Tomorrow’s The Big Night

And I wish I had not seen the video of my dress rehearsal, but there it is.

I don’t like how I look and it is uncomfortable to watch.

My shit.

I know that.

I have a different sense of how I look and I felt, ugh, just not pretty or attractive or engaging.

Oh.

I know that isn’t true, it’s just a feeling, a way to not acknowledge the work I have done to be where I am, but it’s there.

So, hey, negative self-esteem, nice to see you too.

Although, let’s be fucking honest here, no one should shoot video from below a woman’s face, fuck people, who doesn’t know this in the age of selfies?

I was like, oh look, double chin.

And I’m wearing a fucking flannel and messy pigtails.

I could cry.

I’m vain and I feel like I look heavy and it just wasn’t what I wanted to see on my phone before heading in to see my clients.

That is a request from the producers of the show to share my video montage that they made on social media.

But.

Hey.

Anything for a good cause.

And it is.

I don’t have to be the most attractive thing on the fucking planet, or in town, and there’s no way I’m going to be any of those things anyway.

But.

I can be myself, messy, flawed, thick.

It’s who I am.

I am no svelte lady, I get to walk around in this body and keep getting to be grateful for it.

Sigh.

I’m going to get up early.

I’m going to shower.

I’ll do some nice make up and put on a pretty dress and I will not give a fuck what the negative talk is in my head about how I look on video.

It’s just how I look and the damn thing will be done and I will move on with the rest of my life.

Really.

I loved the experience of hearing my friend’s talk and how beautifully he talked about our experience and the hug we exchanged and I’ll remember that, not how I looked fat in my pink flannel Gap shirt that I now want to burn and never wear again.

Gah.

I guess I have some more body image work to do.

Sigh.

I know I’m being a baby, I know I am.

There’s nothing wrong with me.

I just don’t like how I look on video.

I would hazard that there aren’t a lot of folks outside of movie stars that do like how they look on video, it’s weird to see oneself in a different light.

And I am grateful I get to do this and I’ve practiced a lot and I think I have a good talk.

It certainly elicits emotions.

I think that’s the most important thing, that I share my soul a little bit, that I’m vulnerable that I am honest.

That is my beauty.

That is where I shine.

And frankly I wasn’t shining on the video.

Oh.

It’s not bad, it’s just not what I want to portray.

I don’t like it when I know I’m being video taped either, I feel awkward.

It’s the same when I’m having a photo taken.

I can take a great fucking selfie, I know my angles, but fuck someone else taking my photo and the results make me want to gag.

I felt the same way when I did the photo shoot to get the head shot for the event, fat and unattractive.

Old news, old story, just another old way to beat myself up for not being what everyone else in this society wants to be.

I am heavier than I want to be, thanks grad school and practicum, I don’t get to work out as much as I used to and I haven’t bicycle commuted in a couple of years, sitting on my ass reading and writing papers has put a few pounds on me.

But not that much!

So.

I know it’s my head and it’s a way to try to self-sabotage something that will bring me joy to do.

I don’t want to ruin the damn thing before I even get on stage.

Fuck the cameras.

Fuck the image bullshit.

Show up.

Put on my best dress.

Put on some lipstick.

And shine.

I know I can shine.

I know it when it comes over me and suddenly words are just falling out of my mouth and I am moving in this marvelous sea of love and it feels extraordinary.

That’s what I want.

That’s how I am.

And I need to shake this shit off now.

I do not want to be in fucking tears the day of the show.

I look like shit when I cry, thanks getting old, my eyes can’t hide tears very well.

Plus.

I have fucking therapy in the morning.

I warned my therapist that I did not want to be crying in my next session when I left her office last week, I don’t want to have cry face.

I’ll bring my make up bag just in case.

Ugh.

I am being a baby.

I knew I wasn’t going to like the video before I even saw it.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

I will not compare and despair.

I will fucking not.

I am just fucking fine the way I am and  I will change again next week.

Change is always happening.

Few more grey hairs on my head.

More laugh wrinkles around my eyes.

I don’t know that people are going to remember how I looked, what I hope is that they remember how they feel after I have shared.

That is what is important.

The message.

Not the medium.

The medium is vain.

I wish to carry the message and that’s all.

That’s it.

Just be my authentic self and let that bring happiness.

That’s all that matters.

In the end, really, that’s the most important thing.

Share my joy.

Not my vanity.

And.

Just.

Be.

 

My beautiful self.

Who’s Life Is This?

I said to my friend as I sat on the deck of the houseboat we’re sharing on the Seine, eating my salad in the sun slanting golden through the clouds over Le Grand Palais.

My friend pithily replied, “it’s yours.”

Oh shit.

It is.

I felt my heart swell up with gratitude and tears well in my eyes.

The tears they always well easy, but sitting on top of a houseboat in the middle of the Seine, located at Place de la Concorde/Champs Elysees, I felt blown up with joy.

This is my life.

And I’m on a houseboat in Paris.

It’s a pretty fucking amazing life, this.

I say it all the time, luckiest girl in the world, but it really feels that way, I can also see challenging things as lucky too, I have perspective, part of the reason why it felt so shocking to me is how I left when I moved away from Paris.

Broke.

Or.

How I left it last Christmas.

Heartbroken.

To just be sitting on the top deck, under an awning, waving at the Bateaux Mouche going by with their decks heavy with tourists, eating my dinner, in Paris.

In Paris.

It astounds.

I am grateful to be here, ready to be settled in one spot for a while.

It’s felt like non-stop moving at certain points and I’m happy to be moored for the rest of my time here.

I got up super early this morning.

Which was not my intention.

NOT AT ALL.

But.

I woke up at 4 a.m. wide awake.

And as much as I tried I couldn’t go back to sleep.

I rolled around, drifting in and out of thoughts, half dreams, revery, but never sunk back into sleep.

So.

I got up at 5:30a.m. and took a super hot shower, god I love hotels for super hot showers, plus huge over head rainfall shower heads, and let the water wash away the travel and the weary and washed out my hair.

Oh my God.

People.

My hair.

It’s huge.

The humidity isn’t bad, but it’s greater than what I am used to in San Francisco.

I have a lot of hair.

But right now.

It feels like.

I have.

A LOT.

It’s pretty huge.

It, my hair, has led to some interesting conversations, mostly with men, actually, all with men.

I got propositioned this morning as I left the hotel to take a morning stroll around Pere LaChaise Cemetery.

I mean.

I was basically offered cunnilingus for breakfast.

I was like.

Wow.

Paris.

It’s 7 a.m.

I’m going to wait though, and grab a cafe creme before entertaining that thought.

Yeesh.

I also was told by a way too friendly taxi cab drive that I had an amazing smile.

Thanks.

Now stop looking at me in the rearview window and drive, you’re making me nervous.

I’m pretty friendly and gregarious and sometimes I forget that doesn’t always translate here.

Smile?

Sure.

You must be a hooker and want to blow me in my cab and pay an extra fare.

Douche bag.

I also forgot, and it took me longer than it has in the past to pick up on it, I don’t think about it at all living in San Francissco, that I have tattoos.

And.

It’s warmer than the last two times I was in Pairs, I was here over two different winters I was not showing any skin.

And though I am not showing a lot, one can see that I am sporting more tattoos than the average bear.

As I was standing in the lobby to check out of my super hip boutique hotel the woman at the front was telling the other clerk that his tattoos were too big and that she couldn’t get anymore if she ever wanted to have a job outside of working at Mama Shelter.

I wanted to intervene, in French, and say something, but I played restraint of pen and tongue, nobody asked for my fucking opinion.

But.

Folks here definitely have some ideas about what tattoos mean.

Whore.

Anyway.

Like I care.

Like I give a fat god damn.

I am sitting on a houseboat in the Seine writing my blog.

This life, my life, is so fucking amazing and you know, I’ll probably go get another tattoo while I’m here, because, well, that’s what I do.

Heh.

I get to do whatever I want, well, as long as I accept the consequences.

So, I smile, and I’m joyful and if that means I get some over reaching flirting once in a while I can deal or stares or comments.

It isn’t any of my business what people think of me.

Shit.

It’s none of my business what I think of me.

I don’t always think well of myself, so I try not to think too much of myself.

Just enough.

Just barely enough.

But.

The truth is, I am more than enough and I deserve to be here and I work really motherfucking hard.

I’m happy to be on a boat in the Seine rocking on the waves of the boats rolling by.

It’s an experience I quietly dreamed about my first time walking the Seine by myself in Paris in 2007.

Seeing all the houseboats, dreaming about owning one or renting one.

When the cab dropped me off I had gotten there early and I knew which one it was by the photos from the reservation, but no one was around, just the tabby cat sunning itself on the deck.

I stood for a while, then the cat got curious, as they do, and came over and gave me the once over and deigned to let me stroke him and then I just said, fuck it, and hopped on the boat.

Standing with a goofy too big smile on my face in the brilliant afternoon sun over Paris.

On a boat.

I’m just going to keep going with this.

It will fade off I am sure.

But for right now.

Well.

Basking.

Just glowing with it.

All the things.

For.

The luckiest girl in the world.

Me.

Snuggle Britches

“I need a snuggle,” I told my friend tonight.

“Are you coming over?”

That’s right.

I have a friend with benefits.

Cuddles that is.

I used to have “friends with benefits” and they were not of the snuggling sort.

I cannot tell you how good it is for me to be having this kind of intimacy.

The simple, sweet, intense, personal connection with a friend who holds your hand and listens to your stories.

Someone who likes listening to your stories.

Everyone has a story to tell.

But.

Sometimes I am just not interested in hearing it or vice versa.

The gift of having someone who is actually interested in what you are saying and wants to listen and you can talk to and happens to live in the neighborhood.

Well.

That is a gift.

A huge gift.

And it’s a new way of interacting for me.

The one who is always ready to jump into a romantic, fantasy, or otherwise, relationship with someone, its new behaivor,  a new way of acting and reacting, a new way of being.

I’m into it.

I am almost obscenely grateful for it.

Especially after the way I stuck my foot in my mouth with my friend last Friday.

We were able to amend the relationship and move forward and we’re still friends, if anything, it seems to have deepened and the relationship moves apace.

I may have even convinced him to go to Burning Man.

In fact, I hit up the list of campers that I am going with and asked if anyone had a spare ticket.

I have never, ever, ever asked for someone before.

And I have had a lot of folks ask me over the years.

Sometimes folks I don’t even know.

Last year I was getting hit up on my Instagram feed for tickets.

I was at the event a week and a half before it started and was posting photographs and complete random strangers were messaging me asking for tickets.

Please.

It was annoying.

And now I am that person.

But.

This person means a lot to me and there’s just something to showing a person who has never been what the event is all about.

Because it’s not about the party for either one of us.

It’s about the art, the experience, the people, the community.

It’s about love.

And I want my friend to see that.

Plus, as much as I don’t always care to admit it.

Burning Man, is for me, an indelible part of my being and person.

I really found a voice for myself and my authenticity within the community that I have only found in one other place and the two fellowships have become rather inseparable for me.

I am who I am because of Burning Man.

And I wouldn’t have been able to go to Burning Man without first being a part of my fellowship.

It all goes round and the two intertwine and overlap and I am grateful for the permeable membrane of love which allows the overlap.

I have my people in both camps and I want my person in this experience too.

So.

Yeah.

You got a spare ticket.

You hit me up.

I got a friend.

I got a lot of busy too.

I have not had the space at work to do some of my regular phone calls and check ins, because well, grandparent visit.

Which on one hand is great.

Who doesn’t want their lunch paid for, and their dinner for that matter?

I have eaten out frequently this week with the grandparents and that is fun.

On the other, at times, I feel alternately too superfluous, there’s so many adults to so many little people, and also busier than usual as I help prep and clean up and do household maintenance along with my nanny duties.

They’ve been here since last Thursday, tomorrow they leave and I will go back to my “normal” amount of work, which is still quite a lot.

The day does just fly by.

But any romanticized idea about being able to do work and school work, like I have had quite a few people suggest–oh you’ll just read while they nap.

No.

I won’t.

I take a break and they aren’t napping.

They have quiet time, but there’s no real quiet time for me.

Yes.

I have a chance to sit down and eat.

But.

“Carmen! Carmen! Carmen!” The youngest hollered down at me.

“I have to potty!”

He’s three.

Run up the stairs, hustle him into the bathroom, re-settle him, dash back downstairs, get a little more of my cup of tea in me, check an e-mail, think, but not actually do anything about what I am thinking because.

“Carmen! Carmen! Carmen!”

Jesus kid.

Ugh.

Run up the stairs, retrieve a pillow, re-settle him, dash around, find the stuffed husky dog, retrieve it, give back to older brother, go back downstairs, clean up the kitchen, organize snacks for afternoon adventure, with grandparents, to The Randall Museum’s little outpost in the Mission.

Side bar.

The Park and Recreations Department in the Mission on Treat Street between 20th and 21st is a jewel!

I had no clue it was there and not only is the building housing the Randall Museum’s Live Animal Exhibit until the renovations on the Cornona Heights facility are finished, it also has a large out-door play area/playground with a beautiful open air roof and trellised vines and flowers.

It is stunning.

Well loved, I think is the nice way to say it, and slightly run down, but stunning.

And a delight to find another resource for the boys in the Mission, that’s a little off the beaten track, quiet, and yes, has clean and very accessible bathrooms.

End sidebar.

I sit back down.

I watch the monitor.

The oldest boy is simultaneously practicing head stands on his bed and pulling down every single book on his shelves while the youngest has navigated all the laundry out of his hamper and placed it in a few choice spots that I will have to retrieve later, as well as pulling out the giant excavator from his closet, moving all the blankets from his bed to the top bunk on the bunk bed, to finally, yes, I kid you not, putting his pillow in front of the closed-door and taking his favorite stuffed cat, Meow Meow, and his blanket and falling asleep blocking the door to his room.

God.

I love these boys.

“Carmen! Carmen! Carmen!”

Yes.

“I need a snuggle.”

Me too, darling.

Now excuse me while I go take care of that.

You Are Probably Writing

No.

I was in the shower.

But you don’t need to know that.

For all intents and purposes, at a certain point in my evening I do neglect all but the most urgent of phone calls and texts and I sit and I give myself this.

This forum.

This love.

This self-expression.

This tender heart of mine needs to see itself reflected back and this is where it happens.

Self-reflection and acceptance and that quiet good spot that I find in the pause between the words, when sometimes the singing of the tea-pot interrupts the words, but more often, it is the magic in that space where I find the grace to get lost in the sound of the keys, the sounds in my heart, the voices in my head stop and the singing starts.

Sometimes most literally, singing.

I do like to crank the music when I write, it’s a way of winding down and also a way of letting go of the world and succumbing to this cozy space of mine here at the edge of the world, the edge of the city, the cusp of the Pacific a soupçon away.

Funny thing though.

I rarely go back and read what happened yesterday, though there is sometimes an imprint of it on my day or about my person and I had that today coalesce in different and surprising ways.

There was the surprise text from my ex this afternoon that sprung something open.

Broke open.

Not broken.

Heart is not broken, he did not break my heart, but it broke open more and there it was this tender, kind, sweet spot, there, just there, deep in my chest and the sun broke throughout the playground as I pushed the little boy in the swing “higher, Carmen, higher,” and the sweet text broke over my face like the sun and tears prickled my eyes.

I was not upset that he reached out and I paused.

Breathed.

Looked at the sky.

Saw the imprint of leaves over the soft clouds, the blue that was trying to break through and the shift happened.

I did not feel anger or upset or hurt.

I felt tender sweet love for him.

And for myself.

I felt fondness.

I felt compassion.

I said a little hello to the Universe, reread the text, and responded.

It felt right and I felt neither manipulated into responding nor did I feel like I was opening up some can of worms.

My god.

I think this is called moving on.

I think this is about compassion, tolerance, patience, and love, oh yes love, in all its various manifestations and convolutions.

I felt stars fall on my heart and the old light lit corners of my heart that I knew were there, but did not suspect the depths therein.

I felt beautiful, and full, and loved back.

By God.

By the child in the swing.

The birds in the air.

By myself.

We had a sweet reconnection and I know that I can be his friend.

And yes, there was some pain there, but like the fingerprints of it, not the devastation of break up and change-up and moving on and the pain of rejection.

Rather.

It was like the pain of a wound that has knit and healed and was just jostled slightly, as though to remind me that I went through the experience and came out full and returned to sanity and something else.

I felt free.

Grateful.

Oh so grateful.

But deeply free.

I have peered so far inside myself and I knew I didn’t have to keep digging through it.

I worked it out.

I did not hide from it, I sat through it, I did my process, I did my cry, I did my surrender, I thought I was ok, I realized I was a “whistling in the dark” and I went through the process some more and did more of this, more writing more work, more and then continued to keep walking toward where ever it was next I had to walk to.

Or ride my bike to.

Or sit in the back yard to.

Sometimes you just have to sit in the back yard and cry when you hear a motorcycle engine roar past.

It feels amazing and sad and good and god damn, god damn, I am so glad I keep showing up for this life and doing the deal.

I get richer reserves of faith and love and compassion and growth and it is astounding.

Small progress that I don’t even know that I am making until I can stand on the other side of the park and not be worried about what anybody thinks about me because I am doing the best I can with what I got.

What I got is good.

Feels, frankly, pretty sexy.

I’m awake.

I’m alive.

And I am sexy.

I don’t have to be dressed sexy to feel sexy.

I just get to do the work, that’s what is sexy.

That’s where the real groove is.

It just means that I am being my authentic self, my real person, this strong, beautiful woman I have grown into.

I suspected all along that she was here and I had some ideas about what “she” looked like.

Nothing like this.

This, pink hair, tattooed, smart aleck, bright, graduate school bound, nanny, with a great big smile and a wide open heart is not at all who I suspected.

It’s far better.

Far sexier.

Far more tender and open and compassionate.

Far less judgmental, intolerant and fearful.

I suspect that it only gets better, deeper, more full, this experience, this sexy, loving, bright, tender, sparkling life.

The best is yet to come.

With it.

All the things.

They too, will follow.

They always have.

I Just Wanted To Tell You

I think you’re fabulous.

Really.

I know you don’t know me.

(I do a little, by sight, around the block, in the circles, you know.

But no, I don’t know you, although I do know your name and that you seem kind and sweet.)

But I really wanted to tell you that I think that, that you are fabulous, really, everything about you, I just thought I should tell you.

I smiled and said thank you.

This stranger, not a friend, a passing acquaintance at best, but someone who has seen me show up for the last few years, out of the blue, right when I am making my strides, the come back kid.

Come back to fabulous, baby.

We’re all waiting for you.

It felt so nice to hear.

I didn’t even tell her that her timing was fabulous, really, that hearing from her after the past week was such a nice thing.

I just thanked her again and smiled and let her give me a hug.

I mean I had no idea volunteering for a commitment would illicit such a response.

I am not sure if it was the relationship, though, I do think in its way, it totally was, that finally got me to figure out my routine in conjunction with work and living out by the sea.

Small aside.

I, for a hot second, considered a place out in the produce market neighborhood which is sort of an industrial wasteland of railroad tracks, low-income housing, and warehouses that most folks have no idea exist.

A long time ago, eight years, I believe, I worked as a customer service rep at one of the produce markets.  My room-mate got me a part-time gig there.

The pay was shit, but it was pay, and it was easy, and I got all the free produce I could possibly eat.

That was the pay off really.

Yes, sir, I was literally working for food.

I know the neighborhood, and the place available is in an artist/work/live space.  I considered it, not because I want to move, but because if it’s less than what I am paying, than that might make sense with graduate school tuition looming.

But it is not cheaper and I am staying.

Much to my relief, really.

Why live in a neighborhood where I would have to bicycle commute through one of the filthiest homeless thorough fares in the city–under the bridge at Cesar Chavez and the 101/280 split.

There is a bike path there, but it is not fun to commute through.

Anyway.

The bicycle commute I do, though longish, is not bad, and my rent is good and my location, down by the sea, with the buttery moon cusp crescent sinking into the indigo sea as I write, is divine.

In fact, I shall be down by the sea this weekend.

It’s a good place for me to go.

Just sit, with a book, in the sun.

Or walk the shoreline for a while.

The weather is actually predicted to be 70.

I’m there.

I want to continue giving myself space to feel out any other feelings that may be coming down the pipeline.

Today was pretty mellow.

One small, brief, slightly petty argument with the ex in my head which I promptly realized was fear, and was able to quickly let go of, and nada.

Just some serenity.

A busy day at work didn’t hurt.

Nor some check ins with friends.

I have some unexpected and really nice responses to the writing that I have been doing here.

I appreciate the feedback my friends, I really do.

And then to be given such a sweet and unexpected, out of left field really, compliment, was just the cherry on my love sundae.

That’s what I have been feeling a lot of lately.

Ha.

I just realized something, and it’s akin to when I adopted my feral cat Uni.

I had been praying for love.

But not very specific.

I was given a cat.

I meant a boyfriend, I hollered at the ceiling when the little white furry nugget that was Uni as a kitten kneaded on my chest and put her small white and pink face under my chin and purred so loudly that I was smitten with love.

Smashed with it really.

I realized that I have been praying for love a lot recently, even before the break up.

Not his love.

No.

Just love.

Ok.

Maybe a little for his love.

But again, I was unspecific.

I was just lighting candles, I like candles, shaddup, and when I light one I usually ask for love.

Not money or sex or prestige.

Love.

God for me is love.

So whatever conduit he decides is where it’s at.

Of course, I have been absolutely showered with it, bathed in it, swept along with it, flooded with it.

Love.

Everywhere, like rich golden sunlight and warm sandy beaches and it’s poured out from my community like a river of buttery goodness–affirming me, my process, my person, who I am, what I stand for–smothered in it, love.

From friends and family and community and my fellows, those I know and those I don’t know very well.

It’s been a virtual love fest.

I laugh.

God, my God, has a funny sense of humour.

I am back on the beam.

Back to my fabulous self.

Reconnected with that which is the most important to me.

My self-love and acceptance of who I am.

I don’t need to forgive him.

I never did, not really, he’s just doing the best he can.

I needed to forgive me.

And I am just doing the best I can.

I hid my glitter under a barrel and apparently it burst out, a love bomb explosion of fabulous.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Least of all myself.

I promise I won’t glitter bomb any of my friends, or myself, but I won’t hide who I am either, nor get small, nor not speak up for who I am and what I am.

I am fabulous.

Hear me roar.

Or whatever sound glitter makes.

 

 

I’m Glad Your Posting Again

He said to me this evening as we exchanged a quick hug before I bounced to catch the N-Judah home.

Yeah, not my bicycle, but the MUNI.

Flat tire today.

I was able to pump it up this morning and it held air to get me to, work, but by the time I was done with work again it was soft and suspect I need either a new tube, as the valve might be leaky, or I need a new tire.

Either way I am covered.

And very fortunate that my bike shop is just blocks away from where I work.

I dropped it off at the shop and then high tailed it in a cab to the Inner Sunset.

I got my God on and hit the MUNI home.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking a car into work, I don’t like how often I have had to take Uber and Lyft and cabs this past week and a half, but between the rain, the flat tire, and it just being that way, I will live.

“White girl problems,” he said to me as I complained that the new teas at Starbucks sucked and they didn’t carry any decent tea.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I have today.

Which isn’t to say that I won’t get my panties in a twist when something small arises, so I gratefully hopped in the cab and I will gratefully take a car into work tomorrow.

Which also happens to be my Friday.

Oh yeah.

I have a five-day weekend.

I shall be kicking it off by getting picked up by my boyfriend from work and heading straight to the symphony to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special accompanied by the San Francisco Symphony playing the score by Vince Guaraldi.

I don’t know what I will be doing exactly for Christmas Eve or Christmas or the days thereafter.

I did mention to my guy that I wanted to go down to Big Sur and see the monarch migration, but he’s been sick and is just now after five days of being in it, coming back to a state of normalcy.

I find it too difficult to ask for anything from anyone who is sick, let alone the boyfriend.

I figure we’ll roll with whatever happens.

He actually has standing plans to be elsewhere Christmas morning, so I’ll have that free too.

Sleeping in is about all I think Santa is going to be leaving under my tree.

My tree!

I forgot I had gotten my tree yesterday and was warmly surprised and delighted when I opened the door to my studio and there my little Charlie Brown tree was draped in lights and ornaments.

I plugged in the lights and smiled.

I do so like Christmas time.

I also finished wrapping up presents.

I picked up some things for the boys that I care for today—vintage newspaper boat hats, googley eyed “monster” putty packs, and one brand new wooden racecar for each of them.

I joked with the clerk in the store that I was using my Christmas bonus to buy toys for the boys I care for.

And so the love goes around.

I got a bonus for Christmas and that was such a lovely thing.

I wasn’t surprised per se, I expected that I would get one, but I wasn’t expecting it to be a whole weeks pay, before taxes.

Thank you Santa.

Serious.

I paid off my student loan a few weeks early, threw some in savings, bought some nice food to have around the house and am thinking I may splurge on a New Year’s Eve frock.

As well as paying for the application fee to the graduate school I will be applying to this weekend.

Yes.

That’s right, it’s time to get that going and on track.

I will have time to work on it and I can’t think of a better Christmas present to give myself than a future.

I had a few doubts over the past few days in regards to the school and the direction and am I doing the right thing, but as they say, “willingness without action is fantasy.”

I have to take the action and move forward.

If it’s not meant to be, then that will be made very apparent, but if it’s meant to be I have to do the work.

I can be willing to change and be better, but until I actually take a different action then its just masturbation and fantasy.

Gee, wouldn’t it be nice, if when my body falls apart from being a nanny for over eight years, I have another career I can segue into.

A career where I can be of love and service to the community about me.

Which is always my purpose anyhow.

For which I am handsomely and richly paid, but it is a different kind of service.

So, I will be taking some time to work on that and get it done.

“You don’t want to stop doing all the things that the person who is with you was attracted by, you’ll paradoxically lose that persons interest.”

Well spoken.

So, when I got the pat on the back for getting back in the blogging saddle, I knew it was the truth.

I still got to write.

I don’t suppose or hope or have expectations around my blogging or the morning pages that I do; rather, that I just need to do them.

I don’t have expectations any more about becoming a big, rich, famous writer.

Besides, I’m famous in my own mind.

I do, however, need to cultivate the artistic temperament in me, whatever that looks like in the moment, which is often the writing for me.

But it is also reading, which I haven’t done a lot of recently, and doing activities that inspire wonder and awe in me.

My partner, I have said often and loud, must compliment me, not complete me.

This means, I complete myself, take care of myself and nurture that art girl in me.

Maybe it’s time for an Artist Date as well.

I do have Christmas Eve day off.

So much life.

So much love.

So much gratitude.

Happy Holidays.

Home for the holidays.

Christmas in San Francisco continues.

 

 

Carmen, Be Yourself

He leaned into whisper in my ear.

We both had some moisture in our eyes, kindness will do that to a person.

At least to this person.

I was thinking about that as I flew through the park on my bicycle this evening coming home from the Mission, the cool air rolling over my body, the press of the black sky a velvet glove stroking my face, the trees full of the sound of water and the stars beckoning over head, drawing me down to the ocean’s edge.

My heart felt wide open to this pressing of sky, standing still, though moving fast.

That has what this past few days has been for me.

High speed.

Then standing still.

Letting myself be seen and not stepping away from it.

It is far harder than I suspected, this letting of self out, despite fleeting stupid thoughts that I know aren’t really mine, but just seeds of discontent trying to get themselves sowed.

Or sabotage.

Which is more like it.

I am not running away from my situation.

I am standing still.

I am letting myself be approached and known.

It feels like my heart is a big tent that I have staked out under that blanket of stars, I watch comets streak by and planets revolve in the sky, I see the crush of the heavens above and feel the absolute wonder of it all.

I have been seeing how much I want to move out of the direct line of sight, even though I write about wanting to be my authentic self, there is a great deal at stake, or so it feels, when I do that.

Not for anyone else, but for my concept of myself.

I talk the talk.

Now.

How do I walk the walk?

When someone says that I am beautiful or loved do I accept the person and the compliment?

Of course I do.

However, the voice in the head says, lose that five pounds, or those flowers in your hair, too much.

Despite being told by men and women that when I allow myself to be authentically me, they are attracted to me.

It frees up others to be themselves too.

I know this is a service.

I know that I do it.

I know, because I have been told so by people who know better than I do how to tell the truth.

But it is there, the thoughts and the conversations don’t serve me, those doubts are not flattering, are not complimentary, are not of service.

So I ground myself.

I reach out to help some one else.

I take some rebar out of my back pocket and I stake down the corner of the tent and say I will stand here on this threshold with everything that I am and let you see me.

I raise my head.

I toss my hair off my face and I let you see me naked.

Flaws and imperfections.

Perfect and human.

This past few days that is what I feel like.

Very, very human.

Not unique at all.

In fact, I find myself doing, saying, and feeling things that I really thought would only be said, done, or felt in a movie.

It’s my story, but not the story line that I thought it would be.

It is better and scary and smashing and wonderful and intense and scary and oh, look, here’s some vulnerability.

Life.

She’ll do it to you.

I practiced the principle of love today.

After receiving the beautiful little pendant from my friend yesterday I resolved that today I would love as best as I could, as hard as I could.

I wore it all day long and would occasionally touch it and feel again that vulnerability that I was allowing myself to express and be.

Pendant

When I was with the youngest boy today he had a small tantrum about something trivial and lost it and when he was done I asked if he wanted a story and some milk and he crawled into my lap and cuddled with me and I hug him with everything I had, without squishing him, mind you, and said, “I love you.”

He wrapped his small arms around me and butted his head under my chin, “love you too, Carmen.”

“Just be yourself, Carmen.”

I don’t have to be anyone else.

I get to be silly and sweet and glittery and I don’t have to change that one iota.

No matter what is happening in my life.

I used to think that be a messy emotional person was a weakness.

I learned the opposite is true, being open, being raw, letting people see the double chin in profile, who cares, if there is love shining in your eyes.

I felt the love today.

The Japanese sugar maples on the block I work on flaming their way through November, the neighbor stringing Christmas lights and admonishing me to make sure I come by and see them.

The Thanksgiving invitation from the family I work for, though I now have plans that I wasn’t expecting, to eat with them on their holiday.

The gifts I have received over the past week, the coffee mug from Kauai, the necklace from Wisconsin, the book from my dear friend in the Mission, a ride to the grocery store and back this weekend, a movie, a meal at Thai Cottage, all so lovely that I want to give it back twice as strong and as hard.

I just remind myself that when I feel naked and seen that I am clothed in more power than I can imagine, that the universe is behind me and I am lit in love, clothed in it and the imperfections and foibles, make the perfection that much more apparent.

Standing still as I am may be the hardest thing I have ever done.

But should I move.

It is not to run away.

But to move toward.

More and more.

Love.

Tonight’s Blog Brought To You By

Butterflies in my stomach.

I just got off the phone with the gentleman I was supposed to have coffee with today.

He had to retract the offer, it turned out to not be a good day for meeting up.

That’s two Sunday’s in a row now I have been cancelled on.  However, I don’t believe I will get stood up tomorrow, we rescheduled.

I wasn’t also stood up, it was more like, we should do coffee soon and we tried to make today work on short notice.

So tomorrow we will meet up for real, no coffee, but tea.

You know when you like a guy?

Or, excuse me, I, you know when I like a guy?

When I wash my hair.

Yeah, crazy that.

But no really.

My hair is kind of a big deal, literally–I have a lot of it, and it’s a hassle to deal with, although I love it greatly and don’t mind when the occasion calls for it to do something special.

In preparation for what I thought would be our first coffee date, I washed my hair, which means I shampoo’ed it, now I do that about once a week or so, maybe every week and a half, shampooing it is a huge pain and it wreaks havoc with it.

But.

Oh.

It’s so soft when I do.

And I took the time to air dry it.

That’s when I know I like a guy, when I air dry my hair.

It means I want him to touch it, because I take the time to let it dry naturally, which takes about oh, two hours to get it fully dry.  Two hours from wash to dry.  That’s a commitment, plus I pampered the fuck out of it–coconut hair mousse while it was starting to dry and finished with French Aragon hair oil.

This means nothing to you.

Unless you plunge your hands in the hair.

I looked like a wonton siren today roaming the beach as the wind blew my hair this way and that, it was windy down there, but my, the hair felt so good.

Ha.

Even though said date was unable to make today work, I don’t feel like the effort was wasted.

There’s nothing quite so satisfying as feeling sexy for oneself and I took care of that too, ahem.

I’m kind of like a guy that way, I figured better satisfying the itch before the fellow and I meet, I don’t need to dry hump his leg the first time we hang out.

Perhaps I am being a bit over the top here, but I did acknowledged to him while we were talking on the phone this evening that I might have pounced on him last night.

Not that he was complaining.

I saw him on campus and a mutual friend of ours introduced us, there was some spark immediately.  I probably spent too much time last night trying to look like I wasn’t looking.

But I was.

After an hour had passed and some hand holding, not with him, I might have fallen over, I now think, I thought to myself, you are making a move, lady pants, get on it.

Plus, I felt obliged as I outed myself and my intentions to have a date a week lined up–when I make a commitment I want to stick with it.

Not to find the one.

There is no One.

I am the one, but to date, to get out there, to not hide my light under a bushel, to share myself with another, to go out, leap, fly, blindly perhaps, but leaping knowing I will be caught.

Because that’s what I am realizing more and more, I am good at, taking risks, leaping, living.

I have developed faith.

So I leapt.

Well.

Let me be honest.

I was rather dragged, I don’t know that leaping is the right adjective for the feeling.

I have not felt this kind of pull before.

I went to the bathroom to collect myself and pee, because, well, frankly I didn’t want to be distracted by my bladder when I made my move.

I didn’t spend time hiding in the loo, though, I did the business, washed the paws and got out there.

Where’d he go.

I scanned the room.

I saw our friend.

Then.

I saw him.

Standing alone nibbling on a sugar cookie.

Mind if I nibble on you?

I strode across the floor.

It felt, in hindsight, like I was being pulled, that’s the best way I can put it, it felt like a magnet drawing me.

I don’t remember exactly what I said, I was a little distracted by the blue eyes, a lot, but it went something like this: “I have to say this before I lose my nerve, I find your really attractive and,” I think I laughed here, “I don’t even know if you’re single, but if you are and you want to hang out sometime, I would love to get a coffee with you.”

“Yes, I am and yes, I would, you’re hot,” he said.

I think that’s what he said.

I remember the “you’re hot,” part.

What girl doesn’t want to hear that?

“I’ve noticed you around before and I have to say that you’re yourself, you’re authentic, and that’s super sexy.” He said to me when we talked this evening.

Wait.

Say that again.

Ah.

Actually, you don’t need to.

I know that I am my best self when I am being myself and that when the time was right the time would be right.

The time is right.

“I have to say this and I’m probably jumping the gun, but, let’s go slow,” he said.

Yes.

I actually do know what you mean and I agree.

There’s nowhere I need to be immediately, I don’t have plans for you.

Well.

Ok.

I lie a little.

I really do want to kiss you.

But.

We both know that.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I have felt that,” I said to him, acknowledging the very powerful and immediate chemistry we both owned up to.

He sent me a text re that.

And that’s private for me only folks, I get to keep some of this to myself.

I am like a greedy girl with secret treasure hoarding it all to myself.

But it was a snap, a spark, an electric pop, blue lighting, blue like his eyes.

“I felt zapped,” I said.

And I did.

Zoom zip and I wake up, zoooooom zip.

Hit by lighting and left a bit light-headed and light-hearted.

And unlike my date who forgot we had a date last week, said gentleman, Mister Blue Eyes, did not forget and we rescheduled.

For somewhere safe and public.

For tea tomorrow after I get done with work.

I won’t have time to rewash the hair.

But you know, I venture it will still be lively.

I expect it to stand on end when I see him.

God only knows what it will do if he kisses me.

Hair updates to follow.

Ha!

 

 

 

I Am Not Your

Stay around girl.

I used to be.

And I grieved that part of me, that sad, self-centered, navel gazing, John Hughes movie watching, cue poignant music now, sending myself (never did, but thought about it) carnations on Valentines Day in high school, stuffing love letters in crushes lockers, oh young, naive, unrequited in love, high school girl.

Let her go.

Class of 1991

I am not her.

Hell.

I probably never was really “her” either.

I did not want to pick this school senior photograph, it was my mom’s choice.

I don’t really have other photos from around that time.

But I remember it so very well.

And as I was recalling with two different, no, ha, three different people today all the things that got stirred up yesterday, it occurred to me that it was time to kiss her sweetly and let her go.

I know she still wants to dance with somebody that loves her, but I mean, I got to go girl.

I am done waiting around for him.

And for you to get over him.

Like moving the fuck on.

How far on?

To San Francisco, to Paris, to London, New York, Rome, to Burning Man, man.

Burning Man, Class of 2014

And this is not me either.

But it is a part of me.

I can carry silly romantic notions out into deep playa as well, I’ll find the one here, I met my soul mate at Burning Man, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The only person I met there was me.

And more of me.

Flawed, imperfect, crazy, wild, adventurous, able to leap at the suggestions of faith given to me in a single bound, beautiful, impetuous, courageous, curious, lovable, brave.

Whoa man.

I am brave.

And I am not too scared to say that I worked my ass off to get here and the here is just a beginning, the best is still yet to come.

I was encouraged to look at the growth I have had since I was that younger woman, and also just over the last nine and a half years, to stand up for that woman and not sit in the defective nature of old hurts and ideas.

So, I salute you, self.

You’ve come a long way baby.

There’s that whole not drinking or using for 9 1/2 years.

Which is a much better movie than 9 1/2 Weeks, let me tell you.

Then there’s the leaping about, moving about, trying different things, going different places, traveling to Paris, London, Rome, New York, living in Paris, living in East Oakland, going to Burning Man, going to LA, fuck, performing on stage in LA, and in Marin, oh, the places you’ll go.

I wish I could take her hand, little lady, sad lady, 1991 senior photo girl, and just say, you don’t have to change anything.

You are so strong and amazing and you are going places.

And you’re going to live in San Francisco.

And make it work.

“You’re never going to make it there,” he said to me bitter with his own regret, “believe me, I tried.”

Of course you did.

But I did make it.

Not in any way that I could have imagined, but I kept trying and here I am, still trying.

Still letting go of the idea that I can’t make this work, hell, this has been a make it work moment since I threw all my stuff in the back of my two door Honda Accord and drove out here from Wisconsin twelve years ago.

Girl.

You’re going to get tattoos.

And re-pierce your nose.

And stop wearing a tongue ring, it’s gauche.

You are going to date weirdos and not weird enough o’s.

You get to find out what works for you and what doesn’t.

Cheating?

Nope.

No cheating, don’t want to date you or hang out with you.

No interest in being in a poly-amourous group either.

Yay for you.

Glad it works.

I don’t need to work on my defects that much, thanks.

Monogamous, please.

And.

Straight.

Well, you can be a little fabulous, I am, but not too fabulous.

And yes, sex drive is way important.

Age not so much.

Looks?

Not so much either.

I will go for intelligence over the fleeting handsome face that time will steal away.

Humor?

Must have.

Preferably dark, wry, witty, sarcastic, but not too sarcastic, smart, silly, maybe a little raunchy, but let’s laugh, shall we?  Life it is so short, that’s another thing I would let little Miss 1991 know.

My god.

The life it moves by so quick.

One day I am seventeen and aching.

The next day I am forty-one and aching.

The lapse in time is so fast.

Go for it.

Get it.

And yeah, the fear, it will come up, but you can walk through it and nothing is going to be the horror story that your child hood was.

Your childhood, was not that bad either.

Or, don’t get me wrong.

You didn’t want to be there.

But when I think of all the things that I was exposed to, no pun intended, and the creativity and art and movies and freedom I got to have, no helmet on my head, free run of the parks and streets and trees and ponds and lakes and farms and train tracks, all the buildings I climbed to the top of and sat on the roof’s of, the life I got to live was pretty awesome for a girl growing up in rural Wisconsin.

I have grown, though.

Through no desire of my own.

I could wallow in that morass of self-pity and wish again for something other than the life I have been given or the mistakes of waiting for the one who is so not the ONE, that I may as well go walk down to the beach and drown the sorrows in the tidal pools, but frankly, I am not interested in that kind of out.

I prefer to hop on my bike.

Whether it is my one speed sparkle pony whip or my lowrider chopper at Burning Man.

And ride off into the sunset without him.

I’m not riding toward anyone.

No one completes me.

I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if one day I turn, and he’s alongside.

Because that’s what I have grown towards and into.

Not a person who needs another to complete them.

Rather.

I am a woman who is ready for the man who will compliment her.

He doesn’t even need tattoos.

I have that covered.

I Get To Sleep in Tomorrow

Which would mean it’s the perfect night for an assignation.

Except.

Well.

No trysting if there’s no callback, text back, or smoke signal back.

“Did you try getting a hold of him?”

She asked, direct, to the point, no messing around.

Yes, but not until this afternoon when I discovered that I was to have a late start at work tomorrow.

I had also sort of hoped that he would reach out, makes a girl feel wanted you know, but that had not happened.

And no response hours later to said text sent out this afternoon.

Seems like it has come to a pass, which I suspected was going to happen when I went back to my regular work a week schedule.

Of course I was hoping the sex was that good that he would just be always coming back for more, or at least willing to bend on the timing a little.  But we may just be from two very different time zones right now.

And that’s ok.

I’m an adult and it was not a dating situation in that sense of the word.

I think I was willing to consider it in that direction if we kept on keeping on, but since that has not happened, I am going to let myself be open to whatever else the Universe has in store for me.

Hey God, who do you want me to hang out with next?

Just peep me ok?

Not like I have a great deal of time, but I seem to find these pockets of uninterrupted space where the unlikely suddenly becomes a reality and I am spending time with someone.

Then too there is the great thing out in the desert where the possibilities are both endless and extraordinarily limited.

I will be working.

I am not out there to make play time a priority.

I always want it to happen.

And with little exception some sort of engagement does indeed happen.

I waffle, vacillate, waver, fluctuate, in my stance about my sexuality, my desires, my wants, my needs.

There are times when I am absolutely convinced that I need a boyfriend, a partner, a “soul mate.”

Whatever the hell that is.

Then there are times when I want a paramour, a lover, a partner just in the bedroom.

Now I believe, I want them both.

I want the lover who is the partner inside and outside the bed, I want the whole damn deal.

So, perhaps a good thing the boy did not get back to me, I don’t believe he’s the partnering type, or rather I should say, I don’t believe we were meant to sojourn down that road.

That’s ok.

It was a lovely little tryst in time and I am glad for it.

It certainly helped pass the time when I was down for the count with my ankle.

Said ankle still hurting, still needing ice, thanks cold pack peas, but not as bad, the days getting easier, or perhaps I am easier on myself, letting myself go slower, not trying to push as far.

Perhaps a combination of the two, slowing down and healing.

I rather believe that is probably the case.

I am feeling a lot more confident about my capabilities as I head into the Burning Man thing, t-minus seven days and counting.

Eek.

I leave a week from tomorrow.

But it will feel like a week from today as next Thursday when I get off work I will head to the family in Cole Valley from my family in the NOPA and grab the car and head to my house and pack it up and head back to Cole Valley.

I’ll spend the night there and be ready to hit that old dusty trail back home.

It feels unreal and surreal and so soon and why aren’t I there yet.

Sort of like sex.

Ha.

I get a taste for it and I want more and so.

I guess what this blog is saying, is let’s get it on.

Let me go out and have some fun and see where it takes me.

There’s too much of my goodness to not share it.

I wasn’t meant to be a solo flyer and I have been one for so long that I think I am just used to it, I can get unused to it too.

In fact, I think I need to get unused to it.

I need to have my world turned upside down, topsy-turvy, not just with work stuff, but with my love life, my dating life, my relationship life.

I pray to be granted the action to move toward the man God wants me to be with.

I don’t make judgements about what that is or how it goes or whom it’s with, just to take action.

Action could look like sex, I mean they say it’s all about getting into action right?

Or did they mean, getting action?

Ha.

I believe that this last guy was actually a way of moving toward the man I supposed to be with.

Just like this past wonky week was meant for me to take the action to get to the job I am supposed to have next.

All small foot steps on the way toward where I am supposed to be and whom I am supposed to be with.

I am on a collision course with the man.

I am on a collision course with the job.

I am on a collision course with my art and writing and creative expression.

I just have to take the action and not get caught up in the time line.

Even though I wanted, at times over the years past, to date very much, to be partnered, coupled, in a romantic relationship, looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted to be with me.

Not now looking back to then.

I am at a much better place.

Emotionally.

Spiritually.

Physically.

Even with the hobbled ankle.

I am today the person I want to be.

I still have improvements to make and things to change and places to work on and grow on and all that good stuff, but I am so much more my authentic self.

That’s the self I want to partner up with another now.

Not the self I was before.

The woman I am now.

So.

I didn’t get a response from the booty call.

I got a response that was better.

I got a better picture of who I am today and what I really want.

And what I really want is coming to a town near me real soon.

I know it.