weather, writing

Two One

 

Canad-Goose-pair-by-Ian-Barker

February 1st.
55 degrees.
2 geese in perfect duo
fly
over the bridge together
back from winter.
A false Spring,
a lovely start.

A woman’s pair of beige dance shoes
hangs from the powerline
outside the theatre.
She always wanted to be
a tightrope walker.
We often throw ourselves higher,
sooner than we think we’re able to go.

Ostara, in her haste,
drops a white-washed paintbrush
on the robin blue eggshell sky
leaving a smatter of
pulled apart cotton cloud.

The birds still wait to be warmed
into rabbits.
To fly or to burrow?
Cannot take the sky
before I know how
to go to ground.

A strange circular rainbow appears
incomplete
behind a triangular treeline.
Not yet. Still, more rain.

I take a wrong turn into a dead end street
and the Ouroboros symbol appears
on a glassblowers garage studio door
at the end of the alley,
and it’s no longer the wrong way
it’s the right symbol,
confirmation,
reminder.

I turn around again
bite my own tail,
face the sun
waiting, turning from the dark
for two to agree
and become one.

education, gardening, travel, weather, work & employment

moving on . . .

Yes. I know. It’s been since February . . .  but let me explain:

We’ve moved our home from Southwest to Northeast Portland
(from the South Burlingame to Irvington neighborhood).

I’d barely finished Winter term when Spring Semester was
already bursting through the ground (like those new black
and red tulips I left behind and the compost bin I had going.)
that would’ve come in handy for some fresh gardening.

And soon, I will be helping my boss to move our office . . .
Does the fun ever end?

i’ll tell you all the rest soon!

food, friends, health, love, myth, nature, psychology

My Favorite Plum

ripeMy favorite plum

My favorite plum
hangs so far from me
See how it sleeps
and hear how it calls to me
See how the flesh
presses the skin,
It must be bursting
with secrets within,
I’ve seen the rest, yes
and that is the one for me

See how it shines
it will be so sweet
I’ve been so dry
it would make my heart complete
See how it lays
languid and slow
Never noticing
me here below
I’ve seen the best, yes
and that is the one for me

~ Suzanne Vega

:::   :::   :::   :::   :::   :::   :::   :::

He said, “I have seen a very strange sight. As I was coming hither, I saw two girls walking. Trees grew on their heads the boughs were covered with plums and the roots which came through their hair were fastened about their necks. They were beautiful and seemed to be very happy.”

“We will go and see them!” cried the women. They had not gone far before they saw one of the girls lying on the ground while the other pulled at the tree on her head. The roots gave way and the tree came out but all the hair came with it also. Then the other lay down and her friend in turn pulled the tree from her head. They were very angry and said, “If we meet with the man who played us this trick we will punish him.”

~ from The Algonquin legends of New England, or, Myths and folk lore of the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot tribes By Charles Godfrey Leland

:::   :::   :::   :::   :::   :::   :::   :::


The soft, white gardener’s gloves are coming off. i have been tending faithfully to my recovery. But two days before the full moon on the 11th, something moved in. Something came to a head, some terrible creeping vine got snarled in the works, slid through the garden, curled up around my ankles, tripped me up, sent me inside, put me in bed with cookies and tea and a warm cat and pulled from me a sobbing, frustrating confession that i laid out, soaking the cheek of my poor husband as i looked at him for consolation and answers.

i found myself frustrated, feeling ravaged, angry and sorrowful. It was all underneath there when the moon, a monstrous lever, became a shimmering coin wedged under me, a tightly capped bottle, and opened a geyser. The far away moon, a silver spade of light shot down a deep well, struck the ground and water erupted. i cried on and off for three days, mostly to myself, to a few patient and listening on the phone, and to my Joe.

For three days, i allowed myself to unravel, and found my heart weary and wrung out, resigned to being heavy and wet as a sodden sponge. My brain, a rabbit running circles in a electrified cage looking for an inch of wire that doesn’t shock. My insides, a calliope of dark, oceanic sound, guttural bagpipes under a taut waterbed. You think a waterbed is a good idea until you try sleeping on one, or moving it. Both are disappointing and painful endeavors and Buddha help you if you spring a leak somewhere. It will take all your effort to track down and fix it, if you don’t grow wildly impatient in the process. And my bum, well, it’s an occasionally unpredictable vending machine; every food an unmarked denomination that drops a bauble, a sticker, a spider, an unrecognizable & mysterious something or other and yes, we can end the metaphor right there without getting too indelicate.

My acupuncturist has said that i am very aware of my body’s innerworkings. Mmmhmm. i probably pay more attention to what i know is “me.” In fact, the biggest obstacle is likely “me” getting out of my own damn way and up from the circular pool that is my head, swimming with worry, diagnoses, concoctions, medications, and self-perpetuated misery which i think, despite the goodness of yoga and meditation has been affecting my sense of healing.

Still, i should not have to wake already dizzy and exhausted, twinged with fear; i still feel fatigued sometimes, even after decent sleep and for no good reason. i think i am in some sort of mourning stage and trying very hard to make peace with this major change and upheaval in my body. This good little machine which i feel has betrayed me somehow, or more, been betrayed by the path of care not clearly employed by my doctors and better researched, hacked at, tried and carried out by my own overwhelming desire to heal. i turn the whole puzzle with pointed questions around and around in my head: Why did my gallbladder go bad? Have i been unnecessarily harvested and robbed of a small but important piece of the original factory model? Will the rest of my body recover and compensate? Will i lead some compromised digestive and internal version of my former life? Will i ever truly heal?

how long how long how long was my teary mantra. i’m so impatient, i just want to smack myself out of it! i keep wondering “how long until i am completely well?” “how long until i have a day where i wake and feel mostly normal?” (aside from normal wear and tear or self-deprived rest). i keep asking the outside, the place without me, how long how long how long instead of delivering the directive be well be well be well to the place within me. i am not being as kind to myself as i should, i know.

What i noticed lately is this lump in my throat that appears and dissipates some. i felt it once the first week and apparently, it’s not uncommon after surgery as i’ve read other peoplewinterblossom complain about it. It’s also associated with GI disturbances and is mostly seen in the realm of anxiety and stress. My acupuncturist said it was know as Plum Pit Qi. Here’s where the explanation gets ancient, interesting and illuminating:

“The feeling of an obstruction in the throat (when there’s not an actual physical obstruction) is called Plum Pit Qi and is associated with Qi Stagnation (Liver Qi in particular). There is actually an emotional cause to this manifestation, Chinese Medicine diagnoses it as Qi and Phlegm knotted in the throat. Emotions such as sadness or frustration can produce a lump in the throat or Plum Pit Qi. The root pattern is a binding depression of Liver Qi with a concurrent inability to deal with an overwhelming emotional situation in which symbolically the patient cannot swallow. The Liver Qi attacks the Stomach causing Qi counterflow and thus interferes with the Qi transformation producing Phlegm and Dampness. The Lung and Stomach Qi counterflow causing Phlegm to become stuck in the throat so that the patient cannot expel it. Due to the severe depression of the Liver Qi there may also be rib-side pain and stuffiness in the chest.

Plum Pit Qi is first mentioned in Chinese literature in the Jin Gui Yao Lue, a treatise composed at the end of the Han Dynasty (ca. 220 A.D.). The text addresses miscellaneous disorders, mostly those suffered by women. In Chinese medicine, Plum Pit Qi corresponds to globus hystericus or neurotic esophageal stenosis in Western medicine. Sometimes, it’s even diagnosed as cricopharyngeal spasm. It refers to a sensation as if something were stuck in the back of the throat which can neither be spit up nor swallowed down. In the Chinese medical literature, this feeling is likened to a plum pit stuck in the throat or a piece of roasted meat. As its Western names suggest, this is a psychiatric diagnosis associated with anxiety, depression, and stress.”

:: sigh:: Great. In Eastern terms, i have blocked energy, stagnant blood, dampened, gummed up insides which lead my organs to attack, invade and otherwise kung fu the hell out of each other’s energy flow. In Western terms, succinctly, i am officially, a nutter. But if nothing else, and after all that fascinating text, i can put a name to it. i can actually visualize it all in terms of energy or in somewhat physically impossible metaphors. i KNEW it’s been my angry liver kicking the ass of my spleen and stomach.

i suppose you could categorize my private, internal emotional state as mildly depressed if not weathered by the experience of going from merrily eating and drinking up food, wine and life to this cautious balancing act with my body. So, my acupuncturist and i, through open discussion, have been concentrating on those points dealing with the liver and depression or mood. i DO feel better after yoga and meditation, but it’s been rather like an episodic bandage over an unclosed gash. i realize that the change for the better is going to be incremental, but what i’m really wishing for is for that big, red panic button in my brain to become the reset button or to be shot through with sudden, glorious, radiant, healing light.

This plum pit of mine is also thought to be associated with GERD & the like, though all i can say is the Pepcid i was prescribed for nausea from suspected reflux gave me headaches on top of it all and didn’t seem to affect anything dramatically over time or from withdrawal. On it, off it, nothing really changed.

i was never instructed how long to take them, never followed up with and i NEVER had acid reflux before, so why now? If i have to campaign aggressively for my own health, i’d rather do an ERCP, a barium swallow or MRI studies to determine the actual likelihood & amount of acid reflux if any. Then, at least there would be reason to have any given medication prescribed. The whole, “I have this symptom, so give me that med” without any physical diagnostic tool can’t be very accurate. That’s how the meds pile up. It becomes a Jenga game of stacking up pills that mask the inital symptom with a new, undesired symptom that requires counter-measures by way of new drugs further inducing another crop of symptoms until it’s about livable through layered pain management. By then, you are taking the first through fourth medication, you’ve built a wall around the actual foundation, the original underlying cause which, if pulled out gently and addressed is just like pulling the crucial block from the bottom that’s fucking up the whole balance, thereby, finally – bringing the unhealthy, leaning tower down.

As you’d expect, it’s also recommended from the Western side of things to try soothing the plum pit with anti-anxiety meds & anti-depressants (globus hystericus or neurotic esophageal stenosis) and/or to see if Valium or a similar muscle relaxant stops it (cricopharyngeal spasm). Now, i’m not worried about the stigma of anti-i-can’t-deal-anymore meds. They are a familiar friend in my family and we didn’t ask to be crazy or to live in such an occasionally mucked-up world. Trust me, when things got bad, i have used them to straighten out, click the serotonin up a notch and get back in the game.

But now, i seem to want less pharmaceuticals in me, less things for my liver to clear out and cough up and more vitamins and supplements for my body to take in. i added digestive enzymes which includes acidophilus, and that seems to help with meals and the end-product of, so to speak. They are also reputed to help with the supposed reflux problem i may or may not have. So, buh-bye Pepcid. This next visit to the acupuncturist will include new liver points and a specially formulated Chinese medicine specific to my symptoms, weight and constitution. Again, i have to ask, why doesn’t Western medicine do MORE of this special, individualized care better?

The time of the liver on the Chinese circadian clock is between 1 and 3 a.m. Guess what time i wake up to write and pace the house? Yeah. Even now, it’s 1:49 am as i type this bit of the story. Go to sleep liver, you’re wearing me out.

For those three days i argued with myself, maybe i SHOULD get on some anti-something-or-anothers to straighten out a chemical imbalance and let the rest of the healthy activities take their course & full effect. It’s so strange . . . i don’t really feel depressed, i interact normally and cheerfully enough with people, i’m still productive (albeit in personal endeavors alone since i am STILL unemployed) but people close to me have noticed i am not as light and confident as i used to be, that something in me is stifled. And it’s true, in my private moments, i DO have those dark blue thoughts, feel discouraged and notice the tension and discomfort move through my body in unpredictable cycles and in new, sometimes unpleasant sensations. So, perhaps there are these organic after effects i’m not consciously aware of, clouding things up in there. i am producing plum pits that rise and fall and when it falls to the bottom, what will grow then?

i am trying to count blessings; i am not battling cancer, i am loved by family, friends and completely supported by Joe in every manner as any woman could want for. i have all that i need to survive and well beyond basic necessities. But simply stated, eating to live is necessary and enjoying eating is difficult, thus life has become more difficult. Some days i am just throwing belly timber in. Food and vitamins and supplements to keep the fire stoked and the machine working. Good days, i actually enjoy the food. Bad days, i get it past my lips and worry if the enemy has crossed over and smuggled in a tank of gasoline to set the place on fire and shut the engine room down. But it appears the engine room is missing a particularly important cog. And in keeping with my current interest of interpreting maladies through Chinese medicine . . .

The functions of the Gallbladder are:

– Store and excrete bile
– Govern decision making
– Control sinews
– Affect dreams
– Close relation with the Liver

There is a reason i cannot sleep – my liver is angry, i feel indecisive and weakened besides the actual trauma of surgery. It is explained that “the Gallbladder affects the quality and length of sleep, if it is deficient a person will wake very early and not be able to return to sleep. When the Gallbladder is deficient, one dreams of fights, trials, and suicide.” (Spiritual Axis). Further, “the Liver is considered to be responsible for the ability to plan life, the Heart oversees all mental functions, the Small Intestine gives clarity and wisdom to decision making, and the Gallbladder gives the courage and capacity to make decisions. All these functions must be harmonized to plan and lead a harmonized life. If the Gallbladder is weak a person will be timid and lack initiative and courage. The Gallbladder gives us drive and the passion to excel and the action potential necessary for these to come to fruition. Dealing with adversity also comes under the role of the Gallbladder. It is often necessary to tonify the Gallbladder to support the Heart’s function.”

I wonder what Chinese Medicine says about cholecystectomy. About carrying on with missing, integral parts. Well – let’s deal with the big part that’s left . . .

i’ve begun to imagine my Liver as a powerful, insightful, well-educated, well-informed and well-manicured woman dressed to the nines, and someone stole her favorite little purse with all her money, identity and mojo. My liver was a vibrant lady and i though i gave her plenty to do, i never taxed her too hard. But without a place to store and concentrate on who she is inside and where she’s going, she currently finds herself rather lost in cortisol-laced, moonfaced dreams.

likefireworks

If i could paint the image of how i feel inside it would look like this:

A red-haired girl in the lotus position sitting below a Weeping Plum Tree, reaching up with both hands at the top of squared elbows, her fingers in Gyan Mudra, her index fingers and thumbs signaling ‘ok’ with her palms upturned to catch what may fall from the tree. She looks up, her chin lifted slightly, reaching more with one hand to draw down the perfect plum, dangling just out of reach. Scattered around her in the grass below, the flesh of half-eaten plums are lit upon by ladybugs, butterflies and pushed about in the mandibles of stag beetles, glossy as patent leather, trundling in circles like dark little bulldozers. The plum tree is unusual and split in half between two seasons of growth. Half of the weeping tendrils are covered in wintry, Valentine blossoms of red, pink and white with bare, black bark twisting though in burls and spirals; witchy, clawed fingers stretching down and pointed out as if to touch. On this side, orange-amber prescription bottles hang, some without caps, raining white pills like the petals of Ume flowers. The other half is covered in Spring & Summer leaves, drooping under the weight of fat, glimmering, thick-skinned, purple plums.

The Ume flowers on plum trees are celebrated and adored in both China and Japan. In China, the blossoms symbolize struggle and endurance of winter’s hardship; they embody resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity because it is in the winter snow they bloom most vibrantly. Conversely, Japanese see the Ume blossoms as a harbinger of Spring and tradition holds they function as a protective charm against evil.

That moon pulled on me as it does the tides, drawing the water down, out and away. In all those tears, the plum-pit in my throat has softened, but there are still these knots inside. Plum pits swallowed, waiting to surface, to be spat. There is an approaching midpoint; the fear of dying off, the relinquishing of control, the surrender in letting go and the promise of rebirth. Of something allowed to die in order to come back in a new form. The last fury of Winter Solstice. The first whisper of Vernal Equinox.

i am that girl, in seated meditation, grounded and split between two seasons, with both hands reaching for protection, for nourishment, for my favorite plum and for the small things tending the garden to carry away and bury the pit.

dreams, family, food, gardening, music, nature, technology, travel

my garden kicks ass

What would it take for you to see
What i have got?
I’ve got more than you know
Open your eyes, i cannot be – what i am not

i’m not what i used to be, i’m not what
i’m not what i used to be, and i
I don’t know myself – from anybody else
I’m not what i used to be, I’m not what
I’m not what i used to be, and I
You don’t know what you have done
My frame is here but the mind is gone—gone away

So stay awhile longer
sweet tongue of  fur and feather
Don’t cut the white breast
I’ve been waiting for you here

I’m not who i used to be
Bigger and better and faster and wetter
And bigger and better and faster and better . . .

Superheroes ~ esthero

The last week of dreams have been dark, light, moody, and marked with memories and prophecies. in one, i dreamed i was a child, though in my mind i was an adult. i was small with pale arms like strands of pearls that hung around the neck of my grandfather, Andrew, who i was named after and who held me like a little monkey slung at his hip. i was naked and clung to him as he walked through a garden that was in the backyard where the crabapples used to fall from the tree and scatter – tart, green bombs for greedy birds.

He pointed here and there at flowers and i named them, remembering specifically, a bright orange blossom which i called, nasturtium, because it was and he nodded approvingly.

Yes – you all know how much i love nature and appreciate all things growing and alive, but pardon me while i geek out over the next few paragraphs about my newest adventures. Some strange thing in me has had the urge to garden. With all that space in the woods where i used to live, some things simply wouldn’t survive under all that cover – i would have to trek to the top of the hill where there might be some incidental sun, carve out an area in the tall grasses and cut away, deep into the ground until i made something suitable to plant in. A sanctioned area where things could grow. Now that i live here in this new house where the boy roommates are so busy and mostly MIA (one even works for the most beautiful & profitable garden center around which is fortunate), i took one look at that tangled back yard and overgrown garden box and felt the need to create something.

Yes – i know, the last years have been bug chasing and moth rearing but, now i am building a habitat for my little creatures to come to me, which is a far more exhausting, but rewarding an endeavor.

Over the last 2 weeks, three times i have come home, changed into some gardening clothes, pulled weeds, hoed the garden box for fall down to a good 12″ plus, which is rather like hacking at the ground with an axe, then i tore the ivy away from the strangled hostas and ferns and out from the cracks in the brickwork, mowed the lawn with an old-fashioned pushmower borrowed from the neighbor (how environmental!) raked the area, and wore far more Deep Woods OFF insect repellant (chock full of DEET) than is probably recommended by any medical professional. It was that or wear the big red bumps on my cheek, neck, and legs as i swatted furiously and futilely. We have a water view just down the path and thus, the mosquitoes are utterly vicious! West Nile Virus is probably just the tip of what these blood-letting bastards are armed with!

i bought seeds for Spring to include some plants that will attract butterflies and ladybugs. Van Gogh sunflower mix, Amaranth (Love Lies Bleeding), Mahogany Nasturtium, Pink & White Swan Echinacea, Cornflower (Black Magic Bachelor Button), Cosmos, Baby’s Breath, Coreopsis, Gaillardia, Siberian Wallflower, Forget Me Not, Bergamot, Rocky Mountain Bee Plant, New England Aster, Black Eyed Susan, Sapphire Blue Flax, Oriental (red) and Shirley Poppies, Rockcress, Royal Scarlet Sweet Pea, Kniphofia (aka Red Hot Poker, Tritoma, or Torch Lily), Yarrow, and Chinese Lantern.

tulip center purple crocus nasturtium

Of course, to look at the seed packs you will note i bought a healthy dose of RED but i have mixed in white, golds, oranges, violets, blues and many other lovely things i plan to rake through so i have a proper selection of wild flowers. And i really didn’t know much about Fall planting other than bulbs, so i did some reading and some research and bought some burgundy and orange and yellow pansies and mums and installed them, or rather, gave them some ground to eat which seems more organic in language than say, software put into the earth. Before i did any of this, there was the aforementioned hoeing (hacking) that went on plus adding a good 4″ of some fresh soil, fertilizers and compost. i also planted bulbs, added bulb food, tilled in some mulch for cover and protection and now, i wait for Spring when they come up: first the purple crocus, then Apeldoorn Elite Tulips, which are red with a defined yellow edge and some lovely things called Anemone ‘De Caen’.

Under a heap of cut branches and trimmings from the trees against our back fence (which i plan on bundling and removing), i found a pile of brown and grey flagstones, presumably left overs forgotten from the neighbors patio project. As deep as they were buried beneath the thorny branches, i am assume they will not be missed as they are now lining a newly-created crescent-shaped garden patch next to the box as well as circling the line of ferns and hostas across the way.

i installed a sturdy black wrought iron plant hook next to this crescent space, buried in ivy which now holds a large green watering can but i can imagine it holding a birdfeeder instead someday soon, so i can watch some winter birds . . .

There is a rabbit that hops through the yard occasionally, and i am hoping he/she will not unearth my bulbs and make Autumn snacks out of them before they have time to meet Spring. Oh – and did i also mention my two new plant friends who have joined my ivy? One is called a Polka-Dot plant, which comes in white, pink or in this case, red splotches on bright green leaves, honestly – looking rather like something has bled onto it. i planted it in a bright metallic red pot and adding to the red, i also pot-planted a big Amaryllis bulb called a Red Lion. i can’t wait until it starts to grow and bloom, which should be in time for the Holidays and it does perfectly well indoors in the Winter!

The strangest thing is now that i have been working so hard out there, and the season is cooling ever so slightly, the window AC is out, the adjustable screens are in, i can hear crickets as i sleep and oddly enough, the ladybugs HAVE indeed come . . . there have been three or four of them trundling along the walls and ceiling in my room and it drives my kitty Odin wild! He bats at them lightly and they just crawl back up. The other nite i reached over to pull the chain on my nite table lamp and a little red ladybug was hanging from the end of the silver ball! What do these little visitors mean?!?!

Now that i think of all this – i should’ve taken before and after shots of the yard before i went out guerilla gardening, but for now, i will venture out and document the semi-fresh, partially naked ground and keep a photo diary of my garden’s progress. And i found a really fun website with an accompanying book that has really inspired me despite the silly title of You Grow Girl. My mother always had the best luck with plants and the most beautiful garden on the block with honestly, minimal effort and fuss besides planting, watering, fertilizing 3 times a year and waiting for growth and beautiful blossoms. i will say that i have some monstrous plants on my porch that i have had now for several years, carried around, re-potted several times in progressively larger containers, some of them more than four years old with tiny beginnings, one i inherited from Marcy which has gone wild and lovely. These include: Golden Pothos (Devil’s Ivy), Nepthytis or Arrowhead vine, a Heart Leaf Philodrendron, and two coleus, one dark red, one red-green and both, oddly enough, plucked from the sidewalk and rescued from a dying arrangement now flourishing.

And then there’s this bushy and resilient white petunia that Megan gave me just before i moved, which has somehow managed to survive having all of its leaves being chewed down to stems by invisible green caterpillars. i say invisible because i saw their frass (little black dust specks of bug poo) and then, once they got big enough, i plucked them off and put them elsewhere in the wild and off my precious plant. it’s even started sprouting new leaves so it can collect the sun and feed itself again. what can i say – caterpillars are not pests to me after having seen them sprout eventual wings. maybe if i had tomatoes, but even then – i don’t know. everything in its place in the cycle . . .

it had been a long time – a few years since i visited the Maryland Renaissance Festival and it was SO much fun and the weather was perfect for it. i bought some Thistle honey, while my friend, Andreas bought Killer Bee honey. i took in some scheduled shows featuring jugglers, contortionists, aerial dancers, sword swallowers as well as some non-scheduled public displays featuring general drunker merry makers. i also went on a mission to find some new silver jewelry. i never know what it is, but it always turns out to be something magically suited and in this case, something fae – an ear cuff with a faerie on it which now clings to my left ear and quite honestly, i was in the market for a new moonstone and something to go on that naked ring finger on my left hand which i constantly twist for the missing pear-shaped diamond when i wash my hands, dismayed and saddened to no longer see it. i did, however, find a dainty little ring with a blue-coloured rainbow moonstone with two silver balls, one dropped to each side, small as period punctuations and the stone is delicate, tiny, reflective and shaped like a teardrop. i am now married to myself and i stand to NOT be disappointed.

i’ve been listening to a lot of internet radio and stumbled across a wonderful place run out of the basement of a nice man named Michael near my home town in Michigan. It’s called auralgasms, and i encourage you to LISTEN! (top left you will see “Listen” then click “Launch Radio Player” and select your connection speed, keep the main page open along with your player as it will update, or refresh if you like and you can see what you’re listening to)

Speaking of music, i am making a road trip out to Detroit to see my family for the Fall, drink some apple cider, eat some fresh fried donuts, crunch my boots in the leaves and ok, also primarily – to take in a concert at one of my all-time favorite places, St. Andrew’s Hall. There, in an intimate concert venue that holds a mere thousand, i will see Imogen Heap, Butch Walker, Cary Brothers, Peter Searcy, Jim Bianco, and all of these collectively under a show called The Hotel Café Tour. i am supposed to be accompanied by my friend Shane, but i am starting to worry . . . he’s been so busy he hasn’t really confirmed with me, so i may be flying solo.

This is of course, all fine and well. A 10-hr drive consisting of me, my iPod, some foggy radio stations, a packed cooler of goodies and some alone time should do me some good. As i have driven it, navigated it, watched it out the window or slept through the trip more times than i care to count, i should arrive safe and sound to the mothership of Destroyit, (to quote my friend and former bandmate Jim Flynn) a new coined term for the city of Detroit. He has promised me dinner at my pick of restaurants and i am sure to host a barbeque of some sorts to gather my friends close to me at my old house one of those fine nites.

Speaking of eating and thinking of bounty . . . lately, i have been eating the spectrum of simple foods that bring me comfort like pierogies with sour cream and applesauce then ranging into the rich, gourmet and elaborate like fried tofu, sushi and lobster, duck with blackberry sauce . . . On one occasion i was invited to a benefit dinner at O’Leary’s Seafood where half the proceeds of food and beverage sales went to New Orleans for relief from Katrina. It was good to simultaneously eat, indulge and allow someone else, perhaps to eat, rebuild and possibly enjoy the same things i am so grateful for lately – good food, good wine, good books, good music, good friends, good times, and a garden that kicks ass.

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.

friends

cat mornings, friendship, orange

Sometimes, I don’t like getting up in the morning. Correction. I do NOT get up in the morning, I rise in the early afternoon. Morning for me is 10am to 11am. Anything prior to that and I am either sleeping, or some kind soul is cooking up a mean breakfast in the kitchen that has roused me and my hunger. Or—if especially cunning . . . someone has appealed to my joy of cooking nature by conjuring act, seduction, or sweetness and I am making a tall stack of pancakes, towering like fluffy beige clouds.

Pixel and Odin have taken to waking me up the morning now at 8am, like clockwork every day. But let me back up first. When we all go to bed at night, Pixel curled up in between Brooks’ legs and I, resting on the crook of his arm as he reads and i listen to my iPod, Odin curls around the top of my head, his paws kneading my head and ponytail softly, purring, making my pillow a delight to lay on (though he can be a little hog) and all is pleasant and right with the world. We fall asleep like this, the four of us.

Then I wake up to different creatures in the morning.

First with Pixel scratching at the towering pile of books on Brooks’ nitestand, pulling them down with intermittent ruffle-thumps, while Odin dives under the blanket to get a better bite on our toes. Then Pixel takes to my side of the bed, leaps up onto my nightstand and sits directly on my alarm clock, tap-dancing on buttons until the correct one turns on my radio and it blares the morning music, which means I have to re-set my alarm clock. If this proves to be ineffectual, a crashing sound comes when he returns a few minutes later and pushes the alarm clock off the back of the nightstand. Meanwhile Odin is soft-paw scratching at the back of my bare arm which lies exposed outside of the blanket. If this doesn’t rouse me, it’s straight for the aerial tactics – he pounces directly onto my face and lands with both paws onto my closed eyelids, for added effect.

Sometimes I flail and yell a bit. More often than not, Icurse about interrupted sleep and the general nastiness of all things kitty. Occasionally cats fly like Peter Pan out the bedroom door get slammed out. This doesn’t deter them for long . . . the loft space above us is open and so they dangle from our closet and peek around from above and over the bed. Then the howling starts and paper chewing for the silly person who left bills or magazines or instruction manuals or cardboard boxes out—anywhere. Desperate measures call for cat sky-diving which will really scare the shit out of you, four eagle-talon spread claw-foots coming down to knock your wind clear out.

Then, whoever is more or less irritated, you HAVE TO get up and FEED THE CATS. And perhaps, if you are lucky, you can return to a couple more hours of blissful sleep until you have to be where you have to be.

But it was an especially nice night and a particularly eventful morning of cat acrobatics and i woke to some fresh yellow and white in the garden. Snow drops and some yellow crocus things. But they are calling for 5″ of snow late nite through mid-afternoon.

Spring is such a tawdry tease.

Well—that’s ok . . . some very nice things have been happening. Me and an old friend, Anne-Marie have reconnected and I am so glad to have her back.

When I lived in Detroit many years ago, had first met Brooks (online, which is yet another story) I also met Anne-Marie. It was a randomly created room called SSH (Stop Say Hello) on Yahoo! Chat, when that stuff was just getting started. She lived in Canada at the time and she was the first friend i met on the internet who i actually met in person. She drove a long way to see me so we could stomp around at some kitschy cool club in Detroit where the dance floor was like a train wreck—you didn’t necessarily like what you were seeing, but you couldn’t tear your eyes away either. Seems we played pool that nite, but my memory is such a blur from those days. Now that she has children and I am living on the coast, perhaps she can help fill those missing bits/years in.

death, dreams, friends, weather

icyclic

:::

“After all –
What were you really looking for?
and i wonder when will i learn.
Blue isn’t red everybody knows this
and i wonder when will i learn
Guess i was in Deeper than
i thought i was if i have enough love
for the both of us . . . ”

Strange by Tori Amos

:::

the snow is almost completely melted,
but the air conditioner nearly died with
frozen lungs – coils, weeping down the wall.
i woke from nitemares of her, hot tears
on my cheek this morning, icicles dripping
from the rooftops, pattering, the feet of
following cats, behind, in front curling
like those mysterious numbers – unknown
unforeseen consequence, the heat of pain
melts the chill of fear.

an accomplished mathematician and a brilliant
physicist who saw sinister messages in Shakespearian
sonnets, visions of certain hell, doomed patterns and
curves in the language put him into his car, drove him
to a dark bridge where he jumped into the icy bay.
our tormented friend lifted the veil, saw Spring too soon
and wished to be reborn, the water carried him away.

something strange is out there in the frozen grass, the
grass that stands stock still straight up like inverted
exclamation points, silver punctuation – something up
there in the icicles pointing down, witchy accusatory
white-blue fingers, snapping off, truncated memories
touching my skin where it is neither welcome nor warm.

ice is strange – how it preserves what dies for food,
what dies to give new life, meat, red, chilled down to
blue – that something there, imbedded, i cannot dig it out,
not with claws, not until the spring thaws what is still
beneath, what is still inside – then i will be grateful for
the release and as i look outside, as the wooden planks
bloat, thirsty for water, showing their dark skin again,
and i walk safely, and the snowdrops bow their heads
in the garden and the snow is almost completely melted.

~ Andrea E. Janda

writing

rutting in the Spring

rut 1
n.

1. A sunken track or groove made by the passage of vehicles.

2. A fixed, usually boring routine.

tr.v. rut·ted, rut·ting, ruts
To furrow.

rut 2
n.

1. An annually recurring condition or period of sexual excitement and reproductive activity in male deer.

2. A condition or period of mammalian sexual activity, such as estrus.

intr.v. rut·ted, rut·ting, ruts

To be in rut.

+-+-+-+-+-+

don’t you find it interesting
how a cold winter
where escape tracks
are left in the snow
and the boring routine
of being trapped inside

can lead to the fervent Spring
where animals crave
to be tangled together,
mating in new
and interesting
shapes.

here is the same word
with an entirely
opposite meaning

and indeed . . .
the exhaustion
and death of one

does always lead
to the blossoming
of another.

writing

spring dreaming

she’s leaving in the dark
but she knows that it’s morning
those earliest quicksilver hours move with
the first chatter of birdsong
the whisper of lawn sprinklers
the soft rumble of bakery trucks.

she peels herself from the length
of his body,
the indentation where she fits
carved in his side
the nite before
last Sunday
a month ago
the day he was born
a life previous.

on the roadway
lit now by the wash
of a dull, pewtered sun
amber-orange street lights fizzle
wink out like paper lanterns
and the black-blue bird
eyes her from the powerline.

she regards her watcher
with a knowing smile
for he is messenger and muse
promising dreams
the return of Spring
the length of a lover
and the indentation
to be reborn from
every morning
a blood-red sunrise
in a milk-white sky

~ Andrea E. Janda