art, food, friends, language, pets, photography, technology, tv

how the light gets in . . .

Marcy and i, while talking half-asleep and witless on the phone late one nite this week invented a new word. it was an accidental slip on her part, where procrastination came out as . . .

procrasturbation (v.)

1. to carelessly postpone a trillion tasks under the feigned assumption that there is too much to be done in order to accomplish anything meaningful and instead occupy oneself in pleasurable tasks or hobbies.

2. to put off an innumerable and staggering amount of seemingly important tasks to the point at which even getting oneself off equates as simply another chore that cannot be accomplished out of general mental fatigue.

and that about sums it up for me :nod: and more, it opens the discussion for the balance between work and play and money and time and bigger than all of that combined – how do you choose to be defined in your most perfect expression?

Well – fuck . . . let’s see. What’s been going on?!?!

Since my last journal VERIZON fucked up and powered down for another four-day stretch, leaving me in the lurch and without the internet while my sister, Racheal visited me during the 16th-19th. She was in from West Hollywood, just here for a quick weekend jaunt and we had a great time. She is my BIG little sister. 30 – a green-eyed, blonder, taller version of me.

We ate a great dinner on the nite she arrived, slept in, watched some HBO and comedy, had Marcy and her new beau over for dinner on Sunday, and i took her out for Monday 1/2 off bottle of wine nite to meet a gaggle of my girlfriends, where we sat on a garden patio replete with a fountain and strands of Christmas lights in an Irish bar. We spent some time in Friendship Park stomping through the woods and around the lake, chasing butterflies and bugs and frightening mother ducks who are nesting (and hissing!)

Generally we just kept it easy-going and relaxed.

even Odin participated.

But getting back to the net and all its glory – question for anyone out there . . . i have made the Mozilla transition to Firefox, which i love and even downloaded a fun browser theme with little red cats on it. Has anyone tried Thunderbird, their email client? Let me know if you have and what you think.

And now – the drama, the sound and the fury . . .

A big hug and kiss to Anne-Marie for sending me some great new music to include, Chemical Brothers – Push The Button; Garbage – Bleed Like Me, Thievery Corporation – The Cosmic Game, and the last round of Zero 7 – Simpler Things, i also thank her deeply for being back around and for reading that BIG ASS scary bookish letter i sent her.

Despite that it’s on FOX, and i don’t typically dig hospital dramas, i have to make a plug for a television show i adore. If you aren’t watching House, M.D. – you need to see a doctor, and if you had to see one like Dr. Gregory House, you might get an actual dose of harsh, real-world advice. Hugh Laurie stars, and he is brilliant, biting, misanthropic, and in some strange way, dead sexy. There is something interesting about a contrary physician with an open drug addiction, a walking cane from an injury you don’t understand, and despite an inability to show direct compassion or love, an underlying deep depression and ornery disposition, he subtly reveals that he cares greatly about lives and saving the most difficult cases. Oh physician – heal thyself!

Ah – and then there’s Deadwood, where people die needlessly and inexplicably, every day. A perverse beauty, wrought with a highly-crafted language of filth and antiquity all its own where the players have recently taken to soliloquy with severed Indian heads and tombstones of dead gamblers. Indeed – it is not unlike vulgar Shakespearian verse, if you give it a listen . . .

You may see a theme here – i like the idea that ugliness can be a mask for beauty, and that practice and improvement in the face of almost certain hardship is imperative, but more – despite all the horror, we still have to strive for the pretty parts. We cannot succumb and be broken utterly. We must succeed and transcend. And that is where our ‘art’ or trade or practice of the thing we do best comes in . . .

My friend Megan, a dancer and singer by trade recently mused: “I have realized that I shouldn’t abuse my art, and use it as an avenue for my own personal therapy. I have been blessed with talents, and I should use them to bring joy to other people. Whether it’s dancing in a new piece, or singing in a smoky bar, if I bring a smile to one persons face, I’ve done my job.”

And it got me to think about when i was young, how music, drinking, painting, writing, even poor choices in partners and the lukewarm, plasticine, one-sided sex that came along with it, it was all therapy for me and i was afraid that if i wasn’t suffering, i wasn’t existing, therefore i wasn’t creating; i was unable to express myself unless i was hurting and only an open wound meant that i was alive and feeling the world move.

Now . . . well – i hope that my expression has a brighter tone, and maybe, it will be therapy for someone else. Perhaps this version could be the reverse, the negative model shot through with light to adhere to while still others are busying themselves with darkness and drudgery.

It’s not always about the personal gain, about what you get from yourself and what fortune (or misfortune) it produces, if that’s your aim, but it is more about what you bring to the table, what you produce and put out into the world as your purest expression with the most perfect intent, that of bringing joy, of sharing your joie de vivre, of sharing your vision, be it a bit cloudy, muted and difficult at times.

Everyone has a story, everyone has had their personal hell, and so much of music, so much of “artistic” expression now deals with challenging the psyche, insulting the sensibility, wearing our wounds as badges of pride, stripping down the emotional content to its horrible base so that people feel angry, upset and drained. So that they are reminded of what it is to suffer and to mistakenly claim, to their own damage, that it is pretty somehow. Suffering is apparent, pain is necessary, yes – but it is NOT the desired or correct state, purpose or constant in this life. And if it is – you’re doing it ALL WRONG.

Frankly, im exhausted by it. Limp Bizkit, photographers featuring dismembered animal parts as some supposed statement about how we use and abuse animals (though she commits the same crime and outrage by creating her “art” in a pantomime of challenging the double standard), painting that is so fucking clunky and graphically repetitious, unstylistic, having no form or worse, no personal intention or meaning, writing that is so cryptic and impenetrable, you have no idea who created the secret club or where the decoder ring is, but you are definitely not in the know or the cool or the hip or angsty enough. “Art arouses thoughts and poses questions that are necessary.” To be beautiful but frightening or repugnant does not always reveal to us that “beautiful things hide some sort of suffering.” it may just mean that it took some suffering to find beauty, or that beauty became whole and is showing its true face now. or that someone or something has always been sublime and just a bit divine and we should move ourselves with all of our energies to arrive at such a state.

i just cant relate to most of the aforementioned unprettyness, but i will strive to tolerate so i can understand where i have been and what it means to hurt in order to arrive at a bright place.

so again i ask the question – how do you choose to be defined in your most perfect expression? and i have learned that for me, it is not to be perfect, to instead be a little off, and to always be a whole lot of me.

it is my task to contemplate on what it is to constantly improve, what it is to allow for just the fracture line and not the gaping wound, to understand the balance.

i leave you with Leonard Cohen:

forget your perfect offering,
there is a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in.

~ Leonard Cohen

marriage, technology, tv, weather

kick it up a notch

My internet was down since Saturday, which made things REALLY irritating, especially since i have 2 online courses to keep up with. Where i’m at out here in the sticks means that there is NO cable internet, and even DSL won’t happen as i don’t have a clear shot of the sky what with all these trees. So for now, until they figure out how to bring hi-speed into the house via the phone or power lines or someone from Comcast comes out to develop the area, i am stuck with dual-channel (64K per) old school ISDN, which peaks at 128K and usually hangs out at around 97-98K.

For those of you who don’t know what the hell ISDN is (because it’s THAT fucking OLD) it was developed around 1984 and it stands for Integrated Services Digital Network or as i like to call it (ISDN) “It Still Does Nothing”. Lest i mention we pay just over $200 a month for it since it’s SO old school and it’s considered a metered line and a premium digital service as offered by the phone company, even though it was designed to go over fiber lines and it just comes through the copper ones, slowing it down considerably.

In any event, the reason ours was down is that the phone line had been severed somehow. It hadn’t been properly buried and was all chopped up, thus nothing could dial in. VERIZON (the cocksuckers) came out and ran a temporary line (which works) until they can run a proper one sometime soon. In the next month, maybe longer. Whatever.

weeee.

Well – i DID get my hair cut and boy is it awesome!  Think Agent Dana Scully (actress Gillian Anderson). i brought my hairdresser a bottle of my favorite nail polish and said, “can you do this color?” he smiled and said, “i got that.” The girl in the chair next to me gasped as he cut the first 6 inches off dry – WHACK! Even before i hit the shampoo bowl. Then i came back, he finished the cut by snipping at the last 4 inches and did the color. We went short and choppy with black lowlights, copper/caramel highlights, and candy apple red all over. It’s an exciting Spring change . . . short and vibrant.

new elf do.

The weather has been incredible for two days now – 78-80 degress and sunny. Hell – i even shaved my legs and put on a skirt!  i also realize that my car’s AC needs recharging. Luckily, the rain and cool temps are heading in for the weekend so i get a little reprieve. i am officially driving my happy new car now and we are making friends … i even put a sexy raspberry air freshener in it. It has a little devil cat on it with flames and some Nag Champa incense to make it smell like “me” and my house.

So far, i have run out of fuel AND been pulled over in my new car! And all in the same day! GO ME! My car stalled in a traffic circle, i pulled into the gas station 20 feet from me and died RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE PUMP! Later i went to see some jazz, had some wine and a nite cap of some Southern Comfort, went tearing down the road at 3am singing Sadé at the top of my lungs NOT looking at the speedometer and got stopped doing 70 in a 50. i told the cop i was “opening it up” and wasn’t used to the better transmission in this Mercedes vs my old one. Holy crap – i sounded like a little twat! “How’s your record?” he asked. “Great,” i replied. “It’s a long winding stretch of road here, people don’t pay attention. You’re not the fastest i’ve seen,” he smiled. And lucky ducky me – i got off with a warning.

How am i going to get this all done?!?!? Social and school obligations are kicking my ass! My friends Dave and Amy are getting married this Saturday afternoon, then i work that evening, on Sunday i am attending an aerial dance performance that Megan (the woman who’s wedding i am photographing in June) is showcased in, and i have homework up to my tits, chin, eyeballs? i dunno, i’m feeling kinda vulgar lately.

Must be all the Deadwood i’m watching . . .

See you after the weekend.

death, family, food, humor, pets, technology, work & employment

tiny transformations

this was a slightly long day – nothing too taxing, just a lot of little errands. i was so proud of myself for waking at 8am to get a jump on the day. yeah – i know, 8am is everyone else’s report time whereas this is a miraculous feat for me. i showered, pulled my hair into a wet knot and i was out the door.

i stopped at the gas station for fuel ( holy shit is diesel expensive now) i parted the waters, made up of men, waded past the farmers, truckers, mechanics all snickering, hitching their pants, and leaning around the coffee station smelling of burnt caramel, evaporated coffee and faintly like broken radiators. i got myself a vanilla iced coffee thing to go with my Raspberry NutriGrain bar and headed into a sunny day. i needed to get to the MVA to take care of my tags, title, and registration for my new car.

it was a relatively painless process, and luckily, both of the attendants i dealt with actually smiled and were pleasant. it was a quick wait, i even ran into one of my wine distributor representatives to sit next to. And – i will now readily admit, i ordered and will have vanity plates that read:

RED ELF

and why not!?!? the name and monicker has become so much of who i am and identify myself as that it’s only fitting.

my local radio station, 103.1 WRNR pulled the best and most entertaining April Fool’s joke by changing their call letters and format. They became 103.1, W-O-M-B “you’re inside the womb.” They had great one-liners like “we’ll leave the toilet seat down for you” and “testosterone free-radio” and “we don’t dick around” and my favorite “radio for the breast of us!” and the format ROCKED – ALL females DJs, ALL female artists, ALL day long!  it was brilliant! you wouldn’t believe the wide range of wonderful music i heard to float me through my day!

i went to work directly after the MVA and into a slammed lunch shift. busy enough for 3 servers to run around . . . i shot out of there for the 35 minute trip BACK HOME sometime after 2:30, so i could put the new tags on and drive the new car BACK into Annapolis to present to my insurance agency for photos and processing. i made it there with 5 minutes to spare before closing time.

then i went BACK TO WORK for round two, the dinner shift, but not before making a credit card payment in person for Tiffany, a work mate, also on a double shift with me. I did this so she could run her errands in the opposite direction during the lunch/dinner interim, she needed to deliver a catering order for the restaurant to make some extra cash, and i didn’t mind making the payment for her since i was going past Pier 1 Imports on my way back into town. i ended up bussing and hosting instead of waiting tables as it wasn’t too crazy busy. we sat around, the 3 of us, drinking chai tea (me) and cappuccinos (them) and doing a crossword until the first guests showed up well after 6pm.

during the nite a VERY big kitty came to the door of the restaurant. mind you – we are like a small house, in fact – people used to live there. this cat was like a Maine Coon: big, tabby/tiger like, fluffy with pointed ears. he was really sweet, rolling around on the porch, totally approachable, rubbing against the legs of all the guests entering and trying to slip past them to get inside. that’s all i needed was to chase a big cat through the dining room. we made friends and i petted him for awhile and he sat watching me through the door for a good 20 minutes before wandering on. he wasn’t starving, and i think he may actually belong to someone.

i hung around until 9, then stopped by a Ruth’s. she got a new computer and needed help setting up her email. we talked about the party she threw for her recently deceased mother . . . a big family gathering for remembrance that included a bonfire, good food, and spreading of her ashes on the California beach and into the ocean. Ruth is older than i am, i suppose i would put her near 60 or just beyond. Her mother had been missing out of her mind, Alzheimer’s for quite some time and was failing, and so her passing was a relief. i wish everyone dealt with death the way she does. when her mother died, she brought the box of ashes into the restaurant, as i was curious about the after-container. “Mom – meet the girls,” she said to Sally and i. “Hi, mom,” we chimed. “She always wanted to come here,”Ruth remarked. “And now she has,” i smiled. as i left Ruth to her newly established email and her headache owing to allergies, the light drizzle i had left before, suddenly became a good rainstorm.

in my infinite wisdom, i decided to go grocery shopping.

Everyone there near closing time ducked in to grab just one or a few things. margerine. a flat of strawberries. some milk and eggs. a frozen dinner. And you had the derelicts from the nearby laundromat hitting up the cashiers for rolls of quarters since the machines were out. Then my favorite – the randomly stoned Friday nite boys, the monkey pack, wandering around with Cheetos and Gatorade and Red Bull and Snickers bars, jumping on each others backs like horses, playing assgrab and leap frog and pull your pants down so everyone can see your balls. Some of them singing (more at howling) from the remote aisles, the lyrics to “End Of The Road: by Boyz II Men. fucking people . . .

Everyone had a few things, but me – i decided to do a big list right in the middle of things and everyone who queued up behind me saw my conveyer belt full, remarked things like “oh shit” and “nuh-uh” as they wandered over to the Self-Checkout lanes. This pleased the young, pretty cashier, who shared a devious smile with me and vowed to take her time, as i would be her last customer before the store closed.

i had been craving Szchezuan food, some spicy stirfry. (or so i thought . . .) i considered take-out, but then got ambitious. i had thawed some chicken in the fridge the nite before, came home with armfulls of plastic bags to the hungry cats climbing the walls, fed them, put things away and fired up the wok. i rinsed my perfumy jasmine rice, diced chicken, tossed the veggies and brown sauce, threw in the peanuts and by the time i was done, i was so tired, so uninspired that i scooped out a cup of rice, put a pat of butter and salt & pepper on it and called it dinner, wrapping up the rest and putting it into the fridge. have you ever cooked a meal and then decided not to eat it or have something else entirely?!?!? i just did . . .

i ate the rice and then opted for a salami sandwich with mustard and muenster cheese, sliced dill pickle and kettle chips. i began chinese and then went italian deli!

what the fuck is WRONG with me?!?!?

in other thoughts . . . after having this long hair for so many years, waking with it in my mouth sometimes, having the cat curled up in it (or me laying on it) so i can’t readily move, washing it, clarifying, deep conditioning, brushing, natural drying, babying it, fussing with color, loving it, hating it, having it stick to my face in the rain, tickle me under my bra strap, hang in his face, in my food, mostly tied back for work and wandering and cooking, i have decided . . .

to cut it.
short.
again.

probably chin length and then color it something bold and bright for Spring. i want easy, breezy and light. i used to wear a pixie, short as Sharon Stone – but i won’t be going THAT drastic this time around. so Tuesday. . . i lose the curtains. this may require a new ID, just for a bit of change, though i am not one to change things often. especially my personal decoration.

i have worn the same silver moonstone necklace since i bought it in Chicago 13 years ago. i take it off to polish it now and again. Same silver moonstone earrings for about 7 years, and the same silver rings with moonstone and labradorite for about 5 years, with exception to the latest ring addition brought back from the British Virgin Islands.

even this “new” car i just bought is just a more perfect rendition of my other car – just a far superior transmission and suspension (which i really feel when i drive, more power and comfort). jeez – i currently own and insure TWO Mercedes . . . how do i afford my rock-and-roll lifestyle?

like i said – i am not one to change things often, but lately, i can barely commit to a meal and having recently (finally) seen Super Size Me i am reminded again of the importance of good food, of healthy choices for change, of exercise, and how i need to rescue my Yoga mat from becoming an oversized cat toy and scratch post.

in the meantime, i believe an evil chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie will fix me up for bed.

after some well-needed, well deserved sleep – i’ll start the transformation tomorrow . . .