You Look Like

Mint chocolate chip ice cream with cherries on top.

He said as I walked by.

“LOVE YOUR HAIR,” he added, giving me the nod for extra special emphasis.

Thanks dude.

Everybody likes to look like ice cream.

Well.

I do.

I did have to laugh a little at myself though for the outfit I was rolling down the street with, or up the street as the case may be, heading to the spot I spend my Wednesday evenings at getting right with God.

I had come home, started my laundry and rubbed one out.

Hey.

Look.

Sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Although I could have taken up an offer I was made this afternoon.

“How about ten months?” He texted me.

“Um, hmm, I’ll think about that, let me get back to you,” I replied.

I got back to him a few minutes later, I already knew the answer, but it was fun for a moment to consider.

“Get your year and check back with me,” I replied.

Mother fucker.

REALLY?

Like the third one in a week.

What is up?

Did no one get their birthday last June?

What the fuck is in the air?

My hormones I suppose.

The blood is high, I can tell you what.

My cycle won’t hit until I get back from New Orleans.

Great, I thought tonight as I stripped down to hop in the shower, my breasts a good half size larger than yesterday, great, I’m ovulating or soon will be.

Meh.

I do not need to head of to New Orleans with plans of getting laid, I have other things to think about, do, go to, experience.

Was I heading to New Orleans with a partner, it would be the perfect place to wander romantic in the warm night rains and make out under a lamp post.

Just nibble my neck there and there and then we’ll stroll through the French Quarter and maybe a few cemeteries, because, well, death is sexy, no?

Anyway.

I took care of business, and then laundry and then the shower and in between packing for the trip and being on top of the clothes being in the wash, I had, um, a curious assortment of an outfit as I walked out the door.

And.

I have to say, I pulled it off.

I don’t know how, but sometimes more is better.

Leopard print leggings.

A mint colored nightshirt with candy skulls in pink and white piping, topped off with a sea green sweatshirt and of course a big mountain of cotton candy pink hair with some pink roses and a sequined star clip.

Because sequins.

Hello.

I probably look ridiculous.

But.

Fuck it.

It made me happy and I was cozy as fuck.

Because, bitches, it’s cold out there.

Freaking foggy, chilly, cold, etc, etc, etc.

It was 50 degrees this morning when I got up and socked in with fog, which never really lifted.

It got a tiny bit sunny in the Mission, but the fog that had burned off was rapidly being replaced by 3 p.m. with a fresh batch of cold as fuck rolling in over Twin Peaks.

Hello summer in San Francisco.

They are not kidding.

And the Outer Sunset?

Shut the fuck up.

It was never not foggy out here.

I don’t suppose it ever really burned off.

When I hopped off my scooter and came in and greeted my house, “hello house,” I immediately turned on the heat and lit up some candles.

Welcome to summer, break out your scarves.

I am so looking forward to being somewhere warm for a little while.

I’m sure the heat and the humidity will lose their luster pretty quick, but right now, it sounds fantastic.

A warm run of nights where I can walk outside bare skinned to the air and drift in the warm magnolia scent of summer.

Bring it the fuck on.

One more shift at work and then I’m ghost.

I’ll finish work at 6p.m.

Scooter home.

Grab my rolling suitcase, which is 95% packed, and head out the door to the airport.

I will probably call for a car.

I could try the MUNI and the BART, but I think I’ll also be hitting rush hour commute time and I don’t particularly care to risk being late on the flight.

I would rather get there a little early and blog from the waiting area at the gate.

Tomorrow!

I fly out tomorrow.

My flight is out of SFO at 10:41 p.m.

I’ll have a brief, less than an hour, layover in Las Vegas, then onto Houston, Texas, with another brief layover and transfer.

What with the time change I will arrive in New Orleans at 8:24 a.m.

I’m not excited about the indirect flight, the two change overs are going to wreck me for sleep, but it was worth it to get the discounted ticket, otherwise it was going to be another three to four hundred dollars to fly direct.

I figured that was money for the Air BnB.

Or for the experience of being there, restaurants, souvenirs, tickets to places, should I swing into the New Orleans Museum of Modern Art, it’s actually close to where I am staying, or just for riding around the French Quarter on a street car.

The disjointed travel was worth it.

I’m not upset and it worked out well for me timing wise too.

I’ll hang out and have a nice leisurely breakfast somewhere fabulous in the hood where I am staying and roll into my Air BnB at noon.

A swim in the pool?

A soak in the tub?

A fresh change of clothes, a sexy sundress.

And then off to explore a little and a late lunch before for going to the conference and hitting the registration and the big night get together.

I’m so ready.

Saturday I am really going to play by ear.

I know where I will be in the evening, at the conference, but I really do want to do a little exploring, walk, shop, dine, see what New Orleans has to offer, and also, what do I have to offer to the city, since I am such a taker.

How can I go and best be of service to the situation?

Make amends for the time previous I was there and my behavior, it was not so pretty.

I’m wild with excitement.

And I’ll keep you posted on all the adventures.

Promise.

See you next from the gate at United Airlines flight 455 SFO.

Happy.

Joyous.

Motherfucking.

Free.

Yearning

This is not a post I am interested in posting.

It steers a little too close to self-pity land.

And nothing, truly, nothing, do I find more objectionable and heinous.

I had an ex in my twenties who was amazing at self-pity and I remember realizing one day how very selfish it was.

I don’t like it when my selfish tendencies arise.

Yet.

They do and when they do I just get to roll with them.

I had hoped I would be feeling a bit more sprightly today and that is not the case, the cold lingers and with it comes those feelings, oh feelings, of not being enough or doing enough or whatever it is that wants to get under my skin and rub the wrong way.

What I want is a snuggle.

Someone to rub my back and my shoulders.

Someone to cuddle with.

That’s something that I long for when I get sick and well, being a single gal, that’s nowhere in the offing.

It does not help that I have had some contact with my recent ex, nothing in person, but some lengthy texting and my fondness for him knows no bounds, but we agreed that it’s too close to the bone, too close to discomfort, too much potential for creating unnecessary wreckage that neither one of us wants to create.

I mean.

Sort of.

I know that road.

Once broken up with an ex I have stayed broken up with an ex.

With the exception of a near black out late night emotional booty call to my ex-boyfriend in my twenties a year and a half after we broke up.

I think I knew I had to see him one last time (ended up being one more time after that, which was sweet and tender and it was the last time and weird enough we went to Monty’s Blue Plate Diner the next morning for breakfast and the waitress remembered us even though we hadn’t been in together in almost two years at that point) and wanted to say a proper goodbye before moving back to the state of my birth, California.

But the tendency does tend to be no contact after a break up.

Not that there have been a whole lot of relationships since I moved to San Francisco, let me be frank, I’m a loner.

I didn’t intend it that way, but somewhere down the line, it happened, despite the longing or yearning for it to be otherwise I have just marched, bicycled, briefly scooter’ed (and with a little help from a friend I may well soon again), and danced to my own personal drummer.

I have rarely been partnered up in my adult life and I am not complaining.

It’s not on my time.

I have tried to make it on my time.

I have written reams of blogs and I used to write just the worst sappy ass poetry about it.

I mean, whatever to get it off my chest, but I know this is more a symptom of being slightly under the weather than anything else.

So.

I can weather this one out.

This too shall pass they say.

I realized I was being a bit moribund when I hopped in the shower to rinse out a freshening up of my hair dye, I picked up a pot of Manic Panic Cotton Candy Pink at the salon today when I got my nails done (the color I had in my hair was Cleo Rose, that’s what I got at the salon when I went to get it done, but I wanted to see what the Cotton Candy Pink would look like, so I picked it up, I mean if I’m going to have clown curl explosion on my head, may as well be cotton candy) and my thought was, “I wish I was going to see my grandmother with my boyfriend.”

Uh oh.

I am feeling “not enough.”

I am feeling the “another person completes” me baloney happening here.

My grandmother doesn’t care if I’m single or dating, or at least she has never said anything to the effect and I can’t imagine she cares one way or the other.

It’s me who cares.

I’m “less than” for not being in a relationship.

Nope.

I’m just me.

And me is pretty cool.

I called my grandmother today to check in about my upcoming visit to Chula Vista at the end of the month.

I had some concerns about putting any one out, she is 87 after all.

But she would not hear of me staying anywhere else.

My favorite uncle is going to be coming into town too from Nevada City and I’m super excited to see him (although we do usually have a family reunion out at Burning Man) and get to hear about his newest projects for the playa.

He’ll be staying with my grandma as well.

“You’re Uncle Boy can stay in the garage if we need to make space,” she said.

I laughed.

“Don’t tell him that!”

It felt good to laugh.

I’ve been nervous to reconnect.

There’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s just family.

And I love my grandmother.

Despite not having had much direct face to face contact we have stayed in touch all of my life and she is my last living grandparent.

I want to make the effort and I am delighted to get to stay with her.

I have no idea exactly what we’re going to do, but she did say that one night there would be a big family dinner at her home and I just had this sudden and overwhelming joy fill me with the thought of being surrounded by this family, that I know so little of, but care so much for.

I think that’s what they mean when they say blood is thicker than water.

I have made my own family out here in the big bad world.

Amongst my friends and fellows and there are people in my life, some in Wisconsin, some here, that I could not, nor will not do without.

“Yo.”

The messenger read on my phone this morning, pinging me awake, “are you planning on coming out this way, the middle part, this year?”

I want to.

I realized that I may not be able to until Christmas though.

And there it was again, that longing for a person to be with me.

The longing for someone to go with me to Burning Man, to travel with me.

I am sick.

Not sick in the head, or wrong for having these feelings, they just don’t usually get to me unless I’m not feeling 100% myself.

I can and have ridden out the feelings before and as my hair dries, it’s still just pink, the difference in colors is too subtle, but it’s fresh pink pink pink, so that’s fun, I know that I’m ok and that yearning for something is a part of life.

I don’t have to get what I want to enjoy what I have.

And I can snuggle with myself tonight and roll out my shoulders with my roller and make some tea and be cozy and rest.

Nothing wrong with that.

And be grateful that I get to see my family in two weeks.

Grateful I have family to travel to see.

I belong to these people and they to me and I am yearning, really, to be connected to as much humanity as I can be.

That’s the good stuff.

That’s the jelly in the donut.

The bees knees.

The cat’s pajamas.

The stuff of life.

I suppose you could say.

Oh.

Yeah.

It’s love.

Sweet, tender, vulnerable.

Love.