Homeward Bound

I e-mailed an environmental bed and breakfast yesterday in Wisconsin yesterday that just opened in May and found out that they have an opening for  me when I go back to Wisconsin in July.

What?  Dude, that’s next month.  Fuck, that’s this like in a few days.  Oh my god.

It is in Token Creek.  Had you told me a few years back that a. I would even consider going back for my high school class reunion or b.  that I would be staying at a bed and breakfast in Token Creek; I would have told you to load up another crack rock.

But it is really true.

Granted, I have yet to book the room, I am waiting until I get paid and pay my rent for July, but I have officially decided to splurge.

The lesson I learned going to LA this past weekend was this: do not compromise on your sleep or your accommodations, it will make you or break you.

I have always been rather frugally minded.  Well, to a point, there have been more than one occasion when I decided to buy something else other than food.  C’mon if I get that gram of cocaine, I won’t need food.  Maybe just cab fare to get back to my dealer when it’s gone and a pack of smokes.

But over the last six and a half years I have prioritized a little.  Like I buy groceries and pay rent and get myself new socks when I need them and I totally splurge on body lotion. Shit, I pay like $13  for a tube of %100 Pure coconut body lotion.  It smells like a virgin sacrifice to a volcano god.  It is so good and it only lasts me like, a week and a half, two if I don’t shower a lot in fourteen days.  But I must have it.

However, I have been rather tight with my money in other areas, especially travel.  So, I am going to “splurge”.  It’s not much of a splurge, but it is a bit of one.  I am going to pay twice as much as I could to stay some where.  Further, I am not looking to stay with friends.  I have not asked.  Nor have I sought to manipulate.

Now, this is fucking progress, Batman.

My normal M.O. is to be so worried about money that I have to stay with someone to offset what ever financial insecurity I have about having booked the trip in the first place.  I have slept on floors, in attics, on couches, back yards, in campers surrounded by dog shit, on borrowed sleeping bags, in tents, in poorly ventilated rooms, and in play rooms for the people I work for.  I have had to share bathrooms with people I normally would not even say hello to on the street, let alone want to leave a toothbrush on their sink.  I have put myself in really compromising positions to save some money.

Well, fuck that noise.

I am done with it.  I decided I want a nice place to stay.  It does not have to be über fabulous and totally out of my price range–hello Mansion Hill Inn–but it can be nice, and it can be my own room, and it can have some amenities.

And since I do a spending plan every month and know how much I have coming in and going out, I know I can afford this.  And really, when it comes right down to it, it is not a splurge.  It is keeping my sanity.  I want to be well rested and fresh.  I want to stay where I want to stay.

I want to stay in a place that is located just outside of Madison.  I want to be in the country.  I want to be minutes away from where I spent some of the most formative years of my life.  I want to go for a walk along the creek.  I want to take a nap in the hammock that will be outside my room underneath an oak tree.  I want to sleep on nice sheets and get up to go to the bathroom naked, because that’s how I sleep.  I want to not be on anyone elses schedule but my own.

That is not to say that I won’t be packing my time in tight in Madison.  I have people to see and places to go.  But I will be taking a little time for me.  I will make sure that I get to do some things that I would not have the opportunity of doing if I am at the whim of another’s schedule because I am their house guest.  I am not sleeping on the floor, on the couch, or at a crappy motel by East Town Mall.

I want to wake up to the smell of high summer in Wisconsin.  I want to see lightning bugs flit through the meadow grass while I listen to the horses knicker to themselves as they settle down for sleep.  I want to smell the air, warm and fragrant with lilac and summer blooming roses.  I want the full Wisconsin country side experience, even if I am there for just a short time.  Particularly, because I am there for such a short time.

I do once in a while fantasize about moving back to Wisconsin.  And I want to emphasize “fantasize”.  I don’t have any real plans to do so.  San Francisco is my home sweet home, but my soul was born in Windsor, Wisconsin, and some times one has to make that journey back to feed the head waters of that spring.

And I am renting a car.  No being at the mercy of somebody who doesn’t know how to get to Hwy 51.

It’s kind of like knowing how to get to Sesame Street, but you make a right instead of a left.

My New Ride Is Fabulous!

Although not exactly a commuter bike.  I cannot wait to go for a ride.  I joked with Barnaby, he who sold it to me for an absolute steal as he won’t be taking it to Paris with him, that I would just ride it around in front of my house.  It is heavy, it only has one gear–it is a sexy ass cruiser bike with chrome u-shaped handle bars, sweet midnight blue paint, fat white wall tires, and yes, oh my yes, a black velvet corduroy banana seat.

This mama is in heaven!

Now if only I lived in the Mission instead of Nob Hill!

What was I thinking, come on did you really have to ask?

Go back and re-read that opening paragraph–lingering for a while on the black velvet corduroy banana seat.

No, sir I don’t have a sex swing in my house, but I do have a banana seat.

Ahem.

I am grinning from ear to ear.  It is probably a good thing that it is raining outside, I did straddle it for a moment on the side walk and contemplate doing it anyway.  But reason prevailed, that and the tires need a little air in them before I take her out for a spin.

Aside–what the fuck is up with that?  Rainy season that does not stop.  Come on.  Want to make a nanny nuts?  Drop bucket fulls of rain on top of her and don’t let her get out to the park or for a walk.  I did venture to Peasant Pie for my morning libation.  I just had too.  I got to the door of the building and realized it was raining and my heart just dropped.

Really?

I turned back around, paced around the kitchen in the house for a few minutes, then said, “fuck it.”  And I put the rain poncho over the girls in the stroller.  Not a good idea to have me go without my coffee and then expect me to make it through a whole day indoors with the girls.

Oh my, I just got a buck shot full of gratitude.  The grand parents where not there.  Holy mother of god, that would have been absolutely abysmal.  There is a god, as if you were wondering.

Did you see my new bike?  Of course there’s a god.

I may have a few other things to show for it  than just the bike, but we’ll leave that discussion for in person in private.

Sigh.  My bike is dreamy.  Did I mention it matches my new tattoo?

Yup.

Sexy.

It will be going with me to Burning Man, I can tell you that right now.  It is the perfect Burning Man bike.  And Black Rock City is the perfect place to ride it, aside from the aforementioned Mission District.  Black Rock is nice and flat.  No hills.  I will enjoy cruising around on my cruiser.  Flag me down and I’ll give you a ride on the handle bars.  We’ll go out deep playa and look at the stars and laugh at the wonderful absurdity that is life.

My god I am a lucky girl.

I also have the delightful experience to look forward to of not only this being a three-day weekend, I refuse to even think about picking up extra shifts at work, but having also found a person with a truck that will help me move in the last big piece of furniture for my new place–Shannon and Alex’s love seat.  I will be going by their place early Saturday evening with Ryan Jackson to pick it up.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mister Jackson.

That is a banana seat

Then, yes, say it with me, cats and kittens, it will be time to have that fabled house-warming party I have been talking about since I found out I got the apartment.

If you’re good and bring me some dish towels, sacking please, or a house plant that does well in low light, I’ll let you ride my bike around the block.

Hmmmm.  You probably will not make it around the block.  How about back and forth in front of the apartment building?  Or up to Grace Cathedral, around Huntington Square Park and back?  Not too much of an incline there.

Or you can just sit on it in my apartment.

I have already warmed up the seat!

You Are So Skinny!

Say it again!

Well, I was tempted to ask her to say it again, but it was one of the mom’s at work, probably not the person I need to go digging for compliments from.  I know I have been continuing to lose weight, but I haven’t thought much about it until she said that.  The correct response was to say, “thank you,” and leave it at that.  However, I did reflect on what her comment brought to mind.

Namely, that yes, I have lost a lot of weight when it comes right down to it.  105 lbs to date from my heaviest.  That is just craziness.  The amazing thing is that I am still the same person.  I am the same person inside.  Now I wear a size 8-10 instead of a size 26-28.  The goal is size 6.  But I am so not stressed.  Today I love my body.

I forget how much loathing I had for myself.  Oh, I still am tempted to go down that path, but it really doesn’t do much for me anymore, frankly, it’s a bit self-indulgent and really boring.

I had noticed it myself, the weight loss, this past Saturday in L.A.  Not because I was comparing and despairing as I used to do.  But because I was wearing tights and heels and a shortish black dress and I was checking out my costume before getting on stage at the theater for our last-minute tightening up of the play.

I really had a moment where I went, who is that skinny chick?

Holy shit, that’s me.

Ha.

The weight loss has not brought me a new boyfriend.  Or fame and fortune.  It has brought about more work in unexpected areas.  Like I notice how little space there is between me and another when we hug.  You are right fucking there.

Oh, look at that, I guess I have had some intimacy issues, huh?

Yeppers.

So, I have gotten to work on that.  Which basically boils down to constantly reassuring myself that I am lovable and forgivable and safe and ok.  That “people” are not out to get me and that it is ok to be vulnerable.  I do not need that buffer of fat so much as I used to.  I am still getting adjusted to it being gone, but more and more I am completely ok without its presence.

Other areas of work–“I feel fat”.  “Fat” is not a feeling.  So, let’s get underneath that and see what is really going on.

OH.  I feel unlovable and that you will abandon me.

Excellent.

Next area of neurosis please.

If only I lost some weight I would have a boyfriend.  Insert violin playing softly here between thumb and forefinger.

Hmmmm, weight lost, yet no boyfriend.

Aha!  My weight has nothing to do with whether or not some one is interested in me.

Not exactly true.  I have dated men who like hefty girls.  I once went out on a date with a guy that it turned out was into watching women eat.  I had no idea prior to the date.  And I did not order nearly enough to satiate his fetish.  You want me to eat more?  But I am full.  No really, I don’t care if you’ll pay for it, the food that is.

Ew.  Next date please.

And I am sure there have been some gentlemen who may have thought, yeah she’s good-looking, but drop a few before I’ll hit that.

But ultimately, I really do believe that the weight really is not a good indicator of whether or not one is in a partnership.  Now, it can however, be used as a measure of mental health and emotional as well as spiritual health.  If a person is obviously taking care of themselves and not practising slothful habits, then that is indicative of a person that has some self-love and care for themselves and may be some one more attractive to date.

I mean I have been in longer term relationships at much heavier than this.  Albeit, those relationships where not healthy in the least.  And I am fairly certain that one of them in particular, the five-year one, I was absolutely eating away my sorrows.  That was when I was at my heaviest, right after I got out of that relationship.  I think that was a really good indicator of unhappiness.

And today, well today, I am pretty god damn happy.  Interestingly enough I am not crushed out on anyone but myself–I’m dressing for myself and doing my makeup for myself and being pretty for myself because it feels good and it’s hella fun.  And after telling the 22-year-old I was a bit smitten with him, it passed.  So as of this moment I don’t have an eye on anyone.  I’m just in the business of taking the next step toward whatever will take care of me today.

And getting my ducks in a row to go back to Madison, and then to Windsor, for my 20th High School Class Reunion.  And I believe I made the executive decision today that I don’t need anything fancy to wear and I don’t have to buy anything sexy or figure conforming to prove that I am at a good place in my life.

I think my smile speaks for that  and I have a great, big, fat, happy smile on my face.

Escape From L.A.

Today was a long day.  A trying day.  A day in which I was further gratified to know that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I was never happier to see the toll plaza to the Bay Bridge in my life.

There is a moment, a moment that I will always remember, that I was reminded tonight as we wound down toward the toll plaza– when you have been driving for a long time,the first was when I drove out here almost nine years ago from Wisconsin, and you have been looking at dead burnt grass and hot landscapes, then suddenly you are lifted up into the air and you come over the freeway and there she is–San Francisco.

The fog is curling lightly around the spires of the Golden Gate.  I can see the Trans America building, there is Coit tower.  I can tell you just from the apartment buildings perched on the top of the hills where I am in the city–where I actually live, you can see it from the freeway since it’s one of the higher hills (you want my ass, get on a bike baby and ride up and down Taylor Street).  It is this gorgeous thing of glass and metal and water and soft light and I always am moved.

Always.

Perhaps more so today as it really was a long ass day.  I joked with Pell that I was going to write a screenplay and call it Escape From L.A.  Because I apparently could not.

Really, I know that it was my first performance in L.A. and I was truly judgemental of how I performed, but apparently, L.A. thought I was great, because little heathen that she is, she kept me there far, far longer than I had any desire to be.  It was Ground Hog Day all day long.

I was up again early–between Friday and Saturday I believe I may have gotten a cummulative ten hours of sleep.  I am now highly aware that my inner alarm clock is set fairly well.  I went to bed around 1:30a.m/2 a.m. and was up again by 7:15a.m.  I used the bathroom, drank some water, then crawled back into bed.  No use, it was not my bed, it was occupied by another person–I got the experience of having to swap out my bed last night.  Not exactly happy about that, but I tried to roll with it.

Note to self, note to self that I made all day long: there is being accommodating and flexible, then there is being steam rolled into doing things that you don’t want to do.  Give up your private bed, albeit in a room I was sharing with two other people, to sleep in a room with another person whose gear smelled, that’s a nice way of saying stank.  It fucking stank to high holy heaven.

Side bar–wet suits should not be hung in communal spaces.  They fucking stink people.  Oh my god.  I just about gagged.  I am sensitive to smell, so I usually don’t make a big fuss about it, what bothers me does not normally bother other people.  But I was knocked out by the smell of that wet suit.  I don’t think I ever can go surfing now that smell may remain with me for the rest of my life.

I also agree to ride with people back to San Francisco who don’t realize that you actually are on a bit of a time constraint.  My fault here, I take full responsibility.  I was to go back early today and I said I could be a little flexible with my time–I did not properly communicate my needs.  I did not have to be on the road as early as the person had been told.  But when I said that I meant, hey, we don’t have to be on the road by 7a.m.; 8 a.m. will work,or 9 a.m.  Especially as one of the people who was to be sharing the car was still asleep at the hotel.

I had heard nothing by 9:45 a.m.  Despite texting and attempting to make contact.  I had been packed, eaten breakfast, had coffee, done my morning writing pages, and was sitting twiddling my thumbs.  I find out later that another set of people have stepped in and are taking my spot in the car.  Had the director not intervened, I may still be on the road, something else to be grateful for.

The rest of the house was making a move to go hang with fellowship in Pacific Palisades.  So I make the decision to join them, will probably do me good to get a little of the solution into my morning mix before hitting the road.  I tell the director I can be flexible with my time and she arranges to get me where I need to go with another group of the cast members.

However, the timing is still a bit skewed and he and I end up in a camper trailer being driven down the Santa Monica highway at noon by another set of cast members to a hotel by the LAX airport where the next set of drivers is waiting for us to get there so we may leave from L.A. to San Francisco.

By this time I am in tears.  I am hours behind when I thought I would leave.  I am hungry.  I am tired.  I am angry.

Uh oh.

Then the driver and his “navigator” spend a lot of time conversing/bickering/discussing, opening and closing various maps, and trying to figure out the proper way to get to the motel where the other cast members are waiting for us.  They succeed in getting us lost and then, oh yes, stuck in Santa Monica beach board walk traffic in what is now the middle of a Sunday afternoon beach day.  Oh my god.

I start to cry.  I can’t help it.  I call Barnaby, who is supposed to come by the house and drop off a cruiser bike for me and I need to hand over the last payment on the tattoo, and tell him I will not be getting back when I thought I would be getting back.

He talks me from the ledge and I breathe deeply and watch the strip malls float by.  We are going so slow and everything looks the same, it is as though we are not moving at all.

It takes some time, but we make it to the hotel.  Transfer all the luggage from the camper trailer to Ralph’s car.  I mention to Ralph the neither of us has had a chance to eat lunch, there’s an In-N-Out Burger just passed the way we came, can we hit it?  I find out later, Ralph has some hearing issues.

I have some dietary restrictions and In-N-Out is probably my best choice.  Had I known what was to happen next I would have gotten more stuff at the Whole Foods I popped into yesterday on Wilshire.  But I did not know that Ralph would whirl us passed that In-N-Out, past another, and only to get us on the highway to pull off over an hour later at a gas station/deli/tackle and bait shop.

McDonalds was the other option.  I would rather eat my foot than McDonalds.

I have to say.  The deli guy was very nice and I was able to get a little sustenance for the road.  But the walls of bait and tackle for fishing next to the deli counter was a bit off-putting.

Just a bit.

Of course we hit traffic.  Because that’s the way we roll people.

I just gave up at one point and closed my eyes.  I actually napped on and off the whole way back.  Only to wake up briefly at gas stations to use the restrooms and buy a bottle of water and once a piece of fruit and  a Naked smoothie.

We finally get back into the city and although it has been mentioned a number of times as we are about to exit off the highway that it is Pride and the Civic Center will be closed off, guess what we drove straight into?

But I got home.   I am home.  And tomorrow, maybe even a little later tonight, the whole experience will be a laughable thing.  I survived.  My cats were quite happy to see me and Barnaby will drop off the bike tomorrow and I will pay him out the last bit on the tattoo as he prepares to leave for Paris.

And I have the first episode of True Blood Season Four down loading.

Let’s hope it’s not set in L.A.

Hot Mess

Today’s performance, my performance, was just that, a hot, greasy, mess.  I felt like left over sloppy joe with american cheese melted off the side.

I kid you not.

I can pin a number of things on it, or place the blame directly where it belongs, on my shoulders.  I did not sleep as long as I needed and I got up way too early.  I wanted a hot shower.  I got one, but at what cost?

I can function on five hours of sleep, I did today, I have done so in the past, but what I cannot do is function on not enough food and hydration.  I did not keep pace with my water today, but I certainly did with my coffee.  I think I totally depleted my reserves.

I drew a complete and under blank during the run through this afternoon.  It was hideous.  It is not a feeling I ever want to experience again.  I got a hefty dose of humility today.  I had to lean heavily on my cast members.  Fortunately they were there for me.  I don’t know how we all came together, but we did.

It felt like we were plodding through the production.

I take that back.  I cannot speak for anyone else’s feelings, only my own.  I felt like I was plodding through the production.  However, we still got a standing ovation.

The audience was kind.  The cast was a bit more judgemental, but gently so.  I think we all were feeling tired from the journey.  I did have some lovely moments of bonding with the cast and I am supremely grateful for that.

I am my own harshest critic.  I know that, so I will take my performance with a grain of salt.  I know that last week was better.  I know that I can actually do better than this week and last week.  I am actually looking forward to doing it again.  And I would like to have a good nights sleep when I do it.  I would like to be in my normal eating routine and not piecing together weird hodge podge food.

I will say this, no offense folks, but I saw some way creepy body shit in this town today.  Women that were so tiny and sucked in and skeletal that I actually gasped audibly a few times.  Fake boobs I was ready for and saw, plastic surgery, botox, enhanced this and that.  But the teeny tiny skinny women and young girls I saw freaked me out, I was actually shocked.  And I suppose I knew, but I did not know.

I am so glad to be a different place.  I am so grateful for the beautiful body I have been given.  Even with its “flaws” I have accepted myself and I do not think I could actually do what women do to compete in this town.  I just wanted to hug a few of the girls and let them know they really did not have to go to such lengths.  It was really disturbing to be honest.

L.A. is not my town.  And that is kind of a relief to know.  I got to trash the few fantasies I had about being “discovered” and realize that I have absolutely no desire to live here.  I was even told by a professional SAG actor that I am a natural, but I don’t think I could pursue a career here in L. A. I love me some San Francisco.

And, maybe that’s all that I needed to see about this trip and this experience, once again it has been affirmed the San Francisco is my home.  It is the place I will keep returning to.  It is the place that I belong.  It is the place I want to come home to.

San Francisco, I hella heart you big big.  Can’t wait to see you tomorrow.

 

Long Day

Nine hour work day, two grandparents, one father working from home, two toddlers, 6.5 hour long drive after work from San Francisco to L.A.

I deserve a nap.

Currently sitting in a rental house in Santa Monica with two guys crashed out in the living room a two gals in the room behind me and the room I will be occupying has some guy I’ve met once sleeping on the floor and another woman sleeping in a bed a foot away from where I will be resting my head when it is time to rest my head, snoring.

I sort of miss my apartment right now and my cats.

Sigh.

But I am pretending to be at camp.  It’s not really a slumber party as there is no one up being silly or watching a John Hughes movie.

But it is an experience.  And I get to sleep in tomorrow.  Not that I will.  Not that I can imagine actually doing that.  Two other people in a teeny tiny room with me, one bathroom for let me count, seven of us, yeah, don’t know that I will actually be sleeping in.

And there will be no late night run on the bathroom naked thank you very much.  And I will be sleeping in pajamas which sucks as I like to sleep in the nude.  Again, oh well.

The snoring is not such a big deal, but I’m not a fan of the stale cigarette smoke that lingers around the edges of some of my housemates. Then again, at least they are not smoking inside.

It’s an adventure.

Tomorrow I don’t have to be to the theater until 2 p.m.  Hoping to find a place nearby to get a manicure and a cup or fifteen of coffee and maybe get my eyebrows waxed as I realized that I forgot to pack my tweezers.  Damn it.

Actually, is probably a good thing that I am the late arrival and all the other house mates are already fast asleep, or close to it.  By the time I get up, let’s keep our fingers crossed on this, I should be able to have a shower all to myself.  Hmmm.  Or maybe what I’ll do is shower before I go to bed.  And that way I don’t have to battle it out for the bathroom in the morning.  I can just get up, brush the teeth and do a quick wash up.

That is something to seriously consider.

This is the most boring blog I have written all week.  Is there any one interested in my morning toilet?  I think not.

How to spice it up.  I could rant about the fact that I had both grandparents today and the dad in the house and yet, I could be let go early because I had to feed K.  Really folks, it wouldn’t hurt if maybe you all had a family dinner, I bet she would develop some better eating habits, just a thought.

The drive up was also interesting.  Dan does not have a radio in his car.  No music.  Which was truly depressing for the first moment or two of being in the vehicle and then we started talking.  He’s a good egg and easily the most talented person of the play.  I am keeping my fingers crossed for him that he is discovered down here and given some juicy opportunities.  He’s truly an amazing actor.  I have to be careful watching him though, because he’s also mad good at improvisational comedy and there have been more than a few times that I have caught myself absolutely crying with laughter.

I don’t want to miss my entrance and exits because I am watching him perform.

I’m looking forward to the seeing Santa Monica tomorrow and maybe wandering down to the pier.  But really, I am just here because I was asked and I have been taught to say yes to certain experiences in my life.  I’m grateful I get to be of service and learn about a new fellowship.

Must remember to pick up a post card and send it to myself.  Anybody else want one?  Send me your address and I’ll write you one.  I left my address book at home.

Oh!  And this just in, I got somebody in the cast to help me move Shannon and Alex’s love seat next weekend!  Yay!  My furniture needs for my apartment have just about been met.  House warming party to be set as soon as I get back from L.A. adventures.

You Hopped The Wall

I what? Huh?  Say that again.

“You. Hopped. The. Wall.”  said Barnaby as I jumped around like a fish on a griddle, a very, very, very hot griddle.

At t-minus five minutes I had enough.  I have never gone this long and knew going into the tattoo tonight that it was going to be a challenge having worked a full day with the girls.  Most of the time when I have gotten a tattoo I have gone in on a Saturday with the entire day free and the following day free as well.

Not this time.  Barnaby leaves for Paris on July 1st.  He wanted to finish th (FUCK MY MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD HELL CAT JUST JUMPED INTO MY LAP AND DID NOT MAKE IT FUCKFUFKCUDKCIIDOKLLLLOWWWWWCLAWS IN MY LEGCLAWS IN MY LEG)e tattoo before he left.  I could not go in last Saturday as I was performing In Our Own Words in Sebastopol and I could not do it this upcoming weekend as I will be in LA doing the same.

So, tonight was the night.  And what a night.

Normally the mindless prattle of what ever gaggle of just turned eighteen year old girls visiting from Australia and all getting the same tattoo does not bother me.  Normally.

Or the new artist that just moved up from San Bernardino who wanted to introduce himself to me and watch Barnaby work.  Do not shake my hand, do not touch me, I am trying to find my zone.

Trying being the operative word.  I almost never got there.

I did manage to sit still.  I did do a lot of praying.  Just looped the Serenity prayer in my head and chased it around and around.  I did breathe religiously.  I focused on the number five in a poster until it became something other than and mysterious.

But I never quite got into my spot.  I did however, think it was going ok, even though I made a few faces and grimaced here and there.  I kept it pretty together.  I did not pussy out.  Unlike girl who was getting a “peace bird symbol” tattooed on her hip.  Please, shut the fuck up you wee little twat.  You say ow or ouch or moan one more time I was going to get up off the table and bitch slap your little eighteen year old face.

For fuck sake child, suck it up.  Christ, you little pansy ass, can you not see the full sleeve in progress on the next table.  Get it together.

I digress.

At hour 3.5 I jumped.  I have never jumped.  I was shocked.  I looked at Barnaby and said, what the fuck was that.  He had moved the gun from the upper part of my shoulder back down to a spot just below my elbow and it hit something.

Something I was to find out was my pain wall or threshold.  He nudged it.  It was the first hole in the dam and the dam was about to burst, unbeknownst to me.

Twenty five minutes later I broke.  I have never broken.  Yes, I have gotten really uncomfortable.  But I have never broken.  My entire body spasmed and we had to stop.  What the fuck?

What is going on I asked Barnaby.

“You hopped the wall.”  he replied, you basically just depleted all endorphins in your system and now you are feeling the pain of having your skin shredded by needles.

Ouch.  Well, when you put it like that.  Christ it hurt.

I mean, really hurt.  I have not come so close to putting my fist through a wall before.  I wanted to kick something hit something smash something.  Tears sprang up and rolled down my face.  I hopped up and down and told Barnaby I could not finish.

What the fuck again.

How much was left?

One flower.  Five minutes tops.

I have never spent a longer five minutes in my life.  I rubbed the tears from my face, drank a big gulp of water, wiped all make up off my eyes, and put on lip gloss.

Ready.

Ugh.  Gah.  Make it stop.  Pretty please.

And then, the cherry on the pain sunday, he wiped me down with a hot towel instead of a cold towel.  Aieeeeee.  Although, as promised, yes it would hurt more than the cold, but once the sting wore off it would feel better.  And it did.

Then I looked in the mirror.  OH My.

So beautiful.  So gorgeous.  Sublime color and lining and I hate to brag, but fucking amazing.  My arm looks amazing.

I am adrenalized and drained and I sat for the longest I have ever sat.  I did not die and I did not kill any one, not even my artist.

Which was good, because as it turned out he did not ride his motorcycle to work, but drove his car, which happened to be around the corner and he swung my bike into it and gave me a ride home.

Thank the lord.  I don’t think I would have made it home at the rate I was going.  Right now everything on the left arm is hot and feverish and everything else is cold.  I will be wearing pajamas to bed and socks and a sweatshirt.  And getting up far earlier that I want to the day after getting a tattoo.

But hot damn, is it amazing.

Thanks Barnaby, you fucking rock.

Wow, I swear a lot when I’m in pain.  Just noticed that.

Bah ha.  Must remember to keep a lid on that tomorrow at work, don’t want to shock the grandparents anymore than I already do.  Here, don’t mind me, I’m just bleeding from a fresh tattoo.

No, it’s not of Elmo.

Nothing Pithy

Nothing exciting, just a day.  But what a gorgeous day.  Luscious summer time weather for a day.  It actually felt like June today.  I was actually overdressed for work.  And I hear that tomorrow, well, is hotter?  What?

You know that means that the day after tomorrow the fog will roll in and it will drastically drop and you will see people all over the city running around shivering like foolish tourist.  But it is worth it to get a couple of days of hot summertime weather in the month that most people associate summer time with.

Every time I hear about a summer blockbuster I wonder what the hell they are talking about?  It’s cold it’s foggy, no I have not broken out the grill and the Johnsonville Brats (you can take the girl out of Wisconsin, but you can’t take the Wisconsin out of the girl), I am wearing layers and no I don’t want to go to Stern Grove and sit up in the chilly bowl of fog that passes for an outdoor summer concert in San Francisco.

But tomorrow, this lady is breaking out the sundress and the sun hat.  That’s right, I will be mimicking the girls and their attire.  Mayhap we shall journey to the South Beach Yacht Harbor park.  Just because I like saying that we went to the South Beach Yacht harbor.  I shall play pretend that I am on vacation instead of working.  I have a really wide-brimmed black cloth sunhat that is über  fabulous and I shall be sporting it tomorrow.  I will pretend to be at “resort”  just please disregard my nanny clogs, they are a smidge out of season.

Ooooh.  I will have an iced coffee.  Yum.  I can usually count of one hand how many iced coffees I have throughout the course of the summer.

And frankly, tomorrow may be my only “relaxing” day.  My week is already pretty busy on average, but this week kind of takes the cake.

Tomorrow work, doing the deal, grocery shopping, blog.

Wednesday- work, then finishing tattoo with Barnaby.  I will be under the gun for probably three hours.  Any one want to keep me company, come on down to Mom’s in the Haight.  I’m excited about finishing the work, which I had not expected to be doing, but when your artist is moving to Paris, you make the time happen. Blog–this will be an interesting one, all high on tattoo.

Thursday-work, dress rehearsal and run through for In Our Own Words, pack for LA, blog.

Friday-work, finishing packing–because I usually do everything with packing last minute, and I may have to take my luggage into work as I’m carpooling to LA, then driving down to LA, blog?  I have to do my blog, which I just realized means bringing my laptop with me.

Saturday-do whatever people do in LA, shop, get nose jobs, audition?  Then show up at theater at 2pm for call and run through.  Then a break, a meeting, dinner, and perform, fall out, blog.

Sunday-meeting, rehash of performance with group, and drive back to San Francisco, fall out, blog.

So, yeah, I’m not busy this week at all.

I mean, I’m trying to figure out when I’m going to fit grocery shopping in and cooking.  Cooking ain’t gonna happen.  I may not even really get any true grocery shopping in.  But I’m going to try.  I’m out of some of my basic basics and I do not like that.  I am probably going to go to work, go to the Bahai Center after, then try to hit up Rainbow afterward.

The nice thing about this week, and who knew I could find gratitude in the grandparents visiting for a week (seriously, there must be something about this family that says it’s ok to be semi naked around the nanny.  I had not met grandpa and when I walked in he was lounging on the couch with no shirt on and in his underwear?  At least he wasn’t shirt cocking like grandma.  And oh my god, how much Fixadent does a person need?  There are like four tubes of the stuff in the bathroom and some other odd toiletries, and grandma picked up another four at the store today–is it on sale or does one really go through it that fast?  And may I never have to find out personally.  And what’s up with leaving the toilet seat up grandpa?  Come on, you do that to your wife?  Nasty.  And the pee on the floor around the toilet?  If you can’t aim, sit down dude.) is that mom decided I don’t have to be in until 9 a.m. this whole week.

Sweet.

Gives me an extra hour during a week I very much need it.  But I tell you, it makes the commute to work really, and I mean really, interesting.  China Town is just waking up when I zoom down the hill to the Embarcadero.  But an hour later, it is in full party swing.  Vendors, trucks, deliveries, children heading off to school, old people with canes popping out from between parked cars like Whack-a-molcs; it was like doing a slalom race to work.  I rode in the middle of the street and caught every light, it was quite the rush.  I think I held my breath for four blocks.

So, yes, a yummy sundress for tomorrow and a wide-brimmed hat.  Summer in San Francisco, if only for two days, is a glorious thing.

Put Grace In Your Heart

And flowers in your hair.

Sweet, maudlin me.  Climbing out from under the muck of another self-imposed beating.  I will apparently go to just any lengths to not have feelings.  Please direct me to the door and please help me stop beating my god damn head on it.

Walk towards the open door, Martines.  Walk towards the open door.

John Ater once told me that I would keep repeating the same behaviour.  I watched myself repeat that behaviour all day today and it does not feel good.  I would like to let go of this.  I would like to not be sitting in my house, alone with my cats, sad because the boy left without a kiss.

Hey lady, he told you upfront, he was in no place for a relationship.  And that is the lesson that you have been learning and relearning for so long.  Can we just say that you have learned it.

And we can just say, it was really sad today to send that letter to your mom.  And it’s alright to grieve.  It’s ok to feel that loss.  And it’s alright to be up past your bedtime on a school night crying.  Just let go of the grief.  Let your mom go.  She can’t fix you. Never could.

And you can run away from your feelings, but at the end of the day, just like they were there at the end of the night at the end of the bar in the dark with a pint of Bitter, so apropos, and a cigarette, sitting gin the dark letting the music swirl around you and waiting for Brian, fill in last name, there were more than one, to come out from the kitchen and taking out the trash and dumping the recycling.  Stop waiting for the man to rescue you.

Stop waiting for Henry Hall or The Brian’s or the Thomas’s to take you out of your head.  Stop focusing on someone else long enough to be ok focusing on you.

There is no shame in who you are.  There is no damaged goods here.  You don’t have to make-believe to be something other than who you are.

You may no longer hold onto words and excuses that fell out of the mouths of people who are sick.  They are sick, you don’t have to stand underneath the shower of illness.  Just put down the umbrella, take off the rain boots, take off the slicker, be yourself, naked, vulnerable, not knowing what good you have in you and walk out the door.

Walk toward the light, Carol Anne.

And then walk through it.  Maybe three decades of not letting yourself show scared and afraid it all was, maybe three decades of holding onto that weight, maybe, it’s time to say good-bye to it.  Not everyone will hurt you.  You don’t have to stand for unrequited love, even if he helped you move a sofa and run your lines.  You don’t have to be pursuant of the safe and the known.

Your lines are fine.  Your sofa is fine.  Your heart is fine.  You are fine.

Sad is ok.  Just don’t wallow in it and don’t bury it.  The plant that blooms is too sickly sweet, it is not the soft beard of grass on your soul, it ends up being a pit of pestilence that does not dissipate.  Take the ashes from your mouth and scatter them across the lye.

Perhaps I too will come into a state of grace and let myself be just this person, neither more wonderful nor less than you.  Maybe I will let myself pull up the stakes to the hot air balloon and let it all go.  I say to the universe, thank you for this experience, I trust that I will be ok having had it and I don’t need to keep repeating the pattern.

Today, just for this moment.  I am going to sit still. Sit with the pain and the ache.  And just feel it.

Just feel it.

Popped My Cherry!

I got to perform in my first play tonight, In Our Own Words, in Sebastopol.  Wow. Wow. Wow.  It was amazing.

I was nervous all day long, but it really hit when we pulled up into the parking lot of the theater with just twenty minutes to spare, traffic was bad, before the director lined us up to go over the stage notes.

I exaggerate a tiny bit.  I was in a high school production of MASH, I think I had four lines.  I think it was a musical?  My high school seemed very tuned into the musical–and it was nothing like Glee, tell you what.  And had I been a singer,  well it  might have been cool.  But since I am not much of a singer I never really got into it.  I don’t think my school ever put on a theatrical production of anything.  I can’t recall.

I do remember going to a few shows in Sun Prairie.  I had a friend from elementary school in Madison that I stayed in touch with when I moved to DeForest and she and her mom relocated to Sun Prairie.   She was into theater.   And I sort of hung around the outskirts of a few of their productions.  I think mostly because I had a mad crush on her friend Matt, who later became her boyfriend.

I never really got bit by the theater bug.

I may have tonight.

It was a rush.  I will admit, however, that it was extremely, and I do mean extremely helpful that there was a very bright spot light on us.  I could not see the audience to save my life.  For whatever reason, that made it a lot easier.  It was difficult in rehearsal to do my lines when I could see my fellow cast members watching me.  I got really nervous.

I also have to give enormous props to the lovely Nikki, who ran lines with me on the drive up.  I have been off book for a week and a half, and saying that, I should also throw some accolades to S. and K.  who have heard me practise my lines at work for the last month.  But just going over them again in the car with Nikki made me feel really comfortable with the material.

In dress rehearsal I had gotten a bit flustered yesterday, between watching the other cast members and actually admiring the hell out of the woman I was performing a piece with, I lost track of my lines and had a huge and I mean huge, pause, and then I said “fuck” before I remember where I was in my lines.

Thank god that did not happen tonight.

It went off without a hitch.  I did make some mistakes, I was on stage late for a line.  The line was delivered just fine, I just was meant to be on the stage a bit before I went on.  The director materialized out of thin air and said “oops, you missed your entrance, just stay here and I will tell you when to go on, and now,” and then she pushed me out onto the stage and I said my lines and then got right back off.

I think I was actually more nervous about that section of the play then the monologue I performed or the other character that I played.  It really was an incredible experience.  I had to be careful to not laugh too loud at some of the performances, there are some excruciatingly funny people in the play.

I also had to keep my emotions under wraps.  I found myself in tears more than once before the performance.  It was just amazing to see all the people who came out to see it.  I was blown away.  Nikki caught me at one point, and waggled her finger at me with a smile and told me to watch it with my makeup!

And L.A. is next week.  That is enough to make a girl break right back out into a sweat.

Especially as one of the women that I am portraying will be in the audience at the show.  I am not going to think about that right now.

Just going to enjoy how this feels.  And enjoy the fact that my hands have finally warmed back up.  My fingers were absolutely frozen.  That’s how my body reacts to ‘stress’ I get sort of hot in my core and my extremities get really cold.  My fingers started to chill off noticeably when I saw the exit for Sebastopol, and they proceeded to get colder and colder and colder.  And then the rest of me was hot and sort of sweaty.

Such a nice combination.  Not really.

At least I know that this is how my nerves manifest themselves.  I did a lot of work to stay in the present moment and I feel like I did pretty darn well, all things considered.

What a neat, I know, I hate that word, but really, it was neat, experience.  I got to be a part of something rather amazing.  I even got to sign a program tonight.  I could not believe that some one actually wanted me to sign the program.

Really?  Me?

Aw shucks.

What stupid fun.  I am now officially excited for L.A.

Nervous too, I won’t deny it, we played to about 250-275 people tonight.  L.A. will be double if not triple that.  Scary.  My fingers got a little chilled typing that, oof.

I am counting on the stage lights being just as bright, I mean, it is L.A.