health, humor, love, marriage, music, pets, philosophy, psychology, relationships, sex, tv

life, singular

 

The single life. one, long, nocturnal highway punctuated by a series of sort of happy zen moments, mostly spent, understood and eventually, at the end of the day, savoured alone. a long rebuilding and recollecting of the self-same parts gone missing, redistributed amongst friends and the short-lived lovers who would not, could not pass muster. being single is like constantly advertising the “me” product when it’s still in upgrades while also having to sell insurance on it. “Hey โ€“ look, if you don’t buy this ever-developing thing and protect your investment, it could end up broken/ruined/dead. and no one wants that to happen.”

Some people are never better, never more attractive, self-contained and complete than when they are single. still others are needy, greedy vacuous, emotional suckholes of doom, spinning out like a constant slow-motion car wreck that you can’t help but turn away from. or watch intently. They hang on the next lover or emotional contact like their last meal โ€“ slathering on the butter and scraping up the crumbs even after the bread and the baker has up and fled. lust-dealers. killers. short-term serial monogamists who poach at any small game instead of waiting for great hunt and the big (right) catch.

Still, for me, the single life was a strange and glorious one marked with self-discovery and self-satisfaction and the time to write it all down and reflect. and i write this now, not to scare anyone into thinking i miss being single because, in oh-so-many-ways, i don’t. also, i do not intend to make mean or light of what single people, especially women endure to find a suitable lifelong love and all the tiresome expectations and pressures that go along with it. i write it now more as an epitaph to the life Iย led before and left life, singular, for life, coupled.

The coupled life finds its satisfying breath, its reflective homage basking in the light of the other person, and thus, like a mirror, in the best reflection of the self. “hey baby, you make me not only feel good, but look good too. in fact โ€“ i like the way i love because i love you and i love me too.”

Both exercises in singularity and coupledom allow for the same Narcissus to bloom, and the Echo of the self to end. There is within all of us, simultaneous urges: we want desperately to be noticed and needed and also, not be too conspicuous and to be left the hell alone. As one, you can find peace and stillness but, i’ve discovered, you can find it also as two and it’s a lot more meaningful and fun when you can turn to the other person and exclaim, “wow, did you SEE that shit?” suddenly, all those universal signs you look for, all the hidden text and life’s directional maps are no longer for one to decode. the synchronous workings of a gorgeous love affair and the cosmic stamps of approval come trickling at first. they begin in days long conversation where you discover all the uncanny similarities in taste and preoccupations and decide you’ve been separated for too long and are just now making up for lost time. then the fullness of it comes flooding in under the guise of divine and perfect love making and you find yourself practicing and partaking of each other until you fuse together. it’s a blissful time of unraveling.

When you’re wrapped up in your oneness, it seems like everyone knows your business, while in duplicity, like a twin-secret, only the other knows. or whomever you tell. having everyone know your business makes for good storytelling, though. every nite of your life is being courted at a costume ball of strangers on Halloween. which makes dating rather like trick-or-treating. and you think you’ve arrived because the band knows your name and they play your song when you make an appearance and the bartender knows your drink and you find yourself eating candy necklaces off the roving necks of a gaggle of girls in a bachelorette party, hoisting blow up dolls named Ramone over your head, drinking free champagne and sent drinks, guessing the weight of a lobster and winning dinner, ghost-chasing, line-dancing, boardwalking, tripping over the sidewalk and losing your glass flip-flop and the Prince Charming purported to return that missing shoe turns out instead to be your slightly annoyed neighbor who heard your giggly drunk ass cry wee wee wee all the way home and now stands on your doorstep, waking you from your mean hangover if only to be satisfied to see your face, swollen with sleep now just as disturbed as his was. and that’s just one Saturday nite at the bar. oh dear. how very common.

All wild nites not-withstanding, i worried for a time that i was, as i am fond of saying, slowly “cultivating my crazy cat-lady mystique.” luckily one of the qualifiers is four or more cats, so having only one, i was down a few felines. i never feared i might not be taking myself seriously and having too much fun โ€“ i feared that i would take myself TOO seriously, and dive headlong into a career of sorts and dry up inside, reverting instead to buying my own chunk of real estate and feathering my nest, collecting things and blocking out every chance a man would walk willingly into my life or personal lair of accomplishment and acquisitions. i kept my life wide open in hopes that i would be more malleable and mutable when i did find love.

This philosphy of life and my adherence to it developed partially after visiting the home of Madison. My friend Marcy was house sitting for “Madison,” who lives in this sort of, as best as i can describe, Victorian home in Annapolis just a few blocks from where i used to live. Here’s the picture: a fine array of authentic, extremely antiquated French Provinical furniture including wing back chairs, burgundy crush velvet couches and throw pillows that have undoubtedly housed and fed generations of dust mites since 1865 which now sit cool and still like taxidermied trophies. i kept imaging all the smallish bodies that have swooned at their bindings and draped themselves across the chairs and sofas and wondered if it’s me, despite my narrow frame, that would make the legs finally give and render one of them no longer sitworthy.

The bathroom boasted plates from old nature books of flowers, the walls and tables displayed photos of ancestors that may or may not have been hers. vellum lamps with scenes of indeterminable French countrysides and waltzing partners lit the rooms with the dim yellow of sallow skin. vanity tables with wash basins & pitchers sat dusty, unused and waiting, as did perfectly displayed bone china tea sets and house plants that looked like they’ve spent some time traveling and growing in many many windows. even the dishes that sat behind the glass cabinets like ladies in waiting in the only modern room, the newly remodeled kitchen, were in contrast, quite old.

Although warm looking in texture and color, the house was more at museum and mausoleum than a collection of sitting rooms. at any time, i expected Abraham Lincoln or Elizabeth Barrett Browning or some long dead ghost to traipse through the room, straighten their suit jacket or skirt, sit down with a swan-like flourish and engage me in parlour talk. After all, mourning and preparation for burial of the deceased were occasions for such a place, the parlour which we now call the “living” room. Being there amongst all the antiquities was a transporting feeling, time out of mind, but NOT in that way that a room textured in burlap and velvet and heavy silk and gold framed photos and plants should. it’s more like you have just crossed the forbidden velvet rope in a historical period museum display and sat down in your dusty blue jeans and wiped your funnel cake and ice cream coated hands on the drapes and marveled at how dainty and formal everything was.

It felt sacrilege to have the tiny tv on in the room, which i think might’ve been black and white, but perhaps i am embellishing here. It was tuned (poorly and perhaps not by cable) to CSI, but Marcy insisted on finishing the episode about the triple homicide, which also made my mind wander to who may have been killed around this furniture and if black lights would reveal blood or cat piss or bone fragments or . . . so i suggested we turn off the tv after and listen to the new Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine which worked well for atmosphere what with its galloping calliope sounds and carnivalesque piano and spare strings and bell-like instrumentations.

Lyrics came pointedly,

If you don’t have a date,
Celebrate,
Go out and sit on the lawn
And do nothing.
‘Cause it’s just what you must do
And nobody does it anymore . . .

While the music played, i made do with the tea to enhance the mood and we thumbed through magazines and books and sat quietly listening.

Madison has two cats – Lili, a squat, rotund, grey, black and white tabby with bright, gold eyes like doubloons and a very timid voice. Meow comes out a squeaky, whispered “meert.” Then there’s Henry. A lion lord, red, furry fuck of a cat. Henry decided we were great friends and so Marcy observed and laughed (thankful it was not her this time) as he climbed the back of the couch, sat behind my head, purred directly in my ear, then began to “groom” me. He would grab a mouthful of my hair and bite at it, like a little monkey, then pull it through his teeth and gnash a bit. And he’s strong – so my head went back some with his tugs. Really amusing, a little unsettling, and oddly relaxing too.

i hope Marcy is not offended that i should offer up her long-single and very successful, well-educated, well-read and well-traveled friend to the chopping block as an example of the woman i was most afraid of becoming. Because re-reading the above sentence, most of the qualifiers seem pretty desirable and difficult to attain ideals, but concentrate on the introductory statement โ€“ “long-single.” something went just a little horribly wrong there. Madison, upon meeting was not so much the graceful, distinguished lady at court in her home as she was the shrewd and tense rabbit, quick on her heels and ready to bite, with little provocation. i wondered had she been married? had she any children? i mean, she didn’t need to have any historical evidence of men in her life, was she instead just a closeted or outed lesbian? was she just unhappy or happy being alone? how did she afford all this strangely lavish but lovely nonsense that padded her home? did she actually sit at that vanity table and comb her hair 300 strokes until it was a groomed horse tail or 500 strokes later, a fine, fox pelt ?

i padded out the door that nite into a light and thought-provoking drizzle and thought about old things, like writing letters to send to friends the old-fashioned way. i even purchased a wax seal with a golden bumblebee and some silver sealing wax.

i actually like sending letters and cards covered in stickers and random doodles or decorations. sometimes it is artwork or pasted text of my own or words cut out from places. the recipients always enjoy it and it’s a nice labor of love to send something homemade to friends. the art of letter writing is not dead, it is just somewhat supplanted by email and phonecalls, so i like the exercise of making a compact hello and keeping it light and cheery with a little bit of news, anecdote, story, mention of old, good times and promise of new ones. and always . . . always love at the end.

i have these friends who we tell each other that we love one another at the closing of letters and phonecalls, not just when we do something nice that pleases us. i’m always so happy when i reach the point where we can express that with people we aren’t actually tethered to sexually and mean love not as salve and bandage or frosting and fluff or wax seal of official business and stature of the relationship that when forgotten to be said or non-exchangeable or refundable becomes grounds for hurt feelings. there is proper etiquette for courting, but it’s all long since vanished so we should all just shrug and give into loving with abandon.

it’s easy to stay frozen in time, to accumulate goodness and sameness, to work on a theme, to breed familiarity and then forget to stay in touch with the current. it’s much harder to start over and reinvent and reinterpret and rework and redecorate. well, unless you consider Madison’s house, then yes – that place could use some new, infused love. unconditional, wildly colorful, moist, biker leathered and Victorian laced, ginger-flavored, spicy, whip-cream, lathered love.

Because damn, if you don’t use it, the source of the well runs dry, sister. and people start dredging up the old names, and tossing them out of the bucket, even for a modern single woman: Spinster, Old Maid, Crazy Cat Lady, Witch. i certainly didn’t want to find myself walking along and suddenly hear a tinkling, clattering sound as my shriveled up cooter dropped out and skittered along the pavement like a wheat penny. “This belong, to you madam?” “Why yes, it did, but i’ve forgotten all about it dear sir! thank you ever so much for reminding me.”

And if you get to that point, honey, close enough to need whetting, they’ll be no more fucking around – it’s time that you had a ravishing laid upon in the manner of a mongol horde. And if you’re wondering how the mongolians do it, they don’t barbeque you before they screw you, it’s done in big groups, with horses. just like some of the freakier Victorians did as a backlash to all that propriety.

But it’s ok โ€“ i’m no stranger to odd voices and old muses. i should explain sometime about how i see (channel) writing and how i have a few special guest stars who visit and stand in and they have very distinct voices. one muse who occasionally enters the vessel is a familiar – she’s that sloppy, silly little tart who has no regard for punctuation and lays in bed and eats chocolate covered shortbread cookies and gives me pimples from all the sugar and likes the smell of lavender and of rose water because it reminds her of Victorian times and flush, pinched cheeks and corsets and outrageous shoes defying height and comfort and daisies and lace doilies and hard candy in crystal dishes and salt water taffy from trips to the boardwalk and somehow, she does always come back around to sugar and scent and will stay up to watch the sunrise to prove a point. once she told me to write:

“i like watching a sunrise as it goes from a bruised black-blue purple, to cranberry red, to a smoky salmon color, and then onto a misty yellow, like the inside of a lemon rind with patches of high white, then transitioning back to pale blue. It’s like peeling back the layers of a foreign fruit or pushing something inside out until it yields the thing you know it has tucked away and want to see. Sky surgery. Post-mortem of a long, dark, tangled enchanted night.”

And since i met Joe, he’s been my twin half sharing many long, enchanted evenings. some to include firesides and brandy and all the finery and a spot of world travel and a good amount of wine and a multiple spots of tea. i haven’t written in so long, yet โ€“ so much life has happened. and over the series of a few installments, so your eyes don’t hurt and my topic doesn’t wander off course, i’m about to tell you . . . as a newly reformed single-minded but deliciously happy Spindle Maid at the loom.

art, books, drinking, friends, photography

more wine, vicar?

i don’t know . . . but i sure feel tense lately.

i just started 2 online courses to complete my (neverending) degree in Psychology. having lost two beloved pets last month and the subsequent emotional adjustment left me a little sapped. work has been wearing on me a little and i am STILL slightly sick . . .

but mostly just sick of not having enough time to just sit here
and write
and draw
and sing
and drink
and dance
and sleep
and pet the cats
and take pictures
and scribble
and glue shit together
and create
and laminate
and get paid for it.

so to make myself feel more at ease (and to keep the cold at bay) – i fried up some pierogies filled with potatoes and cheese in butter and warmed up some drinking chocolate sent to me from the UK courtesy of a dearly missed friend, re-read a sympathy card for Miles from another missed friend in Detroit, also named Andrea, stared at my clown fish, the sweeping fan feeders and the little purple hairy ghost crab that inahbits the nano-reef i have in my office, snatched up both cats for a kiss and a cuddle, listened to some old Steeley Dan, wandered DA for some inspiration, slathered up in some lavender lotion and donned some soft pajama bottoms, which i should now waste your time/amuse you by describing:

these newly beloved pajama pants are cream colored with fuschia cats all over them. the cats have big heads, tiny bodies and a little curlique for a tail. they have hearts for eyes and interspersed in the places where cats do not reside, there are tiny chocolate, caramel, and fuschia colored hearts and the word “kitten” right side up and upside down all over in between the hearts. they sit low on the waist and have this really cool japanese, flare and overlapping fabric trimminng detail at the ankles. if i never have to get out of these pants that would be just fine with me.

soon now – i should find myself curled up with actual kittens pressed against my kitten pajamas, jacked into my iPod listening to Douglas Adams read his book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” for the bazillionth time. (by the way, interestingly enough, if you simply type the word “hitchhiker” into GOOGLE, you get a whole lotta Adams.

i have a box of photos i intend to begin sorting through to and transferring them into 2 large leather books. there is everything from me coloring Easter eggs to my high school graduation and far beyond. i find something amusing in the photos that others take of me – in most of them, i am holding a wine glass.

Well, i suppose i will do what the HHGTTG says, “DON’T PANIC,” keep a towel handy, and drink plenty of fluids . . .

“The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. ”

and perhaps it is time to unwind with some stellar bevvies ๐Ÿ™‚

in the meantime, i’ll be over at Marcy’s place in the afternoon, setting up a wireless network, which i’m sure will require at LEAST a bottle of wine.

in pre-emptive celebration, i will leave you with a funny bit about fine ladies gone out drinking . . .

Women’s 19 clues to calling it a night
you know it’s time to go home when …

1.ย  You have absolutely no idea where your shoes are.

2.ย  You’ve just had to get someone to help you pull your pants up in the ladies room.

3.ย  You suddenly decide you want to kick someone’s ass.

4.ย  In your last trip to “pee” you realize you look more like Tammy Faye Baker than the goddess you were just four hours ago.

5.ย  You drop your 3:00 a.m. burrito on the floor, pick it up and carry on eating.

6.ย  You start crying.

7.ย  There are less than three hours before you’re due to start work.

8.ย  You’ve found a deeper side to the office nerd.

9.ย  The man you’re flirting with used to be your 5th grade teacher.

10. The urge to take off articles of clothing, stand on a table and sing becomes strangely overwhelming.

11.ย  You’ve forgotten where you live.

12.ย  You’ve started to sound like Jessie Ventura from the cigarettes you’ve smoked, because (as you’ve mentioned like 10 times by now) you only smoke when you drink.

13.ย  You yell at the bartender, who (you think) cheated you by giving you just tonic, but that’s just because you can no longer taste the gin or vodka.

14.ย  You think you’re in bed, but your pillow feels strangely like pizza.

15.ย  You start every conversation with a booming, “Don’t take this the wrong way but…”

16. You fail to notice that the toilet lid’s down when you sit on it.

17. Your sloppy hugs begin to resemble wrestling take-down moves.

18. You’re tired so you just sit on the floor (and why not!).

19. You show your friends that girls CAN pee standing up, if they really try.

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 โ€“ how do you choose to be defined in your most perfect expression?

Well โ€“ 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 โ€“ 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 โ€“ 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 โ€“ 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 โ€“ Bleed Like Me, Thievery Corporation โ€“ The Cosmic Game, and the last round of Zero 7 โ€“ 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. โ€“ 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 โ€“ heal thyself!

Ah โ€“ 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 โ€“ it is not unlike vulgar Shakespearian verse, if you give it a listen . . .

You may see a theme here โ€“ 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 โ€“ 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 โ€“ but it is NOT the desired or correct state, purpose or constant in this life. And if it is โ€“ 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

food, friends, music, photography

Fancy That

:::
– wrap yourself around
the Tree of Life
and the Dance of the Infinity
of the Hive –

:::

On Sunday, Marcy and our new found photographer friend, Andrew, went to a CFA Cat Show. This was an interesting affair consisting of gorgeous felines in various elaborately decorated “cages,” some with sequined fabric, lace, silk, and pictures of the breed and/or brood they hailed from. The cats were called into several “rings” where they were judged by categories, classifications, placed on a light box stage, petted, stroked, pulled at lightly to gauge length, eye color, fur and coat markings, then lightly taunted with a feather toy of sorts to check for playful/friendly disposition as they were commented on and declared a winning place. This was not to be mistaken with a dog show, where the animals demonstrate not only beauty, grace, and breed superiority through training and performance. This was a collection of spoiled, pretty kitties.ย  An interesting subculture of people to be sure . . . and the license plates in the parking lot.

i am not one to talk so much . . . i own show cats. And allow me to bore you with show considerations for my Bengal kitties . . . Pixel is not fit for show because he is too close to the wild (he is an F-2, they must be F-4 and beyond to be considered for show.) The Bengal cat is the result of a breeding between the Asian Leopard Cat (ALC) and the domestic cat. Some of the early felines used in these matings include Egyptian and Indian Maus, Burmese and non-pedigreed domestic cats. As the breed progressed, SBT Bengals were taken back to the ALC instead of the miscellaneous other breeds. When you hear reference to Bengals by a number following the letter F, this refers to the number of generations removed from the nearest Asian leopard cat in the Bengal’s lineage or pedigree. An F-1, for example, has an Asian leopard cat for a parent; therefore, this Bengal is one generation away from the nearest ALC. F-1 through F-3 Bengals are often also referred to as “Filial/Foundation” Bengals, to differentiate them from F-4 and beyond, which are considered the true domestic purebred Bengals. And lastly TICA (The International Cat Association recognizes Bengals, whereas the CFA (Cat Fanciers’ Association) does NOT. Odin is somewhere in the F-9 area, and he has papers โ€“ but i’ll never show him. As Marcy pointed out . . . Odin may be beautiful, but as the owner, i do not meet the minimum weight requirement. Besides, i’m not sure how i feel about the self-indulgence of animal competition and pet pageantry โ€“ i don’t even think it’s good for humans.

March has been a dismal month for income at the restaurant, for photograph sales and for extra paid projects otherwise. i may have to turn tricks soon or consider escort service.ย  And then there’s that $750 income tax bill i owe, plus estimated tax installments.ย  i finally went grocery shopping, and what a treat that was! i am always a bit disconcerted when i get under that hellish fluorescent light and am served up the piped in elevator tunes while perusing the frozen food section: Elton John (post Bernie Taupin) Whitney Houston ballads, and various awful, forgettable 70’s tunes. i was briefly grateful when i heard Norah Jones. Some odd signs of the apocalypse hit me as i was there, however.

๐Ÿ˜ Easter Eggs. Already boiled, dyed and in the clear carton by the 8s, so you can save yourself the bother of coloring them yourself . . . which was always the FUN part!

๐Ÿ˜ Pre-packaged pancakes. Already cooked, fluffy and beige, smashed in plastic like a stack of Oscar Mayer bologna. Is it that fucking difficult to make pancakes? i mean – they even have the kind where you JUST ADD WATER!

๐Ÿ˜ The sheer VOLUME of items marked “CARB” anything: carb-free, low-carb, carb-considerate. Atkins, you fat ass – fuck YOU and your CARBS!

i wish his empire would’ve crumbled with his death. Low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets have been criticized by major health organizations including the American Heart Association, the American Dietetic Association, and the American Kidney Fund. Low-carbohydrate diets push dieters to avoid healthy foods, like rice, beans, and pasta, while ignoring the risks of high-cholesterol, high-fat meat and cheese, which also lead to heart disease, kidney problems, reduced sex drive, bone loss and cause for a worrying increase in the problem of constipation, a key factor in causing bowel cancer.

My conclusion? Keep ALL my carbohydrates in my muffins, bagels, snack foods, and for certain โ€“ in my god damned ice cream. Good Carbs have not been processed and contain a fair amount of fiber. These food types include oatmeal, whole grain bread, legumes, vegetables, fruit, and sugar-free whole grain cereals. Supposedly Bad Carbs have been processed (or refined). These food types include white bread, white pasta, rice, ice cream, candy, and soda. Oh well โ€“ i like the good, the bad AND the ugly. i like FOOD!ย  but bring it to me unaltered and unadulterated.

Also over the weekend โ€“ and speaking of food and exercise . . . it was my friend Sara’s birthday. Everyone arranged a Mexican/Spanish spread of food for her, including plantains, enchiladas, stuffed avocados, beans and an ice cream cake. Everyone had to submit to temporary tattoos, and so i opted for a star above my belly button, a la Star-bellied Sneetches “Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches / Had bellies with stars / The Plain-Belly Sneetches / Had none upon thars” (And you ALL had better know what i’m talking about or seek out Dr. Seuss, promptly.) My star-belly raised Brooks’ eyebrows as i got ready for bed later.

Sara wore brown, knee high, leather boots and a jean skirt and 3 flower tattoos down her calf. In the back of her boots and in her back pocket, she stuffed a few maracas. Whenever she swayed her hips, shook a leg or her groove thang (her ‘ass,’ for the uninitiated), she rattled. We ate and drank and then went out dancing. i requested “Domino” by Van Morrison from a locally loved guitar player/singer duo and the dance party ensued. Before we knew it we were swing dancing, spinning, and getting kinda funky . . . until the lights came on. Then it was back to Sara’s friend’s house for some discussion on Art History, Goddess mythology, and hula-hooping in the front yard.

it is certainly, in a month for adverse weather, poor income, and strange fancies โ€“ a blessing to have good cats, good food, good friends, good music, and a good camera to capture it all.

food, friends, photography

make it stop, start me up

well … the wedding was lovely, the church was a lighting nitemare and the reception, a dim catastrophe but i was armed with a great flash and truly pleasant people who enjoyed themselves. the candid shots before and after the ceremony and during the reception turned out wonderful. i have about 800 shots i have to sift through to see just what is what. ceremonies are so rapid fire it is difficult to know where to be and what to look for, especially in the processional and recessional and when all the great moments will happen on cue. this church did not allow flash photography during the ceremony for ANYONE, including the professional photographer and no tripods either.

this meant not a lot of wonderful or focused shots in this near concert dark, buttercream mixed jaundice fluorescent and incandescent lighting altar stage. also – i was only allowed to stand between the edge of the pews and a tall column that repeated on either side of the church, and i could not cross the aisle. i had to go around to the back of the church (this wastes time and screws up shots you will miss.)ย  i will learn to use a higher ISO without fear in the next church situation . . . it just all goes too fast and some of the grain will have to be there in place of blurred movement. and if i have to shoot there again – i will have an assistant. and since the rest of the audience used their cameras and flash i will not hesitate to do the same next time. fuck the obviously ignored rules.

maybe they got some good ceremony shots.

but there was a reason my judgment and reflexes were a bit off . . .

i must note, that despite all this love and celebration, i was sick beyond belief. the nite before it was either samonella from (something i rarely and now, will NEVER eat) the evil Wendy’s cheeseburger i gobbled at 1am, or someone who was ill and handling my food. i caught a 24-hour something or another than (pardon the visuals) opened the sluiceways at both ends. i was reduced to a near-incontinent 90 year-old woman, in the bathroom every 20 minutes or so WHILE i was trying to shoot this wedding. i had to do a wardrobe change just before i left the house. i can laugh about it now, but allow me to share a less than graceful moment – i ruined a pair of pants . . . that’s how bad off i was. i was what they call violently ill, but as they say in the military, it was time to “pull up my boot straps” and head in. i had a job to do and i was already paid. turns out this little bug has been making its way around. people at work. the salon i had visited where the bride had her hair done. co-workers and their children, all with the precise symptoms as mine . . . i was so disappointed to have been sick on such an important day but i informed the bride not to concern herself with me, that i would get through it. i lasted until the end, 9:30, and left as everyone else headed to the after-party.

i spent Sunday morning weeping, cramping, in pain, head-achy and dehydrated, eating popsicles, drinking Gatorade and laying in bed. Brooks thought i needed to go to the hospital, but Tylenol PM and the fluids set me right by Monday.

i should like now to give a HUGE thanks and shout out to my girl Marcy – right before they were about to present the bride and groom as a married couple to the onlookers, the batteries on my flash went dead.

i called her and she was right around the corner, 3 minutes away with 4 fresh AAs!ย  it was the only thing i neglected to pack into my photo bag. i will NEVER forget again. On the same tip, i congratulate Marcy on her new Canon EOS 20D as well!ย  now we have twin cameras to truck around town with. She also purchased a fish-eye lens, and a macro ( which she SO generously lent to me) Of course since i shot at nite, my ISO was left to higher speeds when i was out this AM.ย  i could just kick my own ass sometimes . . . my new mantra “i will get used to this camera, i will be at one with my Canon.”

We started this out with some sunset over the Eastport bridge photos last nite, the same time i also took this shot of the kitty in the candlelit window. It was almost 70 degress yesterday, all the snow melted. And i think it was just so it could rain, then get bitter and windy as hell in order to snow this afternoon.

In other, better news about weddings and warmer weather – i am hired to do another one this June. also for a co-worker and new found friend, Megan. This is turning into a regular gig!

i need more practice and more time to shoot portraits.

and then there’s all my lovely bugs and butterflies waiting for the flowers. oh – and my cocoons . . .

. . . Come on Spring

friends, music, photography

serenade

:::

Mexican Boyfriend
by Shivaree

i wore the dress that you liked almost everyday
Boxed up all my baby dolls and gave them away
i wrote your name on the wall next to my bed
Any day that i saw you at all was circled in red

What they said was a man drifted over the line
Drove you away and a little girl out of her mind
And the rain fell down and washed off your face
Washed you away, left carnations and stone in your place

My first cigarette and my first pill
My first cup of coffee and my first chill
Now you’ll never know my first kiss
Somebody else will
Cause you were the first one i saw
Holding that still

:::

shivโ€ขaโ€ขree
n. Midwestern & Western U.S.

A noisy mock serenade for newlyweds. Also called regionally charivari, belling, horning, serenade.

:::ย  :::ย  :::ย  :::

Marcy & i saw Shivaree LIVE, Saturday February 26th, 2005 at our favorite little venue, Ramโ€™s Head Tavern Onstage in Annapolis, MD.

Ambrosia Parsley told the audience great stories about first loves, the vengeance of grandmothers, and the joys of childhood as altered by NyQuil and Flintstone’s Vitamins.

To tell you would take awhile, and i would hate to steal the fire from her stories.

. . . a most enjoyable show to say the least. Sexy, slinky, loungy music. We even got to meet her later – she signed my CD with a silver Sharpie, transforming herself into a shiny whiskered cat on the CD cover sleeve.

So – onto the idea of wedding serenades . . .

This weekend i’ll be taking photos at my friends’ wedding. Amy & Josh, both of whom i have worked with and had plenty of wine with.

At one point, weather permitting, we will be following an accordion player out of the church and marching up to the hall for the cocktail hour and reception. This is pretty much a parade through small town Annapolis. She is also having an apron dance which everyone should enjoy. i am a bit nervous with a new camera . . . but things should turn out well :fingerscrossed:

i also hired a new person at work, Megan, who i hope will in turn, employ me at her wedding as a photographer.

i am having fun with the semi-pro side of things, but i am often surprised at the jokers who ARE taking photos for hire, the poor quality of work they turn out, and the exorbitant fees they command. ESPECIALLY for weddings. So far, i have shot 3 weddings, all for friends, and maybe, the fact that i come cheap and i KNOW the people takes the pressure off, we have fun, and i get good shots.

Well – wish me luck this weekend!

music

Keen on Keane

i’m driving home today after doing some light grocery shopping, and while sipping on some sweet tea (just to conjure summer and drive winter back) my local station, WRNR 103.1 announces that they are giving out tickets to the 10th caller. The show for KEANE at the 930 club in DC is SOLD OUT, but i have 2 tickets for me and Marcy.

And that’s not even what i WON! i won tickets to a private luncheon event at The Ram’s Head Tavern Onstage which i have mentioned before and been to several times – a wonderful intimate venue. This is a private event BEFORE the actual show where winners get to meet & greet KEANE, hear a few songs like a warm up performance and participate in a Q&A session!

i think i might pee my pants!