Day Dream Sky

Standing in line at the cafe.

I eavesdrop on the matrons in front of me espousing the artisanal toast options.

In between chat of avocados and sea salt

I think about you.

Wondering how it is that I seem to have fallen

Again.

Again.

Again.

In love with you.

There is this continuous deep dive into you.

I question the $5.62 I spent on the latte,

Then reverse the thought of scarcity,

Settling, as I do at table, abandoned and

Left to me at just the right time so that I may contemplate

Delirious sun setting splendor through the

Corporeal windows framing the street scene.

The palimpsest of my desire for you underneath that sky,

Like the twining of Christmas lights around a telephone pole,

Wrapped up in you.

Once my latte arrives, I sigh with pleasure.

It was worth the cost of admission.

Like you, it is the best in the city.

Reminding me too, of our moment there months ago

When I sitting ensconced in the window seat fervent with fresh love for you

Scribbling poetry about you into my notebook

Whilst you texted me from the long line sprawling out the door,

“Are you hungry?”

And when I didn’t respond, too wrapped up in my poem, you

My muse,

Brought me back a salad with my coffee.

I saw the text as you were walking back with the plate,

My response would have been, “hungry for you,” but a salad will suffice.

For the moment.

That reply died on my fingertips as I was too caught in the splendor of light

Falling though the window, making you seem already a nostalgia piece.

You lit up, loved up by the glittering filament of sunshine splayed across your face.

I regarded that space today, from a different table, marveling at how

I catch the feeling of you with all my senses.

You embody me.

I am entwined with you.

A double helix.

An infinity sign, worn in silver on my wrist.

Possessed and pleased and dressed up in pleasure, encircled.

The gift of the Universe in a little blue box.

What I once thought was a hoax.

Soap opera.

Dramatic invention.

Fairy tale.

Fable.

Why!

Turns out ’tis true.

There is love and then, there is you.

Inflamed I sit now

Amongst the hum of humanity, the clatter of cups and spoons.

To find myself

Transported to you.

Not for naught this love for you.

Love notes scrawled on a legal pad

Dressed up in a leather-bound folder

My Balthazar baby, conversations on the sidewalk after brunch.

You are everything and everywhere.

Tattooed, literally into my center.

I hold you tight.

I am content.

Knowing, for you told me so,

That I am your dream baby.

Knowing.

That I am.

Now and always.

Your,

Baby girl.

It Bears Repeating

The playlist I made you many months ago.

I haven’t listened to it in a while.

Things were hard.

Strange.

Sad.

Oh god were things sad.

I listened to the music and cried.

I stopped listening to it.

But today.

Tonight.

Well.

I dipped back in.

So good.

So damn good.

Just like you baby.

Stolen kisses in the car.

Your head leaned back against the headrest.

The look in your eyes when you look at me.

Oh the magic.

Damn it baby.

You are the best.

I belted out the songs coming home in the car.

The Christmas lights still up, the traffic still slow, everyone still out of town.

Holidaze.

Sweet love.

My love.

My dear.

Dearest, dear.

I felt like I floated home, drifting down towards the sea with all its love gathering in the passing moonlight.

The songs make me goosebump.

I really love you.

It still boggles my mind that I have had you in my life.

I don’t question it.

I don’t have to know why.

I just know that you love me.

And.

I love you.

What will happen.

I don’t know.

I don’t have to.

I just know how I felt tonight.

Song mix on repeat.

Making me smile.

My heart swelled, pushing against my ribcage.

My heart big, swollen, full of this music.

All the songs about you.

I have never made another man a playlist.

Or a mixed tape.

Just to date myself.

I have made you, though, many.

This one is dear to me, though they all are sweet.

This one special.

My first attempt at letting you know musically how much you mean to me.

I think I did a pretty good job.

I had forgotten what songs were on and when one faded and the next came on.

I just smiled harder.

Sang louder.

Felt my love for you grow again.

How is it so?

Extraordinary.

This expansion of love, like the universe.

On and on and on.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Penny and the Quarters.

Aretha Franklin.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

The Cranberries.

Carly Simon.

(You really are the best)

Barbara Lewis.

The Ronnettes.

Bill Withers.

Peggy Lee.

Stevie Wonder.

And last, but oh so not least.

Etta James.

Had to end with a bit of punch.

Like how I feel, knocked down drunk with love on you again.

Smitten kitten.

Me.

Again.

Who knew?

So.

I guess what I am saying.

Well.

It bears repeating.

I am happy.

I got to see you today and there will be more of you to come.

And.

Baby, this bears repeating too.

I’m yours.

Baby.

Sweet baby.

I am so yours.

Now.

And.

Always.

In other words, until eternity.

 

Rendered Speechless

I don’t often look at old photographs.

I just did.

Work photos from over sixteen years ago.

Longer, perhaps, though not much more than eighteen years, I’ve been in San Francisco for sixteen, so they have to be at least that old.

There’s a private Facebook page with photographs of a place I used to run for six years.

1996-2002 I was the Floor Manager at the Angelic Brewing Company in Madison, Wisconsin.

A lot of the photographs are ones that I took myself.

Although I don’t have the album that they are located in.

I used to take a lot of staff photos.

Before Facebook and camera phones.

I kept a photo album in the office and I would put it out during big staff events.

Most usually the annual holiday party that I was in charge of organizing and running.

We got silly.

I remember one year I bought a bunch of disposable cameras.

Oh the pictures on those cameras.

Many stories.

I was rendered speechless though when I saw a photograph of myself that may have been at my heaviest weight when I was working there.

I don’t actually know what I weighed.

I didn’t like to use the scale.

But I do know that the shirt I was wearing was a size 26.

I now wear a size eleven.

So much has changed.

I just sat on my couch before logging onto my computer and I had an abstinent meal.

Abstinent for me means no flour (of any kind–almond, oat, coconut, corn, wheat, etc) and no sugar.

I do eat fruit, so I get sugar that way, though I tend to not eat fruit with my dinner.

I will.

Just not always.

Fruit is a sort of desert for me.

For dinner tonight I had about a 1/2 c of sautéed broccoli with a cup of brown rice and a roasted chicken leg and thigh.

I had some bubbly water and I listened to jazz.

When I think about the way I ate when I ran the Angelic.

Oh my God.

Freaks me out a little.

Sort of like how the picture did.

I almost want to post it here but I’m not actually sure how to do that and I am also not really sure I want to post it anyway.

I am grateful though for the changes I have gone through and for the good reminder that although my body doesn’t look the exact way I want it to, it looks a hell of a lot better than it did.

I mean.

I used to have a double chin.

I haven’t had a double chin in a long ass time and I am hella grateful for that.

The amazing thing about the photo is that I’m doing the splits on the bar.

I was a lot more limber then than I am now.

I was also studying to get my black belt in Kung Fu.

That also blows my mind, that I got a black belt at the weight I was.

I wonder sometime what it would have been like if I had lost the weight sooner.

But really that doesn’t do me much good to think about that, it’s just fantasy and speculation.

I also had to have some recovery under my belt before I could get abstinent, recovery, therapy, self-care.

A lot of that.

Self-love.

I am really quite proud of myself when I see how very far I have come.

All things considered.

I shouldn’t be where I am at today.

I am very, very, very grateful.

I’m also grateful to have gotten through Christmas.

Three gay boys, two movies, and one sushi dinner.

It was an official San Francisco Christmas.

Matinee at the Kabuki, hanging out in the Castro, then the Metreon in the evening.

I am grateful too for the people I spent time with.

I am grateful for San Francisco being my home.

I am grateful for all the lovely gifts I was given.

The biggest one, always does seem to be perspective.

That’s why the photo hit me so hard.

Just how far I have come.

I’m 46 now.

I look so much better at 46 than I did at 26.

I may have been a little older in the photo, but my weight would have been about the same.

It got bad there for a bit.

But then I think, I needed to be the way I was, to feel safe.  I ate to feel safe in a body that was not a safe place to inhabit.

I ate because I had been hurt.

I did not want to hurt anymore.

I also ate because it was a compulsion.

There were times when I would find myself in the dark raiding the desert fridge at work– shoving an entire piece of Irish Cream pie into my mouth, one, two, three pieces in under five minutes.

I hated it and I couldn’t stop it.

I also didn’t realize that once I put sugar into my body it was sort of on.

Sugar is just as addictive as many narcotics.

Sugar activates the same place in the brain that cocaine does.

I loved cocaine.

And before I had cocaine.

I had sugar.

I had a lot of it.

God.

Just thinking about how much soda I drank too.

Ugh.

I mean.

I worked in the service industry for two decades.

I did not drink diet soda ever, I scoffed at it.

I drank straight up Coca Cola.

I drank vats of it.

When you work in the service industry you usually get free soda.

And because I was in management, I got free meals.

French fries dipped in sour cream.

Fried fish sandwiches with buckets of tartar sauce.

Pasta with chicken and mushrooms and cream sauce and parmesan and bread sticks.

OH bread sticks.

Idaho nachos–cottage fries instead of corn chips–with heaps of cheese and chicken and black beans and guacamole and sour cream.

Pizza.

Pizza.

Pizza.

Beer cheese soup.

And it was a brewery, so yes, lots of beer too, many, many, many pints.

Ex-employees used to joke about how they would lose the “Angelic 20” when they stopped working there since they weren’t always drinking the beer.

Which was not light in any sense of the word.

Oh.

How things have changed.

For the better.

I might have a nostalgic moment once in a great while for something.

But not ever looking like that picture again?

That will kill any craving I might have.

Fact is.

I don’t crave food, when you don’t have it in your system, the urge goes away.

Hella grateful for that too.

So here’s to not having to make New Years resolutions.

I am resolved every day.

I am happy.

Joyous.

Abstinent.

And.

Motherfucking.

Free.

 

Today I Ate

An entire book.

I mean.

I consumed it.

I chopped it up and snorted it down like it was some sort of happy drug.

I haven’t read fiction in so long it was an aphrodisiac.

I still feel a little high.

I did just like I said I would and I slept in this morning.

I woke up at 9:45 a.m.!

Holy Toledo.

I cannot remember the last time I slept that late.  I mean, maybe the ARTumnal Airpusher after party silent dance rave I went to in November, but even the day after coming home from a night of carousing and dancing I was still up by 8:30a.m.

I think.

So this morning was nuts.

I believe it was partially, at least this is my excuse, not that I need one, that it was so clouded over.

Dark and stormy.

Grey and misty and wet.

True San Francisco winter weather, not exactly rain, but mist and wind and rainy and all-pervasive.

San Francisco rain doesn’t really always come straight down, it seems to enwrap you and get everything soaked.

Without directly raining all that much.

So I slept in.

I might have even slept longer were it not for the siren song of my bladder yelling out about the big mug of tea I had before I went to bed last night.

I got up and was leisurely.

Like in a major way.

I think it was 11:30a.m. before I actually sat down for breakfast.

A phone call from my best friend was partially the reason, but mostly, I was just going slow and easy.

I enjoyed my late breakfast and wrote a ton.

A lot.

It was lovely.

And though I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, I did know I was going to need to make a run to the grocery store and maybe see what was playing at the Balboa Theater, which is just up the road from me.

Unfortunately I’d already seen one of the movies and the other I am planning on seeing tomorrow.

But.

La Promenade Cafe was open and so I took my book and settled into a big leather arm-chair by the front window and sank into my story.

I bought this book last summer, a few weeks before I was to start my fall intensive for school.

A day before I got my first text-book in the mail for said intensive.

I only read a few of the stories, it’s a collection of shorts from A.M. Holmes called Days of Awe.

I really like her work, I’ve only read her novels and was happy to find that the shorts were just as compelling and in a way very interwoven, so it felt like I was reading a novel in a way.

I read at the cafe and listened to music and people watched and thought how nice it was to actually be in a cafe in my new neighborhood.

The first time since I’ve moved here since mid-September that I actually did something other than laundry in the neighborhood.

It felt a little like getting settled.

I did another first today too, this one may surprise you, although it shouldn’t considering how busy I keep myself.

I went for a walk around my neighborhood!

Yeah.

I know.

I really haven’t done any walking, unless it was from my car to the house or from the house to my car.

I had gotten back from the cafe, unloaded my groceries, roasted a chicken, made a late lunch, sat on my couch, watched the rain, ate brown butter brussels sprouts and hot roast chicken and listened to Coleman Hawkins.

It was delicious.

The food.

The music.

The rain on the windows.

It felt outside of time, I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was, Sunday, Monday, it all blended together.

My tree looked pretty, I lit candles, it was so cozy.

Then the sun burst out for a few minutes and I thought I should go for a sunset walk.

I quickly bundled up, there was only a few minutes before the sun was going to set, and I walked out the door on 48th and down Balboa towards the sea.

As I got closer, I realized that there was a path that I hadn’t seen before and what do you know, it’s actually a little park!

Sutro Dunes!

I had no idea.

Sweet little wood slat path along the base of the grass and flower covered dunes.

In the twilight it was deeply moving and full of divinity.

It felt really good to just do a little stretch around the neighborhood, to see the Cliff House hanging like an ornament over the ocean, to smell the fresh washed air, to just be.

I am pretty lucky when I think about it.

I live by the ocean.

It is literally a block away from my house.

Although I don’t get down to it as much as I would like, it is always a solace to me and I see it every day when I leave in the morning.

I always say hello.

I am in perpetual awe of its beauty.

And I am not often home at sunset to ponder it.

It was a really lovely little gift to me.

I got back to the house right before the rain began again and settled back on my couch, my first day of really sitting on my couch too!

My first day really using my coffee table like a coffee table.

I drank a second homemade cafe au lait, so decadent to have two in one day at my house, and I read more of the book until I left to go do the deal up at 7th and Irving.

Which was also just marvelous.

Ran into some much-loved fellows and heard exactly what I needed to hear.

Came home, heated up dinner.

And yes.

Yes I did.

I ate the rest of the book.

I read 288 pages today.

It was not a chore.

It was the best feeling.

And guess what?

One of my text books for the next semester did come in the mail today.

I did not read it.

I was tempted.

But I realized, did I want to leave the A.M. Holmes until next summer?

Or was it actually ok to let myself have Christmas Eve without homework?

It was ok.

And it was so lovely.

Exactly the kind of day off that will sustain me for many weeks as I marshal my way forward towards this next milestone of learning and life.

Gratitude this Christmas for all the gifts in my life.

There are so many.

The best, I dare say, may be my relationship with myself and the life I have been given.

Grace.

That’s what it is.

Grace.

I have been blessed.

And may you be as well.

Merry Christmas to all.

And to all.

A.

Very.

Good.

Night.

Not A God Damn

Thing.

Nothing.

I have no plans for tomorrow.

Zero.

Zip.

Nada.

I won’t be doing homework.

I won’t be going to work.

I have no clients.

I have no obligations.

I have no chores to do.

I did laundry today and cleaned up from last night’s holiday party.

I have no party to prep for.

I have absolutely nothing to do.

Except.

SLEEP IN!

Oh my God.

I am not setting an alarm for the first time in weeks?  Months, I mean, I don’t know.

It’s been a while.

I already feel like I’m playing hooky by writing my blog at 10p.m. at night.

I can stay up as long as a fucking want!

Although I won’t.

Because I am a creature of habit and I don’t want to blow my entire sleep schedule completely up.

I will have to work this upcoming week and not all of my clients went out-of-town for the holidays and I have group supervision as well as a one on one evaluation with my supervisor.

But hey.

That’s not tomorrow.

Tomorrow there is nothing to do but rest.

I have briefly entertained the idea of going to the MOMA, but I’m not sure I want to go downtown.

It may actually be the only place in the city that’s busy with shoppers and tourists and such.

I may not want to drive anywhere.

When was the last time I did that?

Not drive anywhere on a day off?

I had also thought about taking a nice long walk on the beach, but um, rain.

Looks like it’s supposed to rain most of the day tomorrow.

I could actually spend the entire day in the house and not leave it and lay around in my pajamas and not put on clothes or make up or do my hair.

I could.

I probably won’t though.

I can let myself sleep in a little, but not getting dressed and lazing around the entire day in pjs feels weird.

Besides.

I don’t wear pjs.

No.

I do like the idea of being up and doing a few things and I will do my normal morning routine, I will just not be doing it to the sound of an alarm going off.

I will wake up when I wake up.

There have been times that unscheduled open time freaked me out.

I have not had it in such a long time though, that I think I will manage to not freak out.

Christmas day I will be going out and about.

Not crazy like, but a matinée at the Kabuki Theater, The Favorite, with my person, then meeting up with a few others for Chinese food at Eric’s in Noe Valley, and then downtown to the Metreon for Mary Poppins.

I allowed myself to get wrangled.

Frankly I’m not really interested, but free ticket and not being by myself Christmas night was enough to get me to agree despite my lack of enthusiasm for the movie.

I do expect The Favorite will be fun, I heard it was wicked good and the previews definitely looked good.

I can’t imagine going out to more movies tomorrow.

Two movies in one day is decadent enough, I could read some books, not text books.

Although, knowing me, if the books I ordered for next semester happened to show up I might actually to get a jump on the work.

But I sense that’s not what I should be doing.

Keeping the space heater on, getting cozy with a novel on the couch and sipping hot tea and staring at my Christmas tree sounds about right.

I might walk to the store and buy a chicken to roast.

I really am contemplating not driving anywhere, although it’s likely that I will go out in the evening to do the deal, I could for most of the day just be at home.

It’s a nice home, it is.

I had a lovely time hosting my first little party here last night.

I had ten people show up and all the chili got ate!

All of it.

I had no left overs at all.

Oh, I had some, but not chili.

Anyway, it was lovely, very sweet, and I felt happy to have folks in the house and I made a pie from scratch, crusts and all, in heels and fishnets over silver glitter tights.

I mean.

It is Christmas after all, I had to wear some sparkle.

I found it quite appropriate to be in my kitchen in heels baking pie with my house full of gay boys and girlfriends.

It was good.

Chosen family.

I felt really blessed.

I have some of the best people in my life.

It was so nice too, to socialize.

I haven’t had much of that what with school and my internship and work and all that jazz.

I even tentatively talked going out dancing with a few of my girlfriends in January.

Not New Year’s Eve.

Total amateur night and way too expensive.

If I were to go dancing on New Year’s Eve I’d actually go to a friends party in the East Bay that’s a big sober event and usually a good time.

But not really sure I want to navigate the bridge on New Year’s Eve either.

The girls and I were thinking a little later into the month, although, not too late as I will be starting back up with school the last week of January.

I basically have one month off from school.

My spring intensive starts on January 24th.

So a few weekends of fun before I have to buckle back down with the books.

Two tops.

I will want to give myself some time to go over the materials before the intensive, there was reading assigned before this semester’s start, I can’t imagine that they won’t do the same for this upcoming semester.

Which is neither here nor there.

I am off topic.

Off topic from tomorrow.

My lazy, do nothing, have no responsibility to anything or anyone day.

Oh God.

It sounds so good.

I think I’ll get started now.

Good night.

Sweet dreams.

And don’t bother calling me in the morning.

My phone will be off.

I’m motherfucking sleeping in.

Seriously.

I MADE IT!

Not only did I get through a very hectic week.

I finished all my papers!!!!

I’m fucking done!

I’m gloriously happy.

The relief is serious.

Though for a moment today I got pretty upset when I saw an incoming e-mail from one of my professors asking people to just send the paper to his or the TA’s (teaching assistant) e-mail.

I was like, what?

I turned in that paper on Canvas, which is the online platform the school uses, on Sunday.

Time and date stamped that fucker too.

Sunday, December 16th at 5:16p.m.

I message my professor immediately and asked if he had not received my paper.

And he had not!

I was blown a little off course.

Here I was doing the happy dance of joy for having finished a 10 page paper, a 12 page paper, and a final project with two original poems, an essay, and two recitations of said poems, in the last four days.

Four days people.

I did that all in four freaking days.

Ok.

That’s not necessarily true.

There was some work that was done last week for one of the papers, but the final project and the twelve page paper had been done in the last four days, plus finishing and polishing the other paper.

I was miffed.

Fuck.

I had turned everything in on time and here was the professor who basically created this PhD program saying he’d not gotten my final paper.

Bah fucking humbug.

I sent him a message and let him know where I had submitted it and that I was at work sans computer.

The only freaking time this past month that I haven’t brought my computer and books and notebooks to work.

I went to work, having submitted my final paper yesterday (I was too kaput to post my happy dance blog last night, I barely got myself into bed with a cup of tea and some Peaky Blinders….mmmmm Cillian Murphy, happy to have you tuck me into bed, ahem).

So it was really nice to not drag my book bag and books and notebooks and laptop to work, I didn’t have to.

In fact, I realized later that my load was actually a little too light, forgot my lunch in the fridge.

But.

My.

It was really fine to go into work so unencumbered and not be thinking about what article or book I needed to connect all the dots on my final papers.

I floated into work.

Literally.

I also had the dream commute.

There was no traffic.

None.

And I went into work early, during what would be the worst commute time, but nada.

It was a freaking cake walk.

I got to work in less than twenty minutes.

I sat in my car and listened to French House music and sent off a gratitude list to a friend of mine.

It was such a nice mellow way to start the day.

I also went to my charges private school holiday music show.

It was so, so, so sweet.

It was just such a lovely way to ease into work.

And then later to drive back, have naps, and big snuggles and make homemade chicken soup for the six-year-old with her favorite alphabet pasta and to just have a fairly relaxed night.

Plus.

I had brought the kids their presents for Christmas and I got to watch them open them and all the gifts were met with resounding happiness.

I was quite pleased.

All three of them really liked their presents.

And the family was very sweet with me this year too.

A big bouquet of roses and tulips.

An Amazon gift card for $350.

Hello school books for next semester.

I’ve already spent $149 on one class.

And

I also got a $150 gift certificate to Peal Spa.

OOOOH.

You know I am all about it.

I haven’t been to a spa since, well, let’s say it was sometime in the early part of my second year of my Master’s program.

So, um, a bit.

I’m going to see about going next Saturday.

This Saturday, aside from not having any services available, I’ve got my holiday house-warming party happening.

I am excited.

I’m happy to have a place big enough to host a small gathering.

It’s not huge, so it will be cozy, but I figure not all the people who RSVP’d will actually show up at the same time.  I’ve had eleven people say yes, so I’m assuming half that number will actually show and maybe two of the seven people who said maybe.

I’m going to have a nice little spread.

Homemade chili with cornbread.

Veggies and my secret homemade dip (it’s so good I’ve been bribed for the recipe before).

Cured meat, salami, prosciutto, pancetta.

A variety of cheeses, really good Blue, since I like a nice blue–a triple cream-French Agur being on the top of my list, some gouda, a soft goat cheese, and a pecorino tartuffi that my person dearly loves.

Crackers and olives and pickles and salt and vinegar potato chips.

Tons of bubbly water and stevia sodas since I don’t do any sugar stuff.

Hot mulled cider.

And last, but certainly not least.

Homemade apple and persimmon pie with vanilla ice cream.

I think that will make the folks happy.

I haven’t asked anyone to bring anything and I didn’t say anything in the invite that there would be food, but I figure it’s nice to have a spread and with the exception of the pie and ice cream, cornbread, chips, and crackers, I can eat all of it.

I love some leftover chili, thank you very much.

I sort of doubt that there will be.

Anyway.

So that’s not happening, no spa day for me, but I will make sure I get it in soon, I will have a month break from school.

Not from work though I have the next four days off, aside from seeing a couple of clients int he morning and early after noon, I’ll be free to do whatever I like.

Christmas Eve I’m thinking of going to the MOMA.

And.

Christmas day will be with my person at a matinée, I’m planning on seeing The Favorite, at the Embarcadero Theater with him, then dinner in Chinatown with him and his person and another fellow and maybe another movie after, though I’ll probably bow out as they want to see Mary Poppins.

Please.

Sounds like paying to watch a movie about my job.

Anyway.

Me and three gay boys in Chinatown in San Francisco going to movies and eating Chinese food sounds like just about the perfect Christmas day.

Easy.

Oh!

And it turns out, my professor did find my paper, he just hadn’t looked in the right spot in Canvas (and I thought it was anti-intuitive, nice to have it confirmed by one of the professors having issues with it).

So that’s it.

I’m done.

I made it through my first semester of a PhD program.

Hooray!

 

 

The Last Moments

Of my 45th year.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I will be 46 years old.

It’s a surreal number.

Really.

All of them have been a touch on the surreal side ever since passing 40.

But now, well, as I edge closer to 50 than 40 and my body slowly starts to fall apart, I can say yeah, I’m getting old.

Well.

At least older.

And I’m not kidding about the body thing.

I mean.

I can still shake my booty on the dance floor, or in my house as it stands, I just did some dancing to a really lovely remix of “Take You for a Ride on a Big Jet Plane” and I really did break it out.

But.

The signs of getting older are there.

Despite wearing my hair up in gigantic poufs today and donning pink glitter eyeshadow.

I don’t have clients on Mondays after my nanny gig, so I like to play a little with the makeup and the hair.

But you know.

There’s some wrinkles underneath that glitter and there’s definitely some grey hair in those poufs.

And, you know.

I’m ok with it.

I like who I am.

I have worked really fucking hard to get here and my body has managed to carry me through.

So what if it looks like it’s been well-traveled, it has.

Every wrinkle and grey hair a testament to how far I have come.

I did have a moment though, last night, when I was getting ready for bed and I was like, enough with all the stuff.

My aesthetician did some work to remove a patch of collagen that has been bothering me for years recently and I have to touch it up every night and morning to make sure it goes all the way away and I have begun washing my face with actual cleansing foam instead of soap.

She was horrified when I told her I washed my face with soap.

I felt like I was getting scolded by my mom.

So now, I use some cleansing foam and yes, I always use sunblock, she made that a big ass deal years ago.

God.

I sound all sorts of bougie right now.

I hadn’t seen my aesthetician for eight or nine years, I used to go to her when I had really bad cystic acne.

That is one nice thing of getting older, that damn acne finally went away, but I had it well into my early thirties.

In the last few years I have noticed my skin getting a tiny bit dryer and last year I noticed that I had stopped getting black heads at all.

I used to still get those guys.

It seems that the oil in my skin is drying up.

So now I use moisturizer too.

I’m sure these are things most women much younger than me are doing, but you know, I’m a simple lady with the routines, so this adding in of stuff feels new.

And.

Now I’m wearing a night guard at night so I don’t crack any more fucking teeth and have to get any more crowns.

No thank you.

But it’s weird.

And I have to remember to put it in at night, adding another thing I need to do, on top of also taking my reflux meds.

I swallowed the three tiny pills and popped my mouth guard in and snorted.

It has begun.

I’m taking pills at night and wearing a night guard next thing you know I’ll be wearing Depends.

Ugh.

Anyway.

I’m a lucky bitch and I know it.

I don’t look my age, so now that Mother Nature is actually showing me that I’m not immune to this whole getting older thing, I just want to respect it and embrace it.

I don’t want to struggle against it.

I’m going to be 46 in the morning.

And if it’s anything like 45’s been, it’s going to be a pretty damn good year.

In my 45th year I graduated with a Masters in Integral Counseling Psychology.

I traveled to D.C., New York, Paris, and Marseilles.

I got hired at a private practice internship and started subletting an office space as a licenced Associate Marriage Family Therapist.

I danced.

I sang in my car a lot.

I took walks on the beach.

I loved really, really, really hard.

I cried a lot.

I wrote a lot of poetry.

I started my first semester of a PhD program.

I’m one week away from finishing the semester!  I just posted my final discussion post and turned in my final project for my Creative Inquiry Scholarship for the 21st Century class.

It’s been a damn good year.

I’m happy with who I am and where I’m going, even if I cannot see the final destination, I don’t really need to know that anyway.

Oh!

And I moved!

I went through a buyout and walked through a tremendous amount of fear.

I bought my first ever couch.

And it’s pink velvet, so there.

I’ve done a lot of therapy work and feel better about myself and supported in the work i do as a therapist as well.

I bought art from friends.

I pushed myself out of my school, nanny, internship shell and got back into the fellowship in San Francisco a bit more.

I ate a lot of apples.

I like apples.

I wrote a lot of Morning Pages.

I wrote a few blogs, not as many as I might have considering the issues I had there for a while.  But huzzah!  I have, with much help, gotten the two sites separated and I was happy to post my first blog on my therapy site tonight.

I’ve had a damn good year.

I’m a very lucky girl.

Or woman.

I suppose at 46 it’s time to really step into that women role.

Well.

Except when I wear my bunny slippers.

I don’t care how old I get, I’ll probably always wear bunny slippers.

heh.

So here’s to making it alive, sober, abstinent, happy, joyous, and motherfucking free, one more time around the sun.

Thanks 45, it’s been fun.

Bring on 46.

One Down

Two to go!

I’m a third of the way there.

I finished, proofed, edited, and sent my final paper out for my Introduction to Transformative Inquiry.

Ten pages baby.

Turned in this evening at 5:16 p.m.

Had I needed to make the 5pm bell tonight I would have made it.

It feels really good to have this paper done and sent in.

I don’t need to post any more discussions on the boards, I can just bow out of the class and move on.

One of my classes for next semester is already live with a syllabus and I looked it over briefly last night, got momentarily overwhelmed, and shut that shit down.

I still have two more things to turn in.

Now.

Granted, tomorrow’s final project, in the worlds of the good professor, I can turn anything in, shall be quite easy.

In fact.

Well.

I almost decided to work on it, but hey, you know, one ten page paper is enough for today.

And that certainly was not the only productive thing I did today, hello laundry, but I figured, you know, give yourself a break.

I know what my final project is going to be, two poems and two recordings of me reciting those poems.

One that I wrote near the beginning of the semester and one that I wrote this past week, here at the end of the semester.

I can do this at work tomorrow.

Fingers crossed the baby takes a nice nap and the parents are not around.

Mondays I typically do have a wide breadth of time by myself at the home, so I figure I’ll just turn it in then.  And should the baby not nap and there are monkeys home sick from school, or the parents are around the whole day, I will have the evening to take care of sending it in.

I don’t have clients on Mondays.

Which means I “just” have work and my doing the deal after work.

And then, heh, it’s my birthday!

Day after tomorrow I will be turning 46.

Sort of crazy.

46.

It feels interesting.

I’ve gotten grey hair this year and have decided not to cover it, I’m sort of going for the Frankie look of Lily Tomlin’s in Frankie and Grace, all wild, curly, grey and silver and white and brown.

I have a lot of hair and the silver whispering through it is not really noticeable.

Well.

It is to me, but no one else has pointed it out yet.

Just like the laugh lines around my eyes are very noticeable to me, but no one else really says anything.

My person always remarks on my skin.

Makeup, thank you.

Oh, I suppose I do have some pretty good genetics, my grandmother on my father’s side looked quite young for sometime and still is brunette.

Of course, it’s dyed, but she mostly pulls it off.

I’m high maintenance in some areas but not really with my hair.

I don’t feel like coloring it or hiding the grey.

There is also this part of me that thinks it adds a little maturity to my look and some sagacity and maybe my clients think that I am a little older and that I have a great deal of experience.

Not that I have actually ever had a client ask me how long I have been practicing therapy, but I do suppose I will get asked.

I’ve been seeing clients consistently now for a little over a year and a half.

It’s pretty incredible.

And I’m good.

I’m not saying that to toot my own horn, but I am and I am grateful for that confidence.

I have built it up by working with four different supervisors and a number of clients, some of whom I have worked with for over a year.

In fact, my first client is still with me.

Yup.

So I get to see what having a therapy relationship for over a year feels like and it’s quite good.

I did some work for my practice today actually, even with the dealing with of my final paper.

Sundays are my laundry day since I moved into my new place.  I don’t have access to the washer and dryer here like I did in my last place (sad, sad, sad face) so I have to go to the laundry mat.

I use the time there to read my text books.

Today as I was loading up my stuff to go I went to reach for a text-book to read and realized.

I HAVE READ ALL THE BOOKS!

I finished the last text for the semester last Sunday.

Holy shit.

I read all the books.

What an accomplishment.

So what was I going to read at the mat?

I mean, I could perhaps blow off an hour and a half on Instagram, but um, no thanks.

And there it was on my desk, a book my group supervisor had given me last week, “Building Ideal Private Practice,” by Lynn Grodzki.

Well, ok then.

I will have some time to focus on bringing in more clients.

I have openings on Fridays and Saturdays, I should manifest some new clients.

I got through three chapters at the laundry mat and did one of the exercises suggested that was basically making an affirmation and writing it over and over again and seeing what negative thoughts arose.

It was a really interesting exercise.

My affirmation was: “I have 25 wonderful, serious, full fee clients who I get to help and empower.”

All sorts of stuff came up as I wrote and rewrote it.

“I’m not good enough.”

Oh hello.

Yes you are, you were built for this work.

“I can’t handle 25 clients.”

Um, excuse me, yes I can, I would actually work less than I work now as a full-time nanny.

“There’s not enough clients.”

Oh, hello scarcity, nice to meet you again.

I kept writing until I ran out of negative thoughts and then after about ten minutes I wrote out the affirmation and what popped out was:

“I can do this!”

Yes.

Yes, you can.

I work really hard and I know this will happen.

And in the mean time.

I got my paper in!

Huzzah!

Separation of Church and State

And it finally happened.

I am so grateful to report that after much time, many failed attempts, yelling at my computer, yelling at the WordPress chat help, not literally, although I do think I told one of the people on the chat that I was as computer conversant as a tired four-year old.

I really felt like throwing a tantrum with that chat and I excused myself from it quickly when I realized I might, probably not, but might throw my computer on the floor and stomp on it.

So it is with much happiness and relief that I can report my website, my professional website, and my personal blog are no longer connected.

Oh.

They still are, but not really, not in a way that anyone could figure out and my friend who helped me even made the suggestion to change my face on the profile picture so I couldn’t be recognized that way.

Hence the new icon which is a graffiti photo I took many years ago in Paris.

Six years ago it feels like.

Paris was much on my mind today.

And in many of my conversations.

I went and saw my dear friend Barnaby at his new shop in Oakland, East Bay Tattoo, and he touched up the color on my pink jackalope bunny tattoo that he gave me for my 40th birthday when we were living as room mates in Paris.

We both marveled at how far we’d come since that time in Paris.

We were both trying to figure things out and neither one of us thought that we’d actually be moving back here.

Barnaby landed in Oakland and I in the Outer Sunset.

Six years later he’s the father of two boys and he and his partner own a house in Oakland and he just opened a new shop.

Six years later I’m a psychotherapist, not going to tell you my name though, oh no, I don’t want you finding my website from my personal blog (this baby is dark, no social media, no LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, nada), I’m also a PhD student and I own a car!

I mean.

I remember how I felt leaving Paris when we did, my heart-felt bruised, I felt defeated, broken, I had tried so damn hard to make it work and Paris was not having it.

Not having me.

Although she has welcomed me back with open arms and love every time that I have gone back since.

I feel like I have learned so much about myself from my time spent in Paris.

So my friend and I reminisced and talked about all the things we did there and the conversations and all the things that we have done in the time between and how life is.

You know.

Life is pretty damn good.

Even though.

Fuck my life.

I just found out that my paper is due at 5p.m. instead of midnight.

And!!!

Hahhahahahahahahaha.

God.

I must be a little on edge about getting my shit done by all the deadlines.

I forgot, tomorrow is Sunday, not Monday.

The paper is due Monday.

Of course I’ll be working and not really have time to address the paper, so I’ve been planning all along to have the work done by Sunday night and turn it in Sunday night after I get back from doing the deal up in the Castro.

Whew.

What a goofy little moment of panic.

I was all sorts of mad.

Heh.

Ah.

Breathing deeply again.

So.

I will hopefully be posting on a much more regular basis on my blog now that I don’t have any worry about potential clients finding out about it.

I mean.

Ahem.

My most “popular” blog is about cocaine and vodka enemas, not something I want any perspective client to be reading about.

I know how that sounds.

I never have and never will administer or be given a cocaine vodka enema, but I had a friend tell me a story once and I was so horrified by the idea, I’d never heard of it and I guess it’s actually a thing, that I wrote a blog about it many moons ago and what do you know.

It’s the most searched for tag that leads people to my blog.

I have actually thought about deleting it, but you know, it’s actually well written and it does in fact allude to recovery, so maybe someone out there who happens to stumble upon it might get the idea that they actually have a better shot at life without shooting cocaine up their bum mixed with vodka.

Anyway.

There are lots of other things in my blog I’d rather not have my therapy clients find out.

Like I’ve been to Burning Man eleven times.

(Dirty hippy)

(Sex addict)

(addict in general)

(weirdo)

I won’t say that any of those things don’t apply, but ahem, you know, I’m happy with who I am and not really shy about sharing.

God forbid a client read any of the blogs I wrote about my brief and tumultuous jaunt on Tinder.

God was that a heap of crap.

With one or two shining moments, but mostly a lot of yuck.

And now.

Well.

THANK YOU FRIEND!

I don’t have to worry about it.

I can write happily and freely about everything.

Well.

heh.

I don’t actually write about everything either, you know a girl has to have a few things kept back.

At least for right now.

There may well be a time and place when that changes, but right now, yeah, there are a few things that don’t wind up in these posts and that’s alright too.

I’m just so happy to have my little blog space back.

I don’t mind that it’s gone so dark, it’s like my own little private universe with a few select friends that like to hang out and have a cup of coffee with me and catch up.

I’ve got some followers who know me in my personal life as a real bona fide person, and I’m cool with that, but the rest of the world can keep right on thinking of me as Auntie Bubba.

I’m very.

Very.

Very.

Cool with that.

You Can Take It Easy

Holy crap.

That was not the gist of the conversation I was thinking was going to happen today with my professor.

I had been having some trouble registering for a certain elective for my spring semester and had reached out to my professor, who also happens to be my advisor to ask for assistance.

We had a scheduled phone call for today.

Of course.

I figured out what the issue was before the phone call, but only just barely  before, so I decided to call my professor anyway and just check in about the final project I have to do for the class.

“You have gone above and beyond, just great work this semester, I was just talking to Jen (my TA in the class) about your writing, and she agrees, really great work,” he said.

I was so touched and moved.

I thanked him and we chatted a little about the school and the semester and about the registration process and if I had any questions to be sure and reach out over the holiday.

It was such a nice conversation to have with him.

Then he asked if I had any other questions and I did say, yes, about the final project…

“Oh, you can do anything you want, literally anything, do whatever you want, you’ve done so much work this semester, take it easy, relax, turn in whatever makes you happy,” he finished.

I was silently jumping up and down with glee.

I hadn’t gotten as much time the last few days at work to focus on my homework.

I have gotten some done, posted my last big discussion post, but the work I had really wanted to do wasn’t able to get done.  The baby’s been a little under the weather at my nanny gig and his nap schedule’s been way off.

Today, for instance, he was sleeping when I showed up, which is highly unusual and meant basically that he wasn’t going to be taking his regular afternoon nap.

The regular afternoon nap I rely on to do homework in.

In fact, he only slept a bare thirty minutes into my shift, so the little time I did have before he woke up was devoted to household odds and ends and I didn’t crack the paper I had been hoping to address.

So when this professor told me to take it easy and that I could literally turn in anything for the final project, I was so overwhelmingly happy, yeah, I did feel like dancing a jig on the sidewalk pushing the stroller up to the Noe Valley Rec Center.

Interestingly enough.

I have had some inspirations as to what to do for the final project for this class, it doesn’t have to be a paper, although it could be, and I floated my idea past my professor.

“Would it be ok to record myself reciting a poem I wrote during the semester and send that to you?”

“Yes!  I love that, fantastic, and take as much time as you need,” he said.

I let him know I’d have it in by the deadline.

I have turned in all my papers so far on time and I have no desire to start turning in anything late at this point.

I feel like I pretty much got the A for the class, so might as well send it out with a little fanfare and a poem.

A Year of Tears

You pointed out to me

Every time I see you I cry.

I thought about that for a moment.

Then I cried.

Tears slipped down my face.

Do they carve soft channels in my skin?

Do they leave a trace mineral history writ upon my cheeks?

The certainly, the tears, they do, affect my eyes.

Oh.

I could well argue that it is my new phone with its very good camera that shows all those lines around my eyes.

But it shows, those tears, in my eyes.

I have cried over you for over a year.

Yes.

You were right.

I have cried every time I have seen you for a long while now.

Perhaps even a little more than a year.

Though, not that much longer since we have been together.

Apart.

Together.

Apart.

Together for only so much time.

SO MUCH TIME.

A year and  a half.

Oh!

The moon.

I raise my bruised eyes to the sky.

I sing your praises to the moon.

Like a child, I cry for that which I (think) I cannot have.

Longing for you, the moon in my sky.

You say the same to me, that I am your moon.

Your stars.

You talk to me when you are afar.

We talk to each other through the music of the spheres.

The crows carry our conversations to us.

The wind in the trees, a susseration of our words of love.

Each to each.

The avocado tree at work sends my love.

The oak trees where you are pick up the vibrations.

I see you in the beauty of the sunset, in the rise of the moon, in the wind blowing the leaves.

The moon waxes.

Wanes.

We talk to each other from new moon to full moon.

Underneath the Harvest moon.

Through on to the Strawberry moon.

There are many moons, but to me they are all the same, no matter the month.

They are all the Lovers Moon.

And oh.

I love you.

I do.

A secret.

Shhhh.

You may already suspect.

But I will tell you now in all truth, from the bottoms of my feet on up through all the bones of my body, I don’t mind the tears.

Not really.

No.

For they mean I have lived and loved you fierce.

Passionate.

Unrestrained.

With my whole being.

I have loved you.

I love you.

I will love you.

The tears tell me how important you are to me.

So important.

And.

Last night.

Oh.

You held me in your arms.

Such arms, may I always have the fortune to recline in them.

You shining eyes on mine, your kisses showering me.

I knew then.

As I know now.

Every damn day of tears was worth it.

To be, once again, in your embrace

Acceptance this.

Powerful knowing.

The love that matters between the black and white lines of our story.

That is all.

That love.

Surrendered I am to the situation.

For just the being with you my sweet moon brought it all home.

The sea salt tsunami of my love for you shall be the waters I sail my boat upon.

So dear, dear, dear, Dread Pirate Roberts.

I do expect that you will always come back to me.

For true love never dies.

Not ever.

Not now.

Not then.

Not really.

Not until the moon fails to rise and set, to wax and wane.

That moon which blushes with secret admiration for the words we float up to it.

The conduit for our missives to each other.

Telling all our stories of love and adoration, awe and tribulation.

The moon sees us my love.

The moon approves.