On My Days Off

I like to pretend that I am going to do things like-

Nap.

Sleep in.

Lay about.

The reality is that on my days off I tend to actually do more things than on my days “on”.  So much so, that there will be moments when I think, man I should really be at work, it’s more relaxing.  So not true, but I typically know when it’s going to end and I have a good set schedule and boundaries in place around what I can and will do.

That was not the case today, I did unexpectedly find myself very much in the neighborhood of work, although I did not go past the shop, I could see the bikes queued up in the distance.

I got an unexpected text today from Calvin asking me if I was free for coffee.

Hell yes I am free for coffee.

He and Diane swung up to the house sitting gig I am at and scooped me up in their new”ish” Caddie.

Only Calvin and Diane can get away with driving a Caddie.  I just about died.  Rental? Nope, they had actually bought a new car, red Cadillac, white wall tires, silver rims, bling blang bling.

Damn.

It was awesome to swing through town and head into the Mission in high style.

Not that I usually don’t, I mean have you seen my ride?

We went to Tacolicious and then over to Craftsman and Wolves.  The best thing about Craftsman and Wolves was the cafe au lait I had, no way I was going to touch the cakes, croissant, or smoked almond toffee, what?!  The coffee at Craftsman and Wolves is Sightglass–nice to not have to go over to the SOMA to get it.

I don’t do sugar.

I don’t do flour.

I do do drool.

I saw a lot of scrumptious food today, but I ate nothing aside from what I cooked for myself, which actually makes for a very happy, and yes, dare I say it, skinny girl.

Calvin said, “holy shit, you are skinny.”

I am no skinnier than the last time I saw him, but it has been a minute and when I look back over the arc of time I have known Cal, I have been heavier more so than skinny.  Nice to have some perspective when it comes to friends who have seen you through a lot.

Calvin has seen me through a lot and vice versa.

Man it was good to see him and Diane.  We caught up, we discussed travel plans, they had just gotten back from a recent trip to New York, we talked about Paris, life, love, dating, poop.

Yes, that would be Calvin, apropos of absolutely full on being a guy, he gives me “shit” about dating, then talks about how he wants to make a video of him pooping on random people and places, The “Dukie” of Hazards or some such thing.

I cannot possibly explain why this is funny.  Poop is apparently funny.  I laugh more so because of how much it amuses him.  Watching him crack himself up makes me laugh.

I have good friends.

I caught up with them and they with me and it was pretty awesome.  I did a lot of seeing people today, this weekend in general, I saw a lot of people I love and care for and I got to see people who I have not seen in a while.

I got to engage and live and laugh and cry, oh, it would not be a Carmen Martines moment without a few tears and some messy eye make up.

I have got to ditch the liquid eye liner.  It looks fantastic going on, but man, coming off is quite another story.

I went for a motorcycle ride this evening as well and my eyes teared up on the ride, partially from the layers of memory that rushed over me as we climbed over the hills and sped through the park, and partially because I had teared up earlier in the evening and I had eye make up running into my eyes and they continued to tear up regardless of my desire to be smoldering.

Nothing says sexy like running mascara.

It could say hot mess, but I like smolder better.

Thank you very much.

What else is sexy?

Keeping my thoughts to myself and not overwhelming another person with them.  I got to hang out tonight and see that my ideas about dating despite my thinking that I could be clear and direct, are simply not aligned.

Despite angling for a motorcycle ride and wanting to get the I find you attractive off my chest, it just never happened.  I don’t think that I have a direct bone in my body.  I could take this as a sign that it’s just not going to happen and I did just that.

I just enjoyed what was happening.  Good conversation, a ride along the night streets of San Francisco and a deepening of my appreciation for all the little interconnectedness that is my life in San Francisco.

My world is growing so big.

I am in love with this city and I find it not ironic or paradoxical in the least that it is flourishing and thriving and I am leaving for another city.

I could berate myself for the timing, but the timing never has been and probably never will be mine.  I am at peace with this.  All signs point to Paris and I have no regrets about things left unsaid

Like seriously left unsaid.  Some times there is just not an opening to be had.

For instance all I wanted to do was take the man on the motorcycle and kiss the day lights out of him and haul him upstairs.  But when the gentleman in question never takes off his helmet to say good night, I must take that as a sign.  This is just a friend.  Another friend.

Sigh.

A good thing, honestly, really, he’s too busy, I’m too busy, it was exhausting to hear that things he had going on and the think of all the things I have going on.

My days off are never days off.

But they are full and wonderful and I cherish every single moment.  I cherish everything about my time in this city, in these neighborhoods that I have gotten to experience and explore and live in.

I cherish my friends and all the friends they have and all the friends yet to come.

May all my days off be this wonderfully full.

 

 

Get Me To the Internet!

Slightly frustrated here up in the hills, I cannot connect to the internet.

Come on Universe, don’t you know I need to download True Blood and the newest episode of Breaking Bad.

Really now.

Writing the blog no matter what, so this is just going to live on my computer until the internet comes back up.  If it does not, I’ll post when I get connection or I can take my lap top with me tomorrow into the Mission and hop over to a cafe.

Beth has the keys to my place, she’s moving into the Mission and I am letting her crash at my place until she can move into her new digs.  Funny how things all sort themselves out.

Not having the inter-webs really is the only issue on my day, then that’s not a bad day at all.

Nope.  Not at all.

Time to sit here in the kitchen listening to the Myna Birds and enjoying a little evening snack–ripe organic mango dusted with raw coco powder and pumpkin pie spice, a sprinkle of raw flax seeds and some plain, non-fat yogurt.

Yeah, I know, healthy sounds boring, but it is exquisite.  And a big mug of my favorite tea steaming off to the side.

I just finished taking care of the fish tank, vacuumed out 20 gallons of water, balanced the Ph, replaced the twenty gallons I took out, added some iron to the tank, fed the fishes, gave them a little algae wafer and patted myself on the back.

That is what the instructions said to do, so I did–pat myself on the back, that is.

The cats are fed.  The litter boxes cleaned out.  All my responsibilities to the homestead have been met.

I also cleaned a little, took out the trash and recycling and the compost and did three loads of laundry, striped the bedding, and made the bed.

Not too bad.

And I cooked.

Oh, gorgeousness, having a kitchen.  I miss the cooking, I do, I do.  I made a pot of brown rice and a chicken and shrimp stew with edamame, Big Boy Tomatoes from the Farmers Market, green beans, baby corn, spinach, coconut milk, garlic, sea salt and pepper.

It was lovely to have a hot, home cooked lunch today.  I miss having a kitchen.  I could get used to this real fast.

I will be taking full advantage of having  stove and an oven.  I see big pots of soup in my future.

Yeah, I know it’s July, that’s cold and fog season here in San Francisco, perfect soup and stew weather.  I foresee French red lentil soup will be next on the menu.  I have not made a pot of soup since I left Nob Hill in November.

I had a lot of time reflecting today.  Seeing how far I have come in the last five years.  Five years ago I was house sitting for a former supervisor who lived up in the old hospital on Buena Vista Terrace.  My life has changed so much.

I am still the essential Carmen, but I have been mightily tempered.

I am the better for it.

The best part of it is that I have slowed down.  Yes, I am still a speedy little thing, I still blast about town trying to cram as much as possible into my day, but I have slowed down a lot.

I am able to sit with myself a whole lot better than I have ever been able to do.  I sat today for fifteen minutes meditating.  I used to not even be able to contemplate a three-minute sit, let alone a fifteen minute.

Hell, on Thursday, I did a forty-five minute sit.

Granted there were some special circumstances involved that day, but I can do it.

I was not able to sit for even three minutes yesterday.  I did not quite get my timing down with my morning routine and being in a new space.  I noticed it at work.  I doubt any one else noticed it, but I could tell I was just a touch off my stride.

I just tried the internet again and no go.  I may be just kicking it with a book this evening.  Not a horrible thing, no.

I just picked up a novel next to the bed the night before last, (last night I had internet so I was busy catching up with the blog) about a female detective in Paris.

I have to say I was mostly compelled by the blurb on the back page about the author as I was about the novel itself.

I am not a huge mystery fan, a good one can be engrossing, but they are not typically my first pick.

The brief bio reads, “Cara Black is the author of eleven books in the Aimee Leduck series.  She frequently vistis Paris but lives in San Francisco with her husband and son.”

OH my.

I like the sound of that.

The author, Carmen Martines lives in Paris, but frequently visits San Francisco, where she resided for ten years prior to moving to the Montmartre area of Paris.

Imagine if you will.

I can see it.

It did not hurt that I was re-introduced to John Hall tonight.  Jeannie came up to me tonight and said, “hey, did you see who’s here?”  And she pointed across the room, “John Hall.”

Oh damn.

I knew he was coming to San Francisco, but I thought it was another week or two out.  The French are here in droves, every where I have been in the last few days I have heard French.  Paris is terrifically hot in the summer months and many Parisians escape to the sea-side or to the country, or to the states, especially San Francisco, where the summer is decidedly not summer.

See soup note above.

I met John six years ago through Silas Payne.  Si had introduced us and said, “he’s a good man to know when you move to Paris.”

I still cannot recall how it was that Si knew I wanted to move to Paris, at the time I was in the process of moving out to the Bayview, who the hell would have known it? But it was as though the Universe was looking out for me even before I was acknowledging that I really was going to do this move.

Then I ran into John three years ago May of 2009 when I was visiting Paris, an hour and a half after getting off the plane at Charles De Gaulle International.  I got off the train into the City Center and had some time do kill before heading to my hotel.

I did a little service for him.

“I remember you!  You’re from San Francisco, let’s hear your story.”

Well, ok, I just got off the plane, but yes, of course, I was taught you say yes when asked.  When in Rome, or Paris, as the case may be.

And there he was tonight, eyes twinkling under his white hair, in a bright Kelley green cardigan.  He waved to me from across the room and I could barely sit still I wanted to ask so many questions, even though when I did get to engage with him, I got shy and found it hard to express myself.

I was suddenly face to face with the reality of the situation.

This is really happening.

I went out to dinner with him and Jeannie, Carolyn, Julie, Denise, Kim, Buzz, and Annette.  We took over a big table at the restaurant and I just basked in the personalities of the group.

I also sat with my right hand in my pocket, rubbing a little gem John had given me, a special chip that I will be carrying with me until I get to Paris to give it back to where it came from.

I have a little bit of Paris right now in my pocket.

The fog swirls around Buena Vista and the chill air whispers to me of adventures to come.

I am nervous, excited, exalted and elevated.  I really am elevated, fuck, the bike ride up here is gnarly.

I am living this life to my fullest capabilities and the best is still to come.

Now, pardon me, while I try to get online.

 

 

 

 

Temporary Digs

I missed my blog last night.

I missed this, sitting at the keyboard, a cup of Bengal spice tea steaming alongside me, listening to music, typing away about my day.

I forgot to bring my laptop with me to the house sitting gig and instead of writing I got myself situated.  I spread out a little, I played with the cats, I fed the fish, I still made tea, and I read for a little while in bed.

I thought I would have a hard time falling asleep, but no, Alex and Shannon’s bed is a dream.

Note to self, a nice bed really does make a difference.

Note to self, time to get a nice bed.

Well, maybe not quite yet, I think  a nice bed may cost as much as a ticket to Paris, so I doubt that I will be purchasing one any time soon, but my gosh, when I have some cash, and I am situated, preferably in Paris, I am going to invest.

I slept so well.

I fell asleep with Miss Penelope La Roux snuggle atop me.

Mushi deigned to let me pet him, but Miss La Roux and I could not get enough of each other.  I did not know how much I missed having a cat around.  Especially a snuggle bunny kitten.

She crawled all over me.  There was a moment when I thought, nope, I am going to be putting her out of the room, but the purring and the snuggling were too sweet to let go of and I drifted off on the cloud of a bed and was deliciously cradled and blissfully slept.

I fell asleep thinking of Robin and how much fun it was to flirt with him last night.  Some how it is ridiculously easy to flirt with some one when I don’t think it will go anywhere and I also found out he was not even here in town anymore.  I had just thought he was over in the Avenues living with his brother.

Nope.  He had moved back to Minnesota and was back for a job interview.

Minnesota, the Avenues, really, about the same difference.

I had not seen him in some time and it was fun to reconnect.  I briefly flirted with idea of just blatantly propositioning him, but I could not quite do it.

I fell asleep thinking it would be fun to just make out and have a good snuggle with the boy, and boy is about the gist of it, he is a young’un.

Then, out of the blue, this morning I woke up from a dream.  A dream where I was looking at some one who was looking at me with those fathomless blue eyes that know you like them and maybe they like you, but they are certainly not going to say anything, now are they?

It was 6:39 a.m.

I cannot remember the last time I actually woke up during a dream.  It has been a long time.  I do dream, but as I keep myself so busy, I rarely wake in the night to dreams.  My REM cycle is quite undisturbed.

I have very vivid dreams and when I remember them I remember them in Technicolor.

His eyes, wide sky blue, deep, wry, quixotic.

I did not fall asleep again thinking of Robin, that’s for sure.

Although, I did awaken to a flirtatious text from the boy.

As though it was going to go anywhere.  Fly away pretty young one, back to the land of 10,000 Lakes from whence you came.

I will say this much, it is nice being paid attention too.  I don’t know if it is because I have become so easy in my skin or if it’s just the hounds sniffing the departure date.

Perhaps it is because I am more and more embracing my authentic self.  That ended up being my ideal.  When I left Carolyn that was the summation of the inventory, the cherry on the sundae, so to speak.

A sea salted carmelized sundae of humility with a pickled sour Queen Anne cherry perched a top mounds of whipped love.

I really do feel inwardly re-arranged, it does happen.  The metamorphoses is not complete, but I feel freer than I have ever felt before.  More at ease, more relaxed, more authentically me.

Softer.

Tempered.

Striped down to the essential me.

My heart has felt outside of my rib cage and I feel an exquisite ache in my breath in my throat, in my shoulders, in my bones.

The ride has been tumultuous and the hallway long.

I was so entrenched in my old ideas of self it is hard to believe I was able to dig my way out.  I am resoundingly grateful that I allowed the pain to swallow me whole and spit me back out onto the beach of a new world, a new self, a new landscape.

I can remember with all too much alacrity how desperate I was in December and January.  How difficult it was to be in a new job and not have a place to live.  I felt absolutely adrift.  I cannot recall a birthday where I cried more, sobbed really, sober and bereft and barren.

I was lonely at Christmas.  I was working on New Years.  I was shedding my old self and the peeling off of all the things I thought I needed to have sloughed away like phantoms of irony and bitter tea leaves.

I thought I knew what I wanted.  I thought I knew what I was supposed to be doing.

I was nowhere near, nowhere close, and I was as close to miserable and adrift as I had been in some time.

I had opened up the door and stepped out into the hallway and I had absolutely no idea how long that bitch was going to be.

Had I known, of course, I would probably still be a nanny, adrift in potty training and nanny cams and miserable and isolated, wandering around Mission Bay interacting only with the barista at Peasant Pies.

I was living my life without salt, not even knowing that I had the option to season my fare.

It just took a lot of tears and voila, after a lot of dragging, I finally let go.

Surrendered.

I went over to the winning side, once again, and now, although I still am in the hallway, I see it as a new adventure rather than a sentence.

It could be argued, I suppose, that life is just one long hallway, from that first stunning, shocking entry point, until the end focus point of hyacinth light, perfumed with love and acceptance.

I don’t want to be there yet, although I can feel that I am closer to that focal point than the beginning, I still believe that the best is yet to come.

May it be that I get to end it adrift in a clotted drift of warm bedded bliss, my own preferably.

Until that may happen, I will happily enjoy every moment that I get in the next few weeks in this borrowed bed.

Drowsed and warmed by a small friendly cuddle beast of a kitten.

Six Degrees of Shadrach

I really did not want to write about this tonight.

Sometimes I get frustrated with myself and think that I should be further along in the process.  Forgetting completely that the process is not linear and that it is a process.

I got a call from a very dear, very close, very loved friend last night right before doing my Wednesday night deal.

Her father committed suicide last night.

Baby, I am so sorry, I am so sorry for your loss, for your heartbreak, I just wanted to smother you and hold you and hug you and all I could do was say let me help, let me hold your hand, let me be there for you.

So, I am.

I am getting to be of service.

I will be house sitting for her and her husband while they travel toward the family and do what families do at times like this, gather, like wild geese at midnight, soughing with their cries of pain through the whistling midnight air high above the earth.

They got on an airplane this evening at 10 p.m. and headed to the East Coast.

I got done with work tonight, muffled, my heart aching for them, and rode my bike home.  I had an assignment to do, some sitting that had to be done.

Challenging at first to sit, to be still to let myself get into the rocking chair by the window and ignore the texts and the calls and the Facecrack updates and just be.

I pulled the book down from the shelf and looked over the first five proposals.  Had I left anything out, had I shared all that I had to share?  Was I setting my foundation with mortar or sand.

I left it all out on the kitchen counter in Noe Valley with Carolyn, my trusted advisor, and then went to work.  I did not have the time to take the hour before work.  I went in, told my GM I was taking a long lunch off site and when one o’clock rolled around I punched out and got in my friend’s car and drove with him up to the Castro.

My darling sweet girl, sitting in piles of photographs, packing, sifting, red tear-stained face, aching heart, oh, love, I feel your loss.

I got the keys to the house, the instructions on how to feed the fish, where to take the recycling, how to separate out the kitten from the big adult cat.  I got to hug my friend, I wish I could have just hugged her a little longer,  a little stronger, a little harder.

But I left her knowing that her house and her babies, because your kitties and your fish are your babies, don’t let any one tell you different, were going to be ok.

I will be up in the Castro for the next three weeks until they have taken care of all that has to be taken care of.

I pray that she remembers to take care of herself.

She is very much in my heart right now.

Very much.

I got a lift back down to the bike shop and frankly, I just quietly did my job.  I put a smile on my face and a polite wall up.  I just did not have a whole lot to give.  I did what I had to do and left right on the nose at seven p.m.

I rode home with the chill fog whirling around me.

I associate fog with death.

Five years ago when it would get to overwhelming at General I would walk to the window on the third floor of the ICU and I would watch the fog swirl down over Twin Peaks.

Shadrach lay quietly, a cathedral of love, in the locked doors behind me to the left.  I would turn off my phone and press my face against the window and feel that cold fog pressing over the hill and onto the hot red pain of tears streaking down my face and I would just try to breathe.

And here I am again.

Losing myself in the hollowed out hills of pain.

I have learned an awful lot about love since that time and loss.  Loss by the way is not loss, but an opportunity to make space for more love.

If I could just catch my breath.

If I could just sit.

Sometimes I would slide down onto the floor of the hospital corridor and lean into that window and if I had remembered to turn off the phone and there was a lull in the visiting hours I would have moments of serenity.

I did not know that was what it was.

It was either that or shock.

I was hollowed out.

I met Shannon on the AIDS ride training three years ago.  I did the AIDS ride for Shadrach.  She and I bonded, became friends, and now here I am taking care of the epicenter of her life while she goes to bury her father.

I met Jefferson at the Decompression party that Shadrach threw at his loft in the Dog Patch.  Jefferson was my wing man, my steady right hand, the arms I collapsed into when I could not hold the grief any longer.  Jefferson took me to Burning Man.  Jefferson is prodded me into doing the AIDS ride, where I met Shannon and her soon to be husband Alex.

Jefferson is now my boss and still my good friend.

I rode my bicycle past the gorgeous Annie, who I met five years ago, sitting behind me, in a dingy room in the Mission, weeping my eyes out over my friend laying in state.  She went to Burning Man, grew up, went back to school graduated, moved in with her boyfriend and only gets more lovely with time.

It really felt like that, he was lying in state.  He was with us for a week before they harvested him and spread his joy over the world.

David Allen.

John Ater.

ACK.

Shadrach introduced me to John Ater one dark and wonderous night at the corner of Castro and Market.

John Ater for whom I cannot ever express my love and gratitude enough for.  This gentle bear of a man who held me and let me sob on his shoulder, who took my abuse, and wiped away my tears, sometimes with a roll of paper towels.  Sometimes with the sleeve of his shirt.

John who taught me how the fuck to grow up and own my dreams.

John who gave me something I get to pass onto others–the gift of being loved and lovable and worthy of love.

Shadrach you gift giver you.

I sat for an hour.

Tears drifted down my face like the soft heart of sea salt fog and now the fog is not a death, but a balm, a separating and a love, a soothing embrace.

I recall a ride I took recently, we rushed over the hills up into Noe Valley and the fog, dense, wet, heavy, drifted in drowsy with sea salt and the pull of the moon high hiding behind the masses of clouds and vapor.

I was overwhelmed by the near invisibility and the fast rush of the cycle as it climbed the hills.  My heart in my mouth, I just closed my eyes and held on.  I was carried where I was supposed to go.

Church and Market.

And Elizabeth said to me, “Go write down those things that are easy for you to see the go(o)d in.”

My cat Uni purring

Fresh flowers in a mason jar

The smell of verbena

Clean sheets

My rocking chair (same chair I sat in tonight)

The smell of wood burning

Dancing

A really hot shower

Coffee

Hummingbirds when they are perched

Salt

The drive to Sky High Orchard through Devil’s Lake State Park.

The fog rolling over Twin Peaks minutes after sunset

Ice cubes

Cold water when I am thirsty

The way grass feels on my bare feet

The giraffe that winked at me at the Decompression party

The way Madeleine’s arms felt when she was five, heavy, sweet, wet from the pool, the whisper of her voice as she kissed my ear and said, “I love you.”

The sunset from the rock of Gibraltar when I was five

The low-lying mist burning off over the cornfields in the morning

Sitting by myself in the dark looking at the lights on the Christmas tree and that feeling that always comes over me

Finding shells on the black sand beach when I was four

Reading Watership Down for the first time

Arthur as a boy in T.H. White’s the Once and Future King

Lizz’s hugs

Singing to Storm when she was a baby

Talking with Alex on the phone

Not recognizing myself in the mirror.

Having dreams and knowing that as long as I stay sober I will be graced with love.

Shadrach kissing my forehead at Room to Grow and making me laugh

Last line of the first list, 10/21/05

Shannon I love you.  Shadrach I love you for all the amazing people who are in my life because of you–Wendy, Fred, Paine, David Allen, John Ater, Bradley Merle Smith, Tom Jarman, Matthew, Jayne, Jefferson, Claudia, Barnaby (thank you, I still get amazing compliments on my memorial tattoo), Grecia, Scott Hirsch, Robert Cameron, Mark Henry, Tricia, Jackie, Calvin, Kevin, Zefrey, Megan Miller, my God the list is so long and I can’t remember it all.

I just feel you all.  I feel you in the whisper of fog and the kiss of moisture on my forehead and I open my heart and thank God from the bottom of it for getting to know him better.

I have an arch way, a solid rising ring of love to walk beneath.  My mortar is set, my heart beating fresh alive, outside my rib cage burning with the divine and the salt of pain and loss which invigorates me and fills me up, renders me whole, despite feeling split asunder.

Thanking God from the bottom of my heart that I get to know him better.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

 

Crestfallen

His face.

“When are you moving to Paris?”

November 1st.

“Oh.”

“Well shoot.”

Well shoot is right.  God is funny, ain’t he?  I was invited out to burritos two Wednesdays ago and I took a pass.  But I said, maybe tea sometime?

So, tea tonight, after the most ludicrous, busy, off the wall day I have had in, oh, who the hell am I kidding?  They are all crazy and off the wall right now.  Today just felt more untenable because I was left alone a lot in the shop today.

Granted, there were people out and about, the marketing team was there, the GM was there, the GM’s assistant was there, the head builder and back of house supervisor was there, two mechanics were there, but I, was the only front of house person.

Every one else was off doing what they do.  Marketing was taking photographs, builders were across the street building bikes, the GM was in financial meetings all day long, I don’t know what his assistant was doing, but keeping out of my way was a good place to start.

There was all the catching up to do from yesterday and the follow-up calls and e-mails and online chats and walk in customers and selling bikes and helmets and re-ordering stickers and packaging up and sending out international bike orders, they like us in Berlin, oh yes they do.

There was the complete breakdown and wanting to walk the fuck out the front door and not doing it when the printer ran out of ink while printing off the customs order for the shipment to Berlin, which was highly time sensitive and had to go out today, today, right the fuck now, and I am on my knees behind the front desk cajoling and berating the printer to work.

When you know, God laughs, and sends in a group of four middle age men from Seattle to test ride the bikes and then another separate group of guys from LA and a family visiting from Lodi, who all try on the Yakkay helmets (fuck me, these helmets the bain of my existence) and I am suddenly saddling up two guys with cans of pickled beets being passed around and photographed with them and what the hell is happening?

And can I just get the printer to work and why the hell did my co-workers leave so many loose ends to tie up?  And.

And.

And.

Me in bathroom both laughing, swearing, and praying all at same time.  Peeing furiously, you know that feeling when you can’t pee fast enough and you are so busy that you have to get back into it.

Holy shit.

Then the printer.

Then the near break down.

And pause.

And breathe.

And it’s just a bike shop.

This is so a first world problem.  Let me count my blessings–rent paid, food in tummy, warm bed to sleep in, clean clothes, phone bill paid, laptop works well, nice camera, good hair day (shaddup), it’s a bike shop.  Yes, I know, you are special and where is my bike and I want a photograph now, but there’s only one of me and I have five e-mails open and the phone ringing and customers with cans of pickled beets on their heads (I was cued into the joke later and it was funny), and the Hummer from Tacolicious double parked in the bike lane.

And it’s just a bike shop.

Oooooh ooooooh, oh, sweet love.

Ah, yes, sigh, there it is, just plug into the best of the Commodore’s.

Life got you crazy?  Play some Commodore’s, bring it home.

Mellow.

Yes.

I told the GM today that I was overwhelmed and I could tell he was overwhelmed and every single person there was overwhelmed and the marketing gal told me she actually went home and cried herself to sleep last night there is so much work happening right now that needs to be addressed.

It’s a bike shop she said, smiled and my manic panic mellowed out a little.

Until the shop got swamped again.  But I got the printer up and running, a courier was arranged to run on over and get ink replacement cartridges from Office Depot, shipped out literally over 30 packages today, answered over 40 e-mails, answered many a phone call and helped my head builder sort out six bike builds.

Then the GM said, Carlos is going back to school and we have him for one more week and despite the 100s of applicants and the interviews they have been doing, they have not found a replacement.

And we are all just going to have to pull together.

Bahahahahahaha.

Sure.

Anyway.

I left.  I kept myself together, I was of vast service, I slayed it.  I got hugged today and thanked today and danced a jig with a bike customer.  And I got on my bike, narrowly avoiding the person double parking in front of Bar Tartine and got some groceries to  the house.

I have groceries.  I have so much.

I sat for an hour and I was of service and then I got asked out to tea.

“Well, you see, I find you very attractive.  You’re honest and smart and beautiful, you really are very beautiful, I hope you know that,” he said and smiled leaning over his tea-cup with big brown eyes.

I have to say I got a little bashful.

“I listen to what you say.  I like what you have to say, and, are you really moving to Paris?”

Yes.

I really am.

Despite the sudden influx of manly interest, where the heck were you all a few months ago?

He shook his head, “well, I would still like to hang out with you, although, I have to say I probably will keep dating other people, I am looking for marriage eventually.”

Ok, God, you are just hysterical here.

Oh, and he dances.  Salsa, tango, merengue.  Fuck.

That being said if it was supposed to happen it would have and in the mean time, we agreed to hang out, maybe take a dance class together and have a little fun.

“Jesus, you really are beautiful.”

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I am flattered and I do feel beautiful today, loved, supported, and caught, despite not knowing what is below holding me up, I know it is there and I believe it is that faith that is attracting the men folk.

When you do what is in your heart you light up.

I am lit the hell up.

Great pain, great love, great lightness, great gratitude.  Life.  Overwhelming and divine and amazing and the light falls all over you dusting you with piano notes of divinity and lighting you from within.

Light me up.

Love what you have.

Get into it.

Lighten up.

It’s Not a Geographic

It’s a leap of faith.

Damn straight.

I recently got my first naysayer.  “OH, you don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Duh.

“We need to talk.”

No we don’t.

“You should be warned.”

I should be warned to not respond to your Facecrack messages.

Don’t rain on my happy parade with your bucket of bull shit.

Of course I don’t know what I am doing.  I am doing it anyway.  I am not supposed to know what I am doing, if I knew what I was doing then why would I bother?

Does anyone really know what they are doing?

All I need to know is that I will be caught when I leap.  I always have been.  I always will be.

Granted, it may not be the way I imagine it to be.

Sexy Frenchman sweeps into my San Franciscan life with loads of money and invites me to live with him have his babies and happily write while he supports me until I get my books published to great renown.

That’s never how it works.

Because that is fantasy land.

Fantasy land, like Candyland is a game I play to distract myself from reality.  The reality which is much more beautiful for being here, present, Goldfrapp crooning in my ear, just letting myself be taken.

Surrender.

Leap.

Go have an experience!

I am crazy.  I know I am crazy and that puts me ahead of the ball rather than behind it.  As I can acknowledge the cray cray up in my head I can address it instead of ignoring it.

When some one, who also wanted to go out on a date with me, not going to happen, ever, creepy man, anyone masquerades their intentions with “help” I am drastically turned off.  Don’t FaceBook stalk me.  Don’t send me messages about having talked with “David”  fyi, that was John Ater, and don’t put your fear on me.  Own your own fucking fear, I got enough to deal with.

I knew it was a coming.  There was going to be some one, and frankly, I’m sure he’s not the first to think it, there are probably plenty of folks out there that feel I am absolutely doing the wrong thing.

Fact is, that’s their business, not mine.

My business is to attend to what is at hand.  I do the daily work, small steps at a time to get to that next place.

Bless you Howard for saying that I’m not pulling a geographic.

I am taking a leap of faith.

I love it.

Some times it feels like free fall, but I get to constantly remind myself that it is like being on a roller coaster, I am held, I am held tightly, safely, cradled, and I will be caught.  It may feel untenable at times, but it is the ride of my life and I am not about to get out of the seat now.

I paid the admission price.

I have stood in line.

I have watched the show on the television screen and now I am going to get it on.

I did get to unexpectedly see John Ater tonight and share with him the negative Nancy e-mail I got from the naysayer and he agreed–not my crap.  And he also said, get prepared, this guy will not be the first, there will be more who tell me that it won’t work.

And maybe it won’t.

Maybe I will fail miserably.

But frankly, failing miserably at something is ok.  I have to start somewhere.  I have to make a beginning.  One does not go to school because they already know the answers. School is for learning, life is for learning.

Teach me.

I want to be teachable.

I got the most pleasant moment today walking a co-worker through something in Quick Books.  I could not believe the words that were coming out of my mouth as I gently, adroitly led him through the process of building an invoice, applying credits and payments and properly closing out the transaction.

Who is this person?

Just a few scant months back the notion of doing any of this was pure fantasy and yet I learned how and then I got to turn around and teach some one else how to do it.

If anything I get the joy of sharing with the people in my life my life.  I get to have experiences, do things, travel, move, flail, perhaps fail, thrive, fall flat on my face, laugh at myself, first time trying clipless pedals anyone?  Then I get to share how I learned and I get to teach in return.

David Allen once looked at me and said, “girl, you are a teacher.”

I am.

I am partially because I do honestly want to learn more.  Oh, yeah, I get scared, I want to come across as knowledgable and right and like I have all my shit together.  But, when I get vulnerable and let some one show me how to do something I get to let them share their experience and that is a marvelous joy.  Then, oh, then, I get to do the same thing for the next new person down the line.

The lineage is astounding and beautiful and I get to be a part of a great whole just doing the things that fulfill me and my dreams and my heart.

I also gain in humility.

I could be embarrassed by the fact that I made a grand announcement to the world that I was going to get married at Burning Man this year.

Oops.

I don’t have a boyfriend or a ticket to the event.

Ha.

I could be chagrinned.  Or I could say, I tried something new, I tried to Call in the One, I investigated and then found out after a year of no sexy that I was not having it.

I’m going to go where the water is warm.

Might be over in Oakland.

Could be down the street.

Might be a cobblestone street.

John Ater tonight said I will have gaggles of French men.

Excellent.

He also said I might have a gaggle of babies.

Excellent.

Ha.

I have no idea even if I want either.

Oh, ok, I do like the idea of both.  I am just not hedging my bets on that’s the way I will stay in France.  Pick me up some French man and get married and whelp babies and be domesticated.

Can you domesticate a hellcat 39-year-old woman with tattoos of stars on her neck who rides a Rock Star Sparkle pony fixed gear?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Catch me when I leap and we’ll talk.

Short Stories

I un-earthed a few short stories today as I was sorting through some of the stacks of notebooks and folders I have.

Here is one of them:

Sleep

Jennifer slid out of bed quickly before Mark could wake up.  She padded to the bathroom and climbed into the shower.  The hot water woke her quickly and she smiled up into the cascading water thinking about making breakfast for her man.  They had only just moved into the new house after a too short honeymoon; this was their first weekend home together before work started up again.  Jennifer wanted to make sure everything was perfect, she had even done a little furtive grocery shopping when Mark was not looking to make sure she had all the ingredients for his favorite breakfast.

It was still early and the sun was just breaking across the tops of the windows, a pearly soft grey that shot shivers across her arms, rapid goose bumps of anticipation.  She could already see the tree limb where Mark was going to hang a tire swing for the boys, and the corner just adjacent, that would bet he ideal spot for a sandbox, maybe even a teeter totter.   She giggled quietly to herself; maybe she had just better focus on breakfast rather than the non-existent babies she had not born yet.

Jennifer ground up some coffee beans in the hand grinder her grandmother had given her as a wedding gift–the same grinder that her grandmother’s grandmother had passed down when she had gotten wed.  They had been given a lot of high-tech gadgetry by the partners at Mark’s firm, but she wanted to make that first pot of coffee in her new home the old-fashioned way.  As she milled the beans she looked out the kitchen window, the sun rolled across the deep green lawn and there it was, the outlines of her future garden.

Thoughts of crisp summer green beans, warm tomatoes just off the vine with a sprinkling of coarse sea salt, corn on the cob with butter, ran through her head.  Saliva pooled in her mouth and she laughed again.  This house was so wonderfully perfect.

Maybe she could even convince her grandfather to let her in on some of the secrets to his vegetable garden.  Jennifer knew that he got most of his seeds from a boutique catalog out of Atlanta, Georgia.  She had to wheedle this information out of him.  Oh, and yes, she must ask for some raspberry canes to cultivate too.  She would have warm sun ripened raspberries with cream, sprinkled with sugar, in a white ceramic bowl, just like the ones she used to pick with her grandmother.

Coffee now gently perking she started sifting some flour to make cinnamon rolls.  Mixing the flour, salt, and water together into a small trough she then kneaded it for just a moment–she did not want tough rolls.  She tuned on the oven to let it preheat and left the dough in a bowl covered with a  damp white kitchen towel to let it rise.

While the dough was rising and the oven heating she mixed together powdered sugar, and microwaved a small dish of butter to mix into the sugar, then she added a splash of cream and some good Bourbon vanilla to make the icing.  She greedily licked the spoon while absent-mindedly looking out the kitchen window again, a smile curving the planes of her face, when Mark slid up behind her.  His hands still cool from sleep slid up underneath her shirt and cupped themselves against her breasts.

She shivered and leaned back into him without saying a word.  His hands quickly warmed to her temperature and their skin became as one.  He nuzzled her neck and slowly turned her around to him.  Jennifer dipped her finger into the bowl of icing and put it to his mouth.  He sucked it off slowly looking into her eyes and then kissed her.  The sweetness overwhelmed her and she stretched up on her tip toes to wrap her arms around his neck.

Mark scooped her up and settled her onto the lip of the porcelain sink.  His hands were moving up the flank of her leg, when she suddenly looked up, startled by the sharp acrid smell of something burning.  “What’s burning?”  She thought with alarm.

“Mark, Mark, wait, something’s burning,” she said, pulling away from his embrace.  She looked at the counter and saw the bowl of dough, she had not put the rolls into the oven yet.

“Mark!  Something is burning!”  She repeated herself and slowly began to wake up, the walls encroaching in, the gray of dawn bleeding into the tiny room they had rented the night before in a single room occupancy “hotel” the night before.

“Mark, god damn it, wake the fuck up, ” she cried, shoving his cold hand off of her thin leg.

Her kit was laid spread out on the wobbly bedside table, the Gideon bible beneath it, smug in its drawer.  “That is odd,” she thought to herself, it should not be there.  They had finished off the score and wrapped her kit back up before nodding into oblivion.

Jennifer suddenly realized that the hot plate was on and there was a can of soup on it whose paper wrapper had caught and was smoldering, sending up curls of smoke into the air.

“Fucking hell, Mark!  What were you thinking, you ass, you could have burned the whole fucking place down!”

Jennifer slid shivering out of bed, unplugged the hot plate and dumped the remnants of some flat Pepsi onto the burning can.  She turned around to crawl back into bed where Mark lay curled, rubber tubing still tied off his right arm, his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Mark,” she whimpered, “Mark?”

The grey light snaked its way across the bed.  She pulled off the tubing, arranged his  arms around her and tried to find some warmth, something of his cinnamon scent to fall back into.

Sleep, she shivered, tremblingly adjusting his stiff shanks against her body, just need to sleep, everything will be all right if she could just fall back asleep.

The End.

 

Not bad.  Not great.  Needs some work, which I can see after typing it in here.  I don’t know where the original is, but I think I may make something of this.  And yes, I will submit it somewhere.

There’s another I found as well, and I really like it, perhaps I shall post it tomorrow.  It feels really wonderful to begin the sorting out process of my work.  I want to get as much of it online as I can and as much into my computer before I go as possible.

And perhaps, just perhaps, get some things published outside of my blog.

Just perhaps.

 

Pulling the Trigger Slowly

I told my land lord’s son today that I was moving to Paris in November.

He asked that I give his mom a month and a half.  I am fairly certain he will tell her any day now and I will make it official.

If it’s official in my head is it really official?

I made the decision after writing my blog last night that I am going to buy my ticket, round trip, with my next paycheck.  It will be a fairly “big” check.

Bahahahahaha.

Ah, that’s knee slapping good fun.

It will be larger than it normally is as I worked six days this past week, one of which was over ten hours and I took very few breaks, in fact I don’t think I actually, with the exception of the days we were on retreat, took more than five minutes on any given day.

That is how I roll.  I work through my lunch.  I work through my dinner.

I told Stephanie today that it feels like I am always eating at work.  This is true.  I have a snack there, lunch, and dinner.  I get up early before work, about two and a half to three hours before I have to be in, and I eat breakfast.

By the time I get to work, it is high time for a nibble.  Then lunch, then yup, I eat dinner at work too.  I never go home after I get done with work.  I am always off to another destination a meeting of fellows, if you will, and I cannot wait to eat dinner until I get home, that would be nuts for me.

I would end up not having supper until 9 or 10 p.m.

And a hungry bear I would be.

You don’t want to poke the hungry bear, I bite.

So, I eat at work.

Where the hell am I going with this?

Ah, yes, working extra hours.  This next pay period should have a few of them on there, plus, as we have our hours processed on the 1st and the 15th, I will have extra hours because this month is 31 days.  So my pay schedule will have a few more hours than normal.

Buying the ticket will make it a tight month, but as I reasoned out last night, doing it will truly put the Burning Man fantasy to rest.

I have to do the foot work and I did two things today toward that end.  I e-mailed a stranger in Paris, who came recommended to me from some one who heard I was moving and I told Cesar that I was moving.

I also told Cesar that should his folks be interested they could acquire my furnishings. I don’t really feel like moving much of it.  I will of course be putting some personal effects in storage.

The lovely Tanya has offered me that and I will be taking her up on it.

I just realized I did a lot more for moving to Paris today than just those two actions.  Although, those actions “feel” the most concrete.

I also investigated air fare and found what looks like the best ticket.  I looked at tickets with a three-month turn around.

I do not expect to actually be back in San Francisco in March of 2013, unless it is to visit and register for a work Visa, but that seemed to make the most sense when I was looking.  Simply from the stand point that my passport gives me three months to be in France.

I want to be there longer.  I want to go to the South of France.  I want to see Toulouse, I want to bicycle through the country side.  I also feel like I owe some living amends, so to speak to Toulouse as I was drunk as a skunk when I was there and I did not really get a chance to explore the city.

But, first Paris.

And London.

And where ever else in Europe or beyond I am supposed to be.

I also saw lovely, darling friends today and expressed my gratitude for them in my life and that was wonderful.  I had a cup of coffee and a quiet half hour in a cafe reading a book–Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses–then later lunch with Stephanie at Sunflower.

The waiter sees me coming, “veggie salad, hot tea!”

Yes please.

Divine.

Then off to Dolores park for the San Francisco Symphony performance.  It was delicious to sit in the grass and get some sunshine and read some more and I called John Ater and had a fantastic check in with him.

I listened to the symphony and read and snoozed a little in the grass.  When the bladder made itself known, hot tea, I headed back to the hacienda and had a session on the back porch with a cup of tea and an Esquire magazine.

Then, oh, wait for it, I took a nap!

Just a quick snooze, but my, it was luscious.  45 minutes of lying on my bed and just enjoying the warmth dissipating from my skin into the surrounding air.  It got windy today and the chilly fog was blowing in over Twin Peaks, but my little nook is in a really protected spot, so I got lots of unadulterated sunshine before my nap.

I drowsed, chatted with my mama on the phone about my upcoming visit, I will be swimming.  Holy cats,  I cannot imagine how hot it is going to be in September in Florida.  Then a little dinner and off to meet Meg at Ritual.

I have not been in Ritual on a Sunday late afternoon in some time.  It was jam-packed. But a table magically appeared right as my Americano came up and we settled in for an hour.

It was wonderful to get to know Meg a little better and as we wound up our time together the sun blasted in behind me through the open door warmly whispering across my neck and I smiled in absolute joy when Meg told me how inspired she was by my experience and just the fact that I was moving to Paris.

And so I am.

If only to show those that I love who come up behind me that it can be done.

You can have your dreams and eat them too.

They taste like cafe creme and smell like French perfume and they dance to accordion music along the Seine and ride like bicycles with baskets to markets with bright trembling baskets of pomme vertes and they will run before me with great joy as I chase them along the cobble stones and through the flea markets in the outer arrondissements.

Pulling the trigger softly, but pulling it nonetheless.

Hatching Plans

Now, when I say making plans, I hear in my own head, trying to figure it out.

Thus, in an effort to shake the crazy out my head I offer them here to you, my loyal readers and friends.  Here are all my kookoo ideas for Paris, travel, my life and beyond.

First, enter every single contest out there.  I mean, why can’t I be the next Publisher’s Clearing House winner?

Wouldn’t that be a fucking hoot?  Except they would probably get lost on the way to finding my entrance to the room.  They would show up at my front door and hand over some big over sized check and some one would take it (like my shoes that I mysteriously never got) and then, they would have a big party and I would be ducking out in the middle of it annoyed with the noise, to ride my bike to work ignorant of having just won 10 MILLION DOLLARS!

I also briefly considered offering to nanny at Burning Man for frequent flyer miles.  I do not honestly know where the hell this idea came from, I have a fount of them, but while it was happening, I got really excited.  Really, really excited.

“Really excited” has begun to be a cue for me.  Really excited means not really realistic.

I explained to some one last night, when they upon being asked how they were doing responded pretty happy, that it was “awesome”.

He replied by saying that he was” happy,” not awesome, and wanted some excitement, some more awesome.

Ah, not I said the fly, I associate happy with quiet and serene now.  I can get the same exact feeling from excitement as I do from anxiety.  Or for that matter adrenaline.  These are not always actually the kinds of states I want to be in.

I had this gorgeously exquisite series of moments walking up 24th street toward Diamond, noticing the scents of flowers, the feel of leaves as I brushed my hands over them, the textures of the walls, the coolness of the wind as it scattered before me brisk with that first edging taste of fog.

There was no excitement in these moments, but there was a gentle sonorous quality to my thoughts and my movement.  I felt awake and present and delicious with the sensory awareness of the moment.

This is happiness.

Another idea I had been to couch surf again for the last few months I would be in San Francisco.  I mean I did it for months already, why not again.

But it seems manipulative, petty, and tawdry.  Like, hey, friends, I want to save some money before my big move, so put me up on the cheap, ok?

Ah, not so much.

Another idea: be an in-house nanny for some family that will put me up.  I would be a night and weekend care taker in exchange for board.  Then I would not have to pay rent for the last couple months either.

That also feels weird, hey, put me up and I’ll watch your kid for rent.  I don’t know so much about that one either.

Throw a going away party and set up a donation jar.

E-mail every single person I know and give them my Pay pal account and say “surprise me”.

Every single “idea” comes down to asking for money and not doing shit for it.

Hey, look at me, I’m following my dream, now pay for it, will you?

I briefly went and priced out a round trip ticket to Paris as per  Barnaby’s suggestion.  I got a decent look-see around $976.  I don’t want to spend that much.

Yeah, well, no shit, no body wants to pay to travel, but ultimately that is what we do.

Unless I decide, as I heard discussed this evening, to hook up with some guy that has a lot of money and wants to fly me about, and I’m not attractive to him, what harm could that really do?

I look at her and said, “sounds like prostitution, but hey, if you’re down with that, hit it.” I know this, because I have had those same thoughts, and have had some one point them out for the bull shit it was.

Which is actually the reason behind throwing all these garbage thoughts out of my head and onto the “page”.  Some times just writing it out and seeing it helps get the frivolous out of my brain.

It also shows me that I am having a lack faith when I resort to these flights of fancy.  Magical thinking and fear, linked hand in hand.

Fantasy.

Fact is, I don’t want to live in fantasy.  Fantasy won’t get me to Paris.  Doing the foot work will.

One small step, finding out how much a round trip ticket costs.

Another small step, making the decision to buy that ticket with my next paycheck.  I can do that.

It will help me with two things.  First it will entirely slay the fantasy magic candyland crap I got going on in my reptilian brain about going to Burning Man.  Having dropped a grand on a ticket will definitely take any of the possibility of going to the playa out of my hands.

Oh, yeah, and a ticket will also mean I am going to Paris.

Holy shit.

I am going to Paris.

I noticed a subtle shift recently, when I write my morning pages I add affirmations, shut it Stuart Smiley, and I started writing I am moving to Paris as opposed to I am going to move to Paris.

I believe in affirmations and I believe in visualizations.

These are distinctly different from magical thinking, fantasy thinking, slot coin lotto jackpot delusions.  The affirmations are a constant and steady reminder that I have goals and that goals involve step work and doing the deal.

The problem and the solution are completely separate.

I want to be a brilliant, prolific, well paid writer.

I don’t just get offered a book contract because I am cute?  I mean I should, shouldn’t I?

Nope.

I do the god damn writing.  I write when I am tired.  I write when it’s raining, when it’s sunny, when I have a lover, when I don’t have a lover.  The writing must be the action and some point will come, generally when I am not paying attention, because I am enjoying the process when I realize–oh hey, look at that, I am prolific.

I am brilliant.

In my own mind, but hey, that’s a start.

I am published.

Even if it’s just a blog.

And the well paid?

That is the kicker.  I am so well paid I almost cannot stand it.  I am paid with the serene, quiet moments when I am in the flow and I my fingers seem to fly of their own accord over the keyboard and I become a channel for thoughts and ideas and words that I don’t even know I know–the tumultuous overflow of poetry and windfall of luscious words.  I am paid with the peace that comes in between the spaces of each word, the indents in the paragraphs.  I am paid with each complete line and sentence.

I am paid.

Paid well.

I am abundant and prosperous and taken care of.

I get to drop the plans and move on doing just this–writing, living, sleeping, breathing, dancing, moving to Paris.

One paycheck at a time.

Faith.

It means walking through the figuring it out baloney and having the experience of really doing something even when it does not feel like those actions will pan out.

I do it any way and I always discover, always, that the plans I have made are not nearly as amazing as what actually happens when I show up and do the work instead of pandering to the fantasy.

No pander, no prostitution, no self-propulsion.

Hell, what do I have left after that?

I don’t know, but I know this, the best is yet to come.

God damn that is good.

The best is yet to come.

AWESOME.

It’s Three A.M.

Do you know where your blog is?

Ah, good gravy.  I did it.  I went dancing.  Full on slam tilt boogie.  Hollered my head off, shook my ass, got good and hot and sweaty and let it all out.

All of it.

I have not had a session like that in some time.  It was just what the dance doctor ordered.  I made new friends.  I saw old friends.  I smiled so hard my cheek muscles ached.  I sang.  I even cried a little.

Uh, I mean, I got mascara in my eye and it made them water.

Ah, yeah.

Music is cathartic.  Dancing is soul sustenance.  I need them both.

I could tell today that I might have to do a rally when the day was over.  But oddly enough, even at 9:30 a.m. this morning I knew I was going dancing.  I don’t know if it was a case of the fuck its.

Fuck work.

Oh, I’ll still be going.  I don’t know how not to work unless I am sick and even then it takes some grave ass sick to get me down for the count.  I just won’t be my normal, I slept 8 hours perky self.

I will have a lot of coffee and at some point I will probably crash the hell out. So be it.

That’s the biggest fuck it I have today.

No more calling in sick from the back patio of the End Up.  No more after hours after hours after hours parties.  No more trying to flag a cab to get home before the sun rises and my room-mate gets up.

Nothing is worse than creeping in early in the morning and running into a room-mate getting up for their job.

Shiver.

Oh, and I will be a little sore tomorrow.  I am sore now.  This body likes to act young, but it ain’t no spring chicken anymore.

I was envying the gorgeous blue suede platforms that Siouxsie was wearing this evening and half-heartedly wished I had worn my heels too.  They made a brief appearance before the evenings dancing began, but I took them back off after acknowledging that although retardedly cute, they were not shoes meant for breaking off a groove in.

Out came the Converse.

I am glad that I made that choice.  I would not have lasted half as long.  My knees are sore, my neck is sore, my arms are sore.

Such a good ache though, the tenderness in my body pure unadulterated evidence of having gone out and embraced my life and let myself get right with God.

Yeah, music is God for me.

Get your Flash Dance reference in now, please.

Music is spiritual.  Music is love.  Music moves me.  I can’t explain it, I just know it when I feel it.

I certainly felt it tonight.

I probably looked like I was rolling on some sound E.

Nope.

It’s not you, it’s the E talking.

Wait a minute.

It is me.

It is me channeling the heavens right down through the palms of my hands into my arms to radiate out my breast-plate and down through my feet and connect me to the ground.

I felt it.

“I think some one has a crush on the dj,” a friend once said to me after I heard an earth-shaking set at 1015 by Jonathan Ojeda.

Nope.

But I had seen God.

I had a white light experience.

They do happen.

It was the E talking.

Yet, still there is a fondness for that memory.  I was searching for something, communing with something, even when I was mucked up in the brain, I have always known that something was carrying me.

Maybe it was the J.Davis Trio.

Or Madisalsa.

Maybe it was Moby.

Or Dubtribe.

It might have been Jeff Buckley.

It certainly was Morphine.

Tori Amos nailed it.

Tortured Soul banged it out.

Exquisitely Soul Coughing.

Torn apart and put asunder by Terese Taylor.

Blown down and rolled over by Underworld.

Then they blew me up again.

I only mention this because I seriously had an orgasm listening to them play at the Warfield.  I danced so hard I got myself off.

It was definitely a spiritual experience.

Maybe it was the party panties.

Nevertheless, I have found God not only in the small quiet space between the notes but in the lyrics, the rhymes, the primal beat of the drum.

Music is evocative and like smell will take me back to a memory a place an emotion, so visceral, so vivid, that sometimes I can’t even listen to it.

I still have a really, really challenging time listening to Shuggie Otis.  The depth of sorrow I was in during the time of my life when I was playing Inspiration Information was devastating and horrid that even listening to Strawberry Letter Number 23 makes me cringe in remembrance.

I was very near my drug bottom and I could not play it anymore.

Music had deserted me.  I was left alone in the quicksand of my own brain.

I stopped because it was too painful to listen to.

My head made up its own mantras instead.  The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.  On loop for hours.

Horrendous.

Or

Stop it.  Stop it.  Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

Ad nauseum.

Shiver.

No more.

Music is my recovery, my raison d’être, my passion, my love, my inspiration

And I owe my life to the dance.

And a very beat up pair of Converse.