last minute

A good friend called me a couple of days ago and told me he had two free tickets to a concert that evening. The main band was his friend's band and he happened to be the son of Joan Baez so she was opening up for her sons band. It was a small venue (200+/-) and when we arrived he reserved two seats in the front row for us with our names written out on yellow post-its, the third seat next to mine said Joan, but sat empty half of the evening.


He brought us each a glass of wine and the lights dimmed almost immediately and out she came in orange scarves and suede. Her sons band followed and they performed West-African drum music and were flanked by dancers, then Joan would come out and dance and then by the end everyone was up and dancing in the crowd and they were pulling everyone up onto the small stage with them. I felt like some higher being was dangling me above them all by the backs of my ears so that my toes lightly brushed above the intoxicating vibrating drum cloud which absorbed everyone in its presence. Tears perched upon the high ledge which protects my soul and I let them drop as I exchanged ecstatic glances with the surrounding strangers.

It is a very surreal life which I will be leaving behind here. Very surreal.

bittersweet

I said my first goodbye yesterday. It was to an Art Director I've worked with on photo shoots for the past half a year or so...when we stood at the corner of the parking lot and I realized I wouldn't be working with her again before I left she reached out and gave me another big hug even though we'd only just hugged goodbye moments before.


I turned around and walked away on the cold grey cement slabs until I dashed out and ran across the six lanes of oncoming traffic to the other side of the street. The fog was drifting in circles above my head, the cold wind pushing it around the tops of skyscrapers...devouring them. To think...it was about 20 degrees cooler only hours before.

My mind keeps saying "bittersweet...bittersweet" when people tell me how much they'll miss me. I smile back and calmly tell them in a higher pitch that I too will be missing them, and my cheeks flame up to pink when I imagine the wooden house waiting under a thin blanket of snow back east for us. I become lost in my thoughts and detatched from the group as my heart starts to ache for my new quiet life. Bittersweet is my love.

ocd is a green wooden rattle

It's getting out of hand again lately. Shutting car doors 3 times, knocking on wood 3 x 3 times about one hundred times a day whenever anything remotely negative crawls inside my head.

Washing my hands obsessively on photo shoots, rubbing my left knee, then my right, then my left, etc. anytime I kneel...to such a degree that an assistant commented on it and retold my friends later when we went for drinks after work. Anytime anything comes in physical contact with me I have to brush that area clean with my hand 3 times then touch it 3 times for 3 seconds, then tap it 3 times.....what the FUCK!?!?!?!?!?!?

I bought a little green wooden rattle ball yesterday for no reason and carried it in my right hand all day and rolled it in full cirles in my palm 3 times anytime I heard it make a noise. My friend asked my why I was buying it when she saw me standing at the counter with it and I replied "I don't know-I can't explain to you...OK - it's making me buy it".

dream

Can't explain why, but lately I haven't wanted to reveal the goings on in my mind on this blog anymore, but dreams don't count, so here is a snip-pit of the dream I had last night:

I was in an oversized house that had a warehouse sized floor of large bins and short aisles of antiques. In that store I wandered in a state of blissful hysteria through the rows of items, pointing at the things that caught my eye, but I was painfully aware of a time constraint that kept me constantly walking through looking at everything, never having time to really stop and inspect the items.

In any case, within that rushed sensation I stopped upon a little old dollhouse that had little white rectangular price stickers on each of the tiny furniture items inside of it. "How darling!" I thought, that even the tiny furniture in the dollhouse was considered antique and of individual value. Then I squinted closely to see the prices and was a bit nonplussed at how overpriced they all were. Then I noted a little clock on the wall that was just a circular paper cutout with the numbers penciled in and that it was priced at $9.22 and this outraged me. I peeled the phony paper clock off the wall and took it to the register to complain and a small shouting match between the overseer of the store and I ensued. He tried to justify the price by stating the fact that whoever made that paper and pressed lead clock had made it long ago when they owned the dollhouse, and that therefore due to the time-period it was made in, it was considered an antique drawing, rendering it a valuable item.

busy bee

Sorry I have been so absent. Working 12-15 hour days, then partying with friends, trying to make the most of my last weeks here. Spent the weekend in Big Sur beneath the redwoods and the warm sun. Bought a dark stained wooden chair dating from the early 1900's at an antique store on our way there. Took a book called Reliving Past Lives off the used book shelf at the library there and haven't put it down since I forked over my $4 for it. That's about it...thrilling I know!

Thing is life is so exhilarating right now and I've momentarily decided to finally just live my life in the moment and not try to document it with words here or in my personal journals or to photograph it or try digging through boxes of strangers faces in musty dark antique houses to wonder about their lives either for that matter. My quiet eyes are just steadily sucking in their surroundings and the feeling in my chest of contentedness is a bit overwhelming. Anyway...so that's why there are no pics and no details of all the glory of my current moments and interactions.

I am consumed with...

love for this wooden creature we purchased. I'm experiencing overwhelming nolstagia as I stroll around San Fran, can't believe I'm leaving it for a snowy-grey climate....we'll see how long it lasts. Bittersweet stinging tears roll down my face unprovoked at least once a day. Sucks seeing my friends bummed out over our leaving. Some are not taking it so well...makes me blue.

we

bought our dreamhouse. I am now a home owner and am moving back to my native coast. will be even busier now.

I have to say...

...this has been one of the best holidays in a long time. My family opted for donating money to charity this year instead of over indulging each other with a bunch of crap we don't need. We all figured we have everything we need or want and if we didn't we'd of bought it by now anyways. I did receive a toothbrush and an Elvis christmas ornament for Christmas anyways but I was beaming all day long yesterday knowing we donated a few hundred dollars to feed a whole community of formerly homeless people in San Francisco instead of sitting there behind a pile of meaningless objects.

We selected the organization one of my best friends runs in SF which provides housing for formerly homeless individuals. He used our money to give them a fully catered christmas dinner party and took pictures of their beaming faces. He sent me the digital pics right away and we crowded around the monitor to look at the images and my family's faces mirrored those faces in the photos.

We did still buy presents for the children though and it was sad watching them just bulldoze through the gifts and then be immediately discontent and wondering if there were more because the fifty million presents piled up next to them apparently were not sufficient enough for them. Hmm. Neauseating.

Anyway...My kids will each get 3 gifts on christmas and have to donate 3 of their belongings in return, the yin and the yang, keep the flow going....but I say that now...I'll probably spoil them rotten too. Anyways I'm just saying that because of my 3 factor. Happy Holidays y'all!

time flies

we just placed a purchase offer on a house here...been busy....whirlwind...dream house...hmmm.

winter vacation

I'm in NY for the next 3 weeks so more than likely I won't be posting while I'm here. Happy holidays to you all!

it was

Exactly what I wanted. Hours of flat pavement spread out before us only to disappear in the invisible haze where it met the horizon. Skulls with leathery flesh melting in the dry sun. Normally this sight would make me vomit but it somehow fits the rugged landscape. Dust coating the black luggage as it sits near the open hotel room door.

I always become a little melancholic at the end of a trip but that quickly fuses into a blissful ecstatic state which carries me for quite some time. It is my plan to slowly scan this continent and adhere to my preferred process of elimination while I target out my next dwelling - the nomad that I am. I already know I want the South more than any other place, but this series of road trips is partially meant to slowly obliterate the thought/option of living anywhere else at this stage in my life.

In the meantime I keep filling my ears with the Southern tunes, my belly with the Cajun goods, and my eyes with Southern imagery from those artists whom I admire most. This all makes clear sense to me.

annoying

for some reason I am unable to leave comments on any of my favorite blogs...

crisp new blue

Yummy. Crisp new dark blue sheets I glide into. Warm light. Fresh images from the film Baraka racing through my mind undisturbed. I put the words that truly mattered in my journal where they belong. My last entry was coated with the syndrome of PM.
Deep down there was a little stone well with about a foot of water which contained beautiful orange coy motionless in my belly and they held the tiny gigggle which was about to erupt.
Friday the sun broke through and we were all standing close to the windows all day, sometime my face was pressed to the cold glass of the familiar strangers home. When I was finally freed night had long since fallen overhead and there was only crisp darkness and a stretchy moonlit cloud above.
Saturday evening ran into 4am Sunday so quickly that they had to kick the crowd of us out all at once from their new lovely home. What a nice party. I tackled the Swede with the big nose and then later when I was unawares, while tiptoeing delicately down the middle of the barren steep street, he came from behind and picked me up and tried to turn me upside down but we both fell to asphalt quickly. Only moments before Hubby warned me that this Swede liked to turn people upside down...Hubbs supposed it was the wrestler in him. You think? When I showered just now I could make out in the dim light raised red gashes across my legs and arms from the fall. The hot water burned them raw so much so that they opened and liquified. I love when my skin holds the memory of a night within it for days like this until i am ready to let it go and suddenly I realize it has quietly healed before my eyes leaving no trace.