Blue

When you feel both too old.

And so alone.

And you wonder where did that girl go, lost in the snow, on the bridge over the Seine?

She made it look so pretty then.

She did not know.

I did not know.

Maybe I still don’t.

But you know, my credit score is so much better now.

Still blue.

Still just too young and oh, oh, oh, no, I am getting old.

I can fight it off.

To a point.

I can buy that pretty fuzzy lavender Forever 21 cardigan at Crossroads in the Castro and take back the Fluevogs that didn’t sell on consignment–I’m rather glad they didn’t, they’re mine–and pose cute with soft light in my loft.

My loft.

My love.

It’s not really mine.

But just for a moment or a year, I can say, I lived/live in a live/work loft in San Francisco.

You know, I’ve always wanted that.

I just wish it was in the Mission.

That would be the best, a warehouse in the Mission.

Where I got this notion, I cannot tell you, in some fairy tale of urban life, a long time ago, dreamed up by a girl who wanted to escape and thought, maybe, maybe, maybe I’m beautiful.

but i could never tell

Ah.

Melancholy.

Like the winter snow over Cafe Montmartre in Madison.

A cigarette smoldering in the ashtray, a halo of snow in the light of the street lamp, candles flickering on the empty tables around us, you with your hair pulled back in a pony tail and your eyes that looked at me with too much need, a romantic moment with snifters of elixirs and a story that looked pretty on the outside but left me.

Empty.

Sad.

Overstuffed with all the food I had to eat to kill the pain.

Until I couldn’t kill it anymore and I killed you, sorry love, I sense you have done well, a wife, children, a house. I see you now and again, but I don’t look too hard, it’s not my place, that slot was taken, but I know, I have the photograph that you always wanted me to give back, the one with your eyes and soul, naked love, on your face.

I don’t even remember when you told me you loved me.

I remember the first time you proposed though.

And took it back, to kick yourself years later.

But I was gone.

Off to California.

You cheated on your girlfriend to be with your ex-girlfriend one last time and the waitress at Monty’s Blue Plate Diner commented on how nice it was to see us again as we sat in the booth eating breakfast, for the last time.

I know you’re well.

And all the other corners of the universe where I could have or would have existed, in pockets of possibilities and dreams of wistfullness.

Up here in my loft listening to Joni Mitchell and feeling slightly lost and just a smidgeon alone.

Knowing.

It will pass.

I don’t have this mood often.

And it is not the worst thing, it’s just a soft vulnerable belly of pain and loneliness.

It happens.

“Why do you think I don’t have a boyfriend?” I asked my lover.

“You live in San Francisco,” he teased.

Yes, I know, maybe the gay male population is not interested in dating a woman with breasts who towers taller than six foot in heels, but I love them, they love me.

But no, they do not make good lovers for me, although the love I get from them, exceptional.

“I’m serious,” I said, “you said once that ‘you’re not going to get a boyfriend by posting sweaty naked pictures of yourself on Facebook.”

I doth protetst.

A little.

Not too much, though, not naked, work out gear doesn’t leave much to the imagination.

And this was before we were lovers but noodling down that path.

It was a path I think I knew where it was going the first phone call.

The help with the things and the bits and the guidance before we even met.

But I am not here to talk about that, ‘secret lover’.

No.

I am thinking what you said later, “you have no peers.”

And that, that might be more aligned with the truth, although the truth is always, for me, on the slant.

I have friends and I know ridiculous and amazing people.

But.

Yes.

I do feel like the odd one out and tonight, watching a show about love and suddenly melancholic I think about old boyfriends and passing kisses and moments in the night, at a bar on Telegraph in Berkeley or doing a poetry slam at the Starry Plough and the misses in the night and the tumbled up on a couch with a tousled, drunken angel with a smatter of smashed out cigarettes and the too thin remnants of a line of cocaine on the coffee table, “I thought you were a lesbian with your short hair,” he said and grinned and kissed me dead and then passed out in my lap.

I left before he woke up to catch the first BART to the city and wander into the daylight seeping up from the East casting shadows in front of me as I walked through the Mission and stopped for coffee at Philz, when it was still a bodega and the last place I ever bought alcohol from.

And I can see her, me, all the compressed pieces and parts and the romantic heart, the ridiculousness of finding myself and my beauty just as it is about to die and my hair grows fine and grey and falls out in alarming swirls down the drain and why did that post about that song come up and why?

WHY?

Are so many people reading my blog?

All of the sudden, five, six months back, weeks of readers and spooky spikes–literally one day it had over 3,200 reads.

In one day.

Readers all over.

Not that I know who they are, do they know who I am?

One or two or fifteen maybe.

But tonight.

Right now in the pink light from the one strand of Christmas lights I won’t let die, listening to Joni Mitchell and Christmas is long gone, though just three weeks back, and tomorrow I will dress up and parade in front of the boys at Most Holy Redeemer and poke fun at myself and laugh and be joyous.

But here, this, soft, near midnight melancholy sallied forth to me and instead of thumbing through pictures and posts of others who I have never met in real life, I thought, it’s time to write.

When I feel like this, it is time to right, Freudian slip, time to write.

Because sometimes when I least expect it, the song is right, a memory floats up, and suddenly I see someone reading a blog I wrote in Paris, when I was so, so, so very sure that was where I would be living out my days.

Writing in some cafe, always writing, or walking, lost at sunset, bewitched and beguiled, by the sun floating in the western banks of swan blue clouds and that shimmering gold dust light that is magic fairy luminescence that you only see in the air of Paris.

And I’m not there.

Just reading words I wrote there and here, in my bed, in my black cotton pajamas with pink piping and polka dots, alone, soft, sad, slight magic still spinning in my heart, an echo of the girl in the apple orchard, the girl on Stinson beach, the beer soaked kiss in the dark apartment, dancing to the Brazilian band at the Elbow Room, eyes wide with wonder at the Defenstration Building on 6th street, you warm in my bed, refusing to make love to me, but holding me with love, and every man becomes another impression of love and roses and kisses and where are all my love letters?

Burnt in the windy night at Ocean Beach when it was so cold.

So cold.

And the mermaids cried each to each.

And I do not eat peaches.

But I will dare to kiss a persimmon.

The sea salt in bins at Rainbow and the tears that want to fall down my face but never do.

Love so sweet.

Witch.

Poet.

Fairykind.

Lost in the tall grass under the willow and will you find me there one day in a pink and yellow lawn chair from the 80s, secretly procured from the MOMA’s museum store in New York, with webs in my hair and stories on my lips watching a moon set, like a flat piece of cardboard in the sunset dusk while the record changes from Mitchell to Van Morrison, to the sweet sound of an ukulele playing memories of songs on a bridge in Venice.

And the heartache will fall on the horizon and my cats will prowl about and birds will call one last song to the settled sun and I will remember when.

When.

When.

I was all the girls at the same time and a melancholic woman alone at the call and whimsy of the night with the music floating up the stairs to the loft.

I have arrived to the place.

Two minutes to midnight.

With winding tears on my cheeks and a heart full.

I may be alone, Virginia.

But I am not lonely.

I am.

Multitudes.

She’s Legal!

This week, on Tuesday, January 13th, I celebrated 21 years of sobriety.

Fucking unreal.

How fast the time goes.

I mean, what the heck?!

How do I have twenty one years of sobriety?

How did that happen?

Not without hitting one hell of a bottom 21 years ago, the holidays were killer.

And not in a fun kind of way.

Maybe, someone looking in from the inside might have thought, wow, she’s a party, or she’s having a party or she’s wild.

But by that time.

One painful intervention from a group of friends in Wisconsin right after my 32nd birthday, which ironically, we had celebrated by starting out with a three martini dinner (I might have been the only person at the table who had imbibed three martinis, but god the food was bad, they call this risotto?) followed by much carousing and beer drinking at my then, “old” stomping grounds, the Angelic Brewing Company.

I had moved to San Francisco right before turning 30 and here I was getting intervened on right after my 32nd birthday.

“You’re better than the cocaine,” one friend said at brunch the next day at Lazy Jane’s in Madison on Willy Street.

Another girlfriend shared a horrifying conversation with me about having called me with the news that she had just had an abortion and instead of lending her an empathetic ear, I rather, regaled her with tales of the guy I had had sex with the night before.

I do not remember this phone call.

Which, is actually, for me, unusual.

I rarely blacked out.

In fact, sometimes I wish I had been blacked out.

But hey, cocaine had me wide awake for all the chaos I was creating.

I don’t doubt I blithely chattered on about myself when my friend was sharing something tender and vulnerable with me.

Alcoholics, addicts, we are selfish, selfish, selfish people.

Self-centered, self-seeking, selfish.

My other friend sat there quietly, she’d not drank a single thing the night before, she was pregnant.

So.

Yeah, slightly hung over, very remiss, I promised my friends I was done.

Done.

Done.

Done.

I got on my plane at the airport in Madison very remorseful and ready to be back home in San Francisco.

Only to arrive at my apartment on 24th and Potrero to a surprise birthday party my room mate was throwing me.

I literally walked in the door and she was handing me a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

I put the bottle to my mouth without a thought, I was off and running again.

And, although at the time, my friends in Madison had not known it, I was trying in various ways since just before Halloween to stop.

I tried not drinking for 30 days.

Only to celebrate by drinking and doing blow in the bathroom of the hotel lobby at the W hotel on 3rd and Mission–it was right across the way from where I used to wait tables at the fine dining restaurant Hawthorne Lane.

After that exciting run, I found out my dealer was locked up in 850 Bryant (the jail house at 850 Bryant) through a message on his outgoing voicemail that I was ignorant about what “I’m at 850 Bryant, don’t leave me any messages on this phone” meant, so I left a message about wanting to score 3 grams of cocaine.

Oops.

And then I didn’t hear from him that night or for weeks, and the goose hung high. I thought, shit, I don’t know what’s going on with my guy, but this is good, I can’t get cocaine (like there weren’t plenty of other dealers in town, but you know, I was loyal) and meant I was done using for good.

Until Halloween night and I’m at dinner with friends at Bruno’s in the Mission, all dressed up, having mini cheeseburger sliders and fries in my flapper get up, I did look cute, fyi, fuck I was 31 and some change, sometimes I wish I could go back and tell that girl, you are amazing and fabulous and look hot as fuck, stop comparing and despairing.

Although, maybe not hot as fuck, drinking and doing lots of blow, even in your early 30s is going to catch up with you quick.

Anyway.

Two mini cheeseburger sliders in and 1/2 a pint of beer, my phone rings and it’s my dealer.

Holy shit.

I answer.

Of course I do.

“How much do you want and where are you?” He asks, no preamble, nothing. I am sure he had a lot of missed income to make up for.

I immediately said, “three” followed by, Bruno’s on Mission Street.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes, be outside by the curb.”

Eight minutes later I excused myself to “smoke a cigarette,” and popped outside.

My dealer rolled up a minute and a half later, I swung into the car, gave him the money and he passed the three grams over to me in an Altoid’s tin in three small baggies.

What the hell do they make those tiny plastic baggies for anyway.

And then, I was off, once again to the races.

I tried around Thanksgiving.

But got corralled to go to Dave’s Sports bar at third and Market Thanksgiving eve after finishing my shift at Hawthorne, I was only going to have one.

I don’t know how many beers later, but the bar was closing and I had scored three bags of cocaine to keep me company the rest of the night.

Unmindful that I was flying out early in the morning to San Diego to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt, cousins, and grandmother, and other family.

I did not have a fun trip.

I was still high, very high, I had just barely finished the coke before calling a cab to SFO.

How the hell I packed is beyond me.

I smoked in the cab to the airport and freaked out, inside, when I saw drug dogs patrolling around, I was terrified they would smell the cocaine rolling off me .

Thanksgiving was miserable.

I spent a lot of it wandering around my aunt’s garden, standing as far away as I could, smoking cigarettes and staring out at the mountain range wondering what that fuck I was doing.

I don’t remember eating.

I am sure I did, but just enough to not draw notice.

I washed the dishes and when dessert was finished I remember sitting and watching Shrek in the family room and then, The Bachelorette.

Oof.

What a fucking nightmare.

The Bachelorette should have been my bottom.

But I was not done yet.

Back to San Francisco.

Then it was my birthday, see first story above, then it was Christmas and boy howdy that was a white Christmas for me.

So much snow.

I must have done twenty grams of cocaine that week.

I was miserable, wild with sleep deprivation, ate nothing at the Christmas brunch/lunch I went to, smoked cigarettes on the fire escape of my friend’s house in Nob Hill, and finally Christmas night, finally really slept.

Passed out hard.

And I was done.

Done, I tell you.

Except.

Shit.

New Years.

I had no plans.

Except the universe did, without telling me, I had only planned on picking up my mom at SFO to go on a trip January 2nd to London–I had bought round trip tickets and accommodations on a Yahoo ad flag one night in a brown out after having a conversation with my mom that she had cancer and was going to have to have surgery and somehow I got it in my head, I should take my mom on a trip out of the country and I booked a trip to London January 2nd-January 9th.

I did ecstasy after picking up my mom at the airport because a girlfriend from Hawthorne had gotten a limo and I was getting picked up and let’s go to 1015 Folsom.

So yeah, I ditched mom and went out and partied and then the day after got on a plane to London with my mom.

My sobriety date is January 13th.

So, in many ways I was wheeling right towards my bottom in London.

Although I did no drugs, we drank a good bit in the pubs and once out at a club, it is fucking surreal to go clubbing with ones mother in London.

I hit my bottom faster because of that trip.

I drained much of my last bit of money and maxed out my credit cards.

Thanks mom.

Anyway.

I knew the jig was up at the hotel lobby bar the night before we headed back to San Francisco, after which I would be putting my mom on a flight back to Wisconsin.

I was “sipping” a martini and smoking cigarettes and writing post cards to my friends in Wisconsin, who had run the intervention on me a few weeks back, promising that this was it, me done leaving, it all behind in London.

Except.

Well.

I took me and my alcoholism and addiction back to San Francisco.

I met up with a friend after tucking my mom into bed, for “just” two margaritas and “a break from my mom,” at Blondie’s in the Mission on Valencia street.

When my friend waved the bartender over to make us a third round, I said, “I can’t, if I have another I am going to want to do cocaine.”

My friend perked right up and said, “oh, I could def do some blow.”

She ordered the next round and I went across the street to the bodega at 16th and Valencia, used the ATM and called my dealer, who was literally just a half block away at Dalva’s.

And it was on.

I was out all night long.

Got back super later, or early, depending on your opinion.

I stayed up in my room doing lines waiting hyper vigilant for my mom to wake up.

And, of course she did early and I was not done with my stash, so when she was up and about, I told her I was too jet lagged to get up yet and could she walk over to Philz and get a couple of coffees?

I gave her some money and retreated back to my room.

I figured her walking to and from Philz would give me enough time to finish.

And it did.

Barely.

And boy was that a strange rest of the day with my mom.

We walked to Tartine so I could get her pastries for the plane and then over to Chow on 16th. I ate nothing.

And then sent her home with fancy pastry and leftovers from Chow that pushed me almost to end of those very maxed out cards.

Honestly, I am not sure how I got through the next days, but it was a sharp downhill decline and a drop into the canyon of doom shortly thereafter.

One phone call at the end of the day at the mortgage brokerage firm I was working at, you read that correctly.

That’s another blog entirely.

End time shenanigans at a brokerage firm.

One phone call from a girlfriend at Hawthorne Lane, where I had been fired in November, right before Thanksgiving, I think, for “being the Pied Piper” of Hawthorne Lane.

The owner was irate when I had gone out clubbing and every single sous chef and the head chef had gone out with me and were destroyed for service the next day.

Except the dessert chef, she was great, didn’t go out.

Anyway, come by, congratulate C__________, P________ finally proposed!

So I headed over.

No thought or desire to drink, I’m just going to say congrats to my friend and bounce home.

But when I walked in my friend bartending saw me coming and put my “usual” on the bar as I was standing and waiting for C__________ to come by and show me her Tiffany engagement ring.

My usual was a double Grey Goose dirty martini on the rocks with extra olives and a pint of Sierra Nevada pale Ale.

I “liked” the way they tasted together, a salty martini with a beer back.

What I really liked was having a drink in each mitt.

I don’t want to drink, I thought, as I reached for the martini and chased it with a slug of the bitter ale.

I then flipped open my phone, yeah, it was that long ago.

I called my dealer.

I walked out of the restaurant, told the bartender I would be right back, ducked down the alley behind the Thirsty Bear and hit the ATM next to Chevy’s.

I withdrew the last bit of money I had in my account.

My dealer was calling me before I had time to finish the beer and oh and ah over my friend’s ring.

I ran out as he pulled up to the valet, scooped the last three grams of cocaine I would ever buy and bounded right back to the bar.

Finished my drink and told my friends I would wait for them at the W Hotel bar until they finished their shifts.

I ran into an old friend from Madison, who had moved to SF before me, who had introduced me to my dealer at an after hours party in a three story loft in Potrero Hill not even a year before, at the bar, he had just scored too.

Did we wait for my friends?

I think so.

It’s blurry.

We definitely drank, did blow in the bathroom, and when the bar closed ended up playing strip poker at a girlfriend’s apartment on the edge of the Tenderloin with my dealer, who had a crush on my girl friend.

My guy friend and I headed back to my place on Potrero and 24th to do more coke until the sun came up and his girlfriend angrily was calling him, they had a flight to catch to Mexico!

Would I hold onto the last of his cocaine, two grams, for him?

He obviously couldn’t take it to Mexico with him.

Of course I would.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” He asked skeptically handing me the two little baggies.

“Of course not,” I said, I fished out a couple of bags from my bra, “I have my own.”

“YOU HOLD OUT!” My friend laughed, gave me his drugs and dashed out the door to his girlfriend fuming in her car outside my apartment.

Of course I did.

And, I don’t know how I knew, but I knew I would and I also knew it was the last straw.

Literally.

Figuratively.

There was something about doing my friend’s drugs, stealing from a friend, that was the last horrible thing–I was stealing from a friend.

I did all the drugs.

And at the nadir, the height of it all, I said “please God help me.”

I saw a white light.

I was probably dying but you know, it makes a good story.

I knew I was done.

I don’t know how, but I knew I was.

And, as it turns out, I was.

Through nothing short of divine intervention I emailed my job, quit, said I was going to go to rehab for cocaine addition, called my best friend in Wisconsin, and found a way out.

It wasn’t what I was expecting and I could never script what happened next, but I never picked up again.

And twenty one year later, she’s legal!

And.

I am still very happy, joyous, and free.

Sobriety star #21 from @Rosalumina @Hiddenplace Tattoo in Potrero Hill, San Francisco

The Year In Review

Kind of.

I mean.

I feel like there is no much to write about, including having seen my ex at a meeting this morning and be absolutely stunned that I felt neutral.

Net neutral.

Like I don’t care, you do you.

No power to give to it, him, any of the men I have dated this past year.

This year was a good, interesting, at times intense, and odd year for dating.

It was probably the year I have dated the most and got out of the most ‘potential’ relationships, I say potential, because really, that was what they were, I was dating to find out, is this a work?

I mean my first long term relationship was a one night stand that became a five year partnership–it should have ended after the first month, but I hey, I was young and not aware of the replication of attachment trauma I was playing.

Anyway. Dating now seems to be is it working?

Or.

Is it not?

All of them turned out to be not, except one exceptional being.

Some of them in spectacular ways–like one blew up on me and got too rather intense and stalked me across media platforms and banned/blocked me, but like, let me know they were doing it while they were doing it.

Ok.

Some of them in quiet, ways, the text I got from early in the year after five dates and letting the guy know we were not a good fit and hey, best of luck–I can’t date someone who shows up high/drunk for a date–and he responded, “I fucked up.”

That was nice, not the fuck up per se, but the admittance that he had made a mistake and understood why I couldn’t move forward in dating him, although he really wanted me to be his girlfriend despite the difference in age–he was just about to turn 37 and I was 52 at the time.

And I’ve fucked up too.

I did.

I hurt someone this past year, but, and for this I am really fucking grateful, I made an amends and we made a repair and that means so, so much. I love and care for him way too much to lose the connection.

Some were just sweet make out sessions on the dance floor, under a strobe light, a disco ball and the influence of a good dj.

Some were not even dates or dating, they were potentials, a look, a smile, a nod, a movement in time and then onwards with a sweet hug, that one happened over the course of a weekend at Harbin.

One relationship, potential I should say, blew up right before Burning Man and that was tender.

Nothing like thinking I was going to have a partner at the burn and then that didn’t happen.

In fact.

The burn last year was pretty hard. I camped in a new camp that sort of imploded and I learned a lot about what works for me and what does not.

Although, I had my moments.

Sherpa’ing four virgins boys at Burning Man on their bicycles and the vastness of the playa and the lights, the drama, the music, the stars, one night. Standing in the middle of four men who had never been to Burning Man, all of us on bicycles, me in the middle, ready to set off on the grandest of adventures.

I’m a good tour guide.

Or, oh, finding a young French man at the trash fence one afternoon lying on his back crying, when I was out riding my bike–having gone super deep playa and actually taken a nap at an art piece that was shaded and had mattresses underneath it. What a delightful discovery, to lay in the heat, be shaded, pop open my big pink solar umbrella and snooze listening to the wind in the chimes. Then finding that young Parisian boy at his first burn, mourning his break up and speaking to each other in a mixture of French and English about love and relationships and Burning Man and poetry.

I’ll go back.

I always do.

Especially since I cancelled my trip to Paris this upcoming May.

Money has been a little tight.

My therapy practice took a hit this year.

The industry, the economy, people in scarcity, losing jobs, moving, moving out of the country.

It was an intense year to be a therapist and I’m coming into the new year with fewer clients and sessions than I have in years.

I’ve been brainstorming and talking to colleagues and my own therapist and they’ve all agreed–time to do some marketing.

I got a ring light.

I’m going to start doing some videos.

I have time blocked out on my calendar for tomorrow.

A sort of new year resolution.

Marketing, get vulnerable, share my PhD work, post some videos and some photos and see what happens.

I think that’s what this year is going to be, see what happens.

Love who I love without arguing it, know that I can be outside the box, try new things.

Travel with my trailer.

I figure the money I would have spent in France for two weeks I can probably do weekend trips and long weekends for the entire year in my trailer.

She, Betty, my sweet pink and white trailer, is nicely settled in the Delta and safe there.

Close enough that I can drive a little over an hour and be there to take care of her, also, the Delta is beautiful and I can just go hang out there too.

Birds and sun and water and joy in the long grass, art, mischief, adventures.

I’m also starting to run a list in my head of where to go–Big Sur, Sea Ranch, Pismo Beach, Joshua Tree, maybe Death Valley, Yosemite, the Red Woods, the Grand Canyon–travel about and get some use out of her.

I’ve only taken her out twice since I got her back from being restored down in LA at Wanderlust Vintage Trailers.

That was a big part of this past year–Betty, the trailer, my little 1984 U-Haul CT-13.

Getting her renovated, updated, painted.

There’s still some stuff to do, I’d like to rig her with solar and/or get a generator for some trips where I’m not able to plug into electricity.

I don’t want to be dependent on others at the burn this year, that was not great for me last year, the power source was an issue where I stayed.

I took the trailer to Harbin for a weekend too and that was lovely, albeit cold, end of the season and at night it was really cold, the fiberglass does not hold heat. The space where the trailers are allowed to camp does not have access to electricity. I have the trailer wired for electric, but it doesn’t matter if I’m off grid.

I laughed thinking about a conversation I had with a lover who said, all you need is a candle and you’ll be warm in it, I lit a candle and it did not keep it warm.

Although it smelled nice and once I was under the covers I was toasty and fine.

I also upgraded the mattress in the trailer, the one that came with it was not great and after two trips–Burning Man and Harbin, I knew I had to get a better mattress.

Costco to the rescue.

I had a friend help me with it and it’s all nicely set up in the trailer.

I haven’t slept on it yet, but it is easily twice as thick and so much better a mattress than the one I replaced, it’s a princess alcove for sure, it’s elevated pretty high for a bed, but it will last a long time and I will be much, much, much happier sleeping on it.

I do need a cover for the trailer though, she’s getting dirty nestled under the willow tree at the park.

It makes me a little crazy seeing her get dirty.

That paint job cost me a pretty fucking penny.

All the renovations did.

I pretty much blew my savings on it, but I have it and sometimes when I get fearful, I think, well, if it all goes to shit, I hitch her up to my Jeep and I work remote.

God only knows what I would do with my cats, but I feel like I have an escape hatch if I need one.

That being said.

I love my loft.

And I have officially been here for a year.

It’s perfectly dialed in.

I had it set up pretty quick upon moving in and over this past year have slowly fleshed things out and with the addition of the pink velvet and chrome bar stool for the kitchen island and a few plants that I was recently gifted, I do not need to do anything more with the space.

It is pretty, cozy, full of art, and when it’s not raining, full of light.

I love being able to park in a garage and not worry about my car getting broken into on the street.

I have moved around my recovery meetings to fit my new location in the city, the SOMA–I’ve lived in so many neighborhoods in San Francisco–the Mission (loads of places in the Mission), Bernal Heights, Potrero, the Outer Sunset, the Outer Richmond, Nob Hill, the Bayview.

SOMA/Mission Bay is where I am at now and it works well.

It’s not always the most scenic part of town, but I like that it’s flat, the downtown skyline is amazing, I have amenities close at hand–grocery stores, Rainbow Co-op, a few cafes and resto’s, found a good sushi place, I can walk to the Bay, which is lovely, I can drive pretty quickly over the bridge, which is optimal for going out to the Delta to see my trailer.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

Sure.

There’s a part of me that is still very much a Mission girl and I will likely always be that girl, but SOMA is adjacent, so it works and when the big work/live lost in the Mission becomes possible, I will have had my time here to be ready for that.

I don’t foresee moving anytime soon, though, not unless something tremendous changes with my financial situation.

And, ideally, I don’t want to move for a bit.

I love my loft, the interior courtyard view of the palm trees and greenery, the blue sky, my little balcony with plants and a cafe table and chairs, the cats get bird tv all day long and I get a lot of sun.

I also love my work out nook up stairs in the loft next to my bedroom space.

Ah.

The Peloton.

My most enduring of relationships this past year.

I started riding January 19th of 2025, so it’s not yet been a year, but oh, what a year it has been.

It’s a bit addicting.

The changes in my body, the way I feel after a good work out, how it washes out the anxiety and stress of doing therapy work.

The weight loss.

So far, and I don’t have an exact weight to report yet, but sort of since I did have a physical last month on December 4th with my GP.

Who said, “you are in near perfect health!”

Fucking nice news to hear weeks before my 53rd birthday.

On December 4th I got on a scale for the first time in about a year and the results were that since the previous December, 2024, I had lost 30.5 lbs!

Holy shit.

I mean, I knew I had lost a decent bit, I’ve dropped a couple of dress sizes and basically culled out most of my clothes.

Someone at my holiday party asked me if I’d “kept any of my ‘fat’ clothes.”

A. I was not fat.

B. No.

I don’t plan on gaining that weight back.

I really like being this size.

I like feeling lighter and healthier and fucking strong and also flexible.

I ride a lot, so I stretch a lot.

I do want to see what a full year of riding does, clock my weight, dress size, etc on January 19th, but I gotta say, I am not mad at the results.

Although, I will say, I do need one more skin reduction surgery.

All told, when I got on the scale in December, that number is 106 lbs less than what I was at my “top” weight, I don’t actually know what the heaviest I got to was, that time at 282 lbs, a year in a half into recovery and eating all the sugar I could cram into my face, I was working at a vet office and got on the dog scale and nearly ran crying into the bathroom.

I probably was a little heavier when I finally gave up sugar and processed flour six months later, but I wasn’t going near a scale again and didn’t for some time.

I also know that having a scale wreaks havoc with my esteem.

I am not my weight, my esteem cannot nor should not rest on the number on a scale.

My value does not lie in my pants size or in my bank account.

When I look at my year in review I think, I wrote some good poetry, I met some amazing people, I traveled to Portland, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin, New York, Washington D.C., Burning Man, Los Angeles; I dated, I danced, I tried new things–Harbin Hot Springs–I grew into my loft, I lost a bunch of dress sizes and feel healthier than I have ever and I have kept loving myself, stayed sober, and connected to community.

2025 was a year.

Grateful for it all.

Ready for 2026.

Let’s get messy and love hard.