fucking fucks of shit you fuck-wads". Yeah, throwing "wad" at the end of a sentence like that always feels fulfilling. Hubby hates it so it's good ammo when I'm mad at him. Anyway I left the office immediately after saying that and hid in my living room and closed the blinds and waited frozen to see if I could detect any of the spanish whispers and then my head swore they were talking about me. I suddenly understood spanish perfectly I was certain of it.

I used to want to be a boxer really bad just to channel out the rage, and I blame that desire on having only brothers, male cousins that were as close as brothers, and all the neigborhood boys as friends. Fun for me as a small girl did not consist of tea partys but rather tree climbing, digging up dirt with my yellow tonka trucks, and collecting and stretching worms out after a rainstorm.

One day after I had had a really shitty day much like this entire week, I had so much rage in my body, and my girlfriends took me out to a rave where I decided to dance the anger off. Slimy bastard old man thought for some reason that it was an invitation for him to come and put his hands up on me. I pushed him away with one hand and smiled and warned him not to lay one more finger on me again, then closed my eyes and proceeded to dance. Then about 10 seconds later the same grimy hands came up on me from behind so I turned around, stood back and decked him in the face with my fist as hard as I could with all of that rage and I knocked him out cold! (I still can't believe I did that). Anyway, he fell back on the floor and had to be carried out by 2 big men, and I was an instant celebrity at this rave. All night I was fed water among other rave-like items, and girls kept coming up to me and thanking me because he had been equally annoying to them. So the moral of this story is stay the fuck away from me when I'm in this mood. Do you hear that roofers!?!?!?!?!?

tagged

Petunia tagged me, and I'm ONLY doing it because she tagged me... so here it is:

7 things I plan to do before I die:
1. publish a book of my photography
2. drive across the U.S. (and Sweden) in an air stream or conversion van
3. buy my dream matt black 1970's ford pick-up truck and a motorcycle
4. live in a jungle or deep in the woods by a stream
5. age gracefully
6. never think I'm too old to learn something (like learning to play banjo or accordion)
7. be a loving mommy

7 things I can do:
1. swim butterfly stroke ... very well
2. see beauty in decay and what most people see as ugly
3. lucid dream
4. make you see the beauty in yourself
5. make a kick ass lasagna
6. speak Italian
7. pay attention to detail, observe and detect things most others can't

7 things I cannot do:
1. sing. I'm tone deaf but that doesn't stop me from belting out ballads to my cringing Hubby
2. kill insects
3. walk on metal
4. sleep with a closet door open
5. swim near seaweed or water creatures of any size or shape (nor eat them)
6. speak to/in front of a large group of people
7. touch something dirty w/o salivating and having to wash my hands immediately

7 things that attract me to the same (or opposite) sex:
1. confidence
2. fearlessness
3. sensitivity
4. intelligence
5. compassion
6. dry sense or humor
7. mysterious charm

7 things that I say most often:
1. sucky! / nasty!
2. oh madonna che cazzo hai fatto? / what the fuck have you done?
3. non mi piace questo... / I don't like this...
4. baby?
5. oh man
6. you're lucky you're so god damn cute!
7. teeheehee

7 celebrity crushes: (this sucks)
1. elvis
2. shelby foote
3. julia ormond
4. peter saarsgaard (sp?)
5. colin firth
6. leonard cohen
7. christopher walken

7 people I want to do this:
1. Petunia (I know you already did this)
2. Brooks
3. Slitely Askew
4. Kann
5. Cookie
6. Linny
7. whoever wants to just for the hell of it

the god damned banjo

I strummed the strings of a banjo yesterday at a music store and I swear the ceiling disappeared ... and then the clouds parted while a bright light forced itself down upon me...and then closed abruptly when Hubby suggested I check the internet for a better buy (and this one was on sale for a great price!). Not an ounce of impulsiveness in his blood, we couldn't be more opposite!
"But Baby, that's a really difficult instrument to play!" he lectured.
"So! Do you really think that deters me? I already have an instructor lined up, Tara told me the banjo player in her husbands bluegrass band is super talented and will give me lessons!"
"I'm just saying! It'll take time to learn..."
"Baby! If it were really easy what would be the point - do you think I expect to buy the f-ing thing and then wake up tomorrow a god damn pro?! ...waking up able to play that dueling song like the little freak in Deliverance?!"
...Silence.

a dog trick

Last night I went and had drinks with a friend. He brought his dog with him and upon asking if doggie knew any tricks my friend replied "Ask her what the government's doing...you may have to ask twice".

"Doggie...what's the government doing? ... What's the government doing?"

Doggie stood up immediately and started running around in energetic circles chasing her tail.

my little dove

I smiled at you with watery eyes this afternoon as I sat across the booth from you at the diner. I had to bow my head and bite down hard, mentally releasing the rocky substance that was burning my eyes. For a second I thought of crawling beneath the table to hide and started the initial descent. Thats how overwhelming the pain felt at that moment. Then I looked up at you and uncomfortably laughed too loud because I wanted all else to disappear and leave me with you a moment so I could get up and reseat myself next to you and quietly take your hand in mine and squeeze your soft little fingers.

It started because you had made a dark and threatening joke about what you'd do if I died on a motorcycle, and then I ran with the joke for a while but you didn't like it when I said "no that wouldn't be on my hands Baby because I'd be dead...I wouldn't have hands anymore" and I laughed. You were speechless suddenly and then you huffily sat back against the booth and made a sad face as your eyes watered. It was too much. I had to break my eyes from your watery gaze because it was making me sink.

Earlier I broke a small lapse of silence while we ate by saying "Holden, I think I would want to name our son Holden" and your eyes widened, you were so happy, it was instantly as if I gave you the answer to some impossible riddle. You thought it was perfect because you always felt you were Holden Caulfield, then you revealed another aspect of yourself that I hadn't known and it made me smile real wide.

When I had suggested the name Applejack 3 or 4 years ago you loved that too until our friends and relatives started shouting at us that it was abuse of some form to name a child that, so over time we became insecure about it and never toyed with a boys name again. We were sitting and watching an old B+W classic movie and the servant was named Applejack and I turned to you and said it would be such a cool name for a son and you slowly turned to me with your eyes popping and said "holy shit, I was just thinking the same thing in my head baby". That was one of the first times we spoke of having kids.

Sometimes at night I panic and hold you after I hear your little snores and teeth grinding, and feel your little sleep spasms that minutely jerk your limbs, and tears stream down my face because I count my fucking blessings that you are mine, that your flesh is alive and your heart steadily pumps the blood that runs through your precious soft veins. I squeeze you tight in my arms and then rest a hand on your belly and smile because it protudes ever so slightly. Even in your sleep you make me laugh my little dove.

hustle & flow

I finally went and saw Hustle & Flow today and this film definitely gets my recommendation.

The scene pictured here was one of my favorites. They are in a church listening to a gospel choir and it brings the tough protagonist DJay to tears. You can see both of their chests rising quickly as they are moved by the heavenly music.

The theater was small as was the audience, but they were a lively and vocal bunch, loud in their laughter, getting down in their seats to the music and completely still and quiet at the hard to watch moments.

strangers with candy

My latest Netflix success is the series Strangers With Candy:

What happens when your 46-year-old ex-addict daughter, eager to reclaim her lost youth, comes back home to live with you and attend high school? When that someone is the wild, wacky and wily Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris), you can count on laughing till your side splits. A boldly politically incorrect series, "Strangers with Candy" purports to teach no lessons and dish lots of lies, all in the name of fun. Co-stars Stephen Colbert and Andy Sedaris.

cab rides

Last night after a wonderful dinner at an old friend's house, Hubby and I put ourselves in cab around 3am. I was fascinated by our wild bleached blonde momma driver. I was laughing so hard at her incessant mile-a-minute stories that I think she was witness to the snort. When we reached our place she turned the car off and turned and faced us to finish her story. We sat there 5-10 minutes.

A few months ago, when we were cabbing home from a surprise birthday party I threw Hubby, we had a moronic laughing fit over the fact that our birthday should in fact be called our deathday because it's not about how long we've been alive, but rather how much longer we have left to live. For some reason Cabbie found this hilarious and well, laughter is contagious. In any case, a laughing fit broke out inside the cab to the extent that our cab driver had to stop the car in the middle of the street and put the car in park and turn off the meter because he was laughing so hard. Before he put the vehicle in park, he had been tapping the brake as we literally crawled 5mph down the street, then we'd jerk to a stop, crawl forward, jerk to a stop, crawl...in rythym to the waves of our laughter. We couldn't breathe we were laughing so hard. My sides and belly were aching the next day.

One time years ago I didn't have any money to make it all the way to my place so I told my cabbie to drop me........."here", when I saw that the meter had reached my limit. He refused, especially as it had started to rain lightly. When we arrived at my place I told him I had to give him something for his kindness, and that I had just made a few vases in my ceramics class and I thought one of those would be perfect as I had spent a lot of time on the glaze motifs and was really proud of them. "I'll just run inside and get them and you can choose your favorite!" He turned to me and laughed and told me in his thick African accent that the fact that I wanted to give him something I had just made was a gift enough for him and made him feel richer than having the physical object could. "Awwww" I said gushing. Then I remembered that I had a fresh unopened pack of Icebreakers chewing gum (my favorite) in my purse so I held it up to him and asked him if he would accept it. Our eyes were locked and shimmering and he smiled so wide and warmly at me as he quietly nodded. I reached up and hugged him and then got out of the cab and waved at him from my front door as he had waited to make sure I got inside safetly.

modest mouse for petunia

Petunia, this entry is for you as you mentioned that you weren't familiar with Modest Mouse's music. Three of my favorite songs for your ears:
Bankrupt on Selling
Trailer Trash
Cowboy Dan

And then there's the song that brought them mainstream recognition:
Float On
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october 2004 katrina prediction

I just remembered an article I once read in my National Geographic's October 2004 issue which had terrified me, as New Orleans is one of my favorite cities in the world, it started like this:

"It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday. But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm...

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain...Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level...Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched..." - Joel K. Bourne, Jr.

[To read the rest of this article click here]
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george dubbya + michael jerkoff

I have the day off again today, only this time I don't need to deal with house problems which have occupied my free time as of late. I am finally able to dedicate more than 3 minutes at a time to reading about and catching up on the Katrina devastation.

As I wouldn't know where to begin my rantings and disapproval of Michael Jerkoff's and George Bush's neglect and inactivity in the Katrina disaster, I'd like to redirect you to Petunia's and Slitely Askew's blogs on the Katrina aftermath today instead.
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brown bunny

Two nights ago I watched Vincent Gallo's Brown Bunny. Has anyone else seen this film yet?

All I kept thinking the first hour of it was that it momentarily subdued my yearning for a road trip, as pretty much the only footage is of the blurry road, day and night, as he drives westward across the U.S. I found it soothing somehow, but Hubby kept getting up and leaving the room saying "Don't pause it".

Usually he'll just passive-aggressively mention that I don't have to pause it, when we both know he wants me to but doesn't want to disrupt the flow for me. And when he does it then, it's only ever because he has to run to "Tinkle Town", however during B.B. he was up every five minutes doing little unneccessary chores, that is of course until the last half hour...ugh, men.

you need to learn to use your blinkers

On the way home this evening I had to educate a middle-aged Chinese man who almost drove me into the curb because like every other Californian, he didn't use his blinker, nor did he consult his rear view mirror before hastily plunging into my lane. So I pulled up next to him at the next stop light and and watched him until he sensed my stare and looked over at me. I rolled my window down further and smiled and thought I was turning my radio down but somehow turned it up as high as it would go and Modest Mouse almost blew my speakers out.

Finally after successfully turning it down I shouted that he needed to learn to use his blinkers. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Hi there....you need to learn to use your blinkers....your blinkers, you know these things... blink-blink (I demonstrated) yeah YOU need to learn how to use them" I smiled. He simply shook his head, shrugged and smiled. "You don't understand a f-king word I'm saying to you right now do you?" I said still smiling. He just shrugged and smiled.

Sigh. So much for trying to educate and demonstrate in the hopes that the clueless will emulate. I tried this approach in order to subdue what otherwise festers into road rage on my part as I am cut-off at least once per every 5 blocks I drive in this city and never once does anyone use their blinker when they do it.

Californian's just don't use their blinkers period. One time I was on a congested freeway trying to merge into another lane and my native Californian friend said "What are you doing, don't use your blinker, that will just alert them to speed up and they'll never let you in, you just have to force your way over". I don't even know why they bother installing blinkers on cars that are sold in this state. If an airline saves over a million dollars a year by cutting back on one piece of lettuce garnish per meal, imagine how much car manufactures could save by cutting out the blinker altogether.