The Pink Lady

Rides again!

Yes.

I got my new Corazzo jacket in the post today while I was at school.

So glad to have a nice motorcycle jacket again.

Of course I got the pink one.

Please people.

I love pink.

Not.

However, that it is my favorite color.

Nope.

It is not.

But.

I like being a cute girly girl on my scooter with my little applied star stickers and my star and sparkle helmet.

And.

My awesome new Corazzo pink riding jacket.

I was a little flummoxed when I got home, though.

For a minute, or five, it was not much fun, I thought the latch on my scooter seat was broken and that I couldn’t get my seat open.

Which meant.

I couldn’t get to my purse, my house keys, my phone.

Fuck me.

I stood outside the gate, I could see the package inside the door.

Irony.

God having a good chuckle at me.

I don’t know.

But.

I did manage to get my seat open, turns out the latch was never really quite latched, the strap to my purse was caught in the spot where it should have latched.

Instead it just reminded me to slow down.

I tend to go fast.

Zoom.

Zip.

Slow down.

Take it easy.

One moment at a time.

No where that I have to get to that fast.

I can be quick to the gas, pressing it forward, going quick.

I like speed.

Sometimes, most times, it’s a feeling of freedom, but it can also be a way to escape the situation, quick, get the fuck out of here, run before there’s a feeling, a connection, an intimacy.

Grateful I know this about myself.

And.

Grateful my friends are persistent with me.

I am thinking of my two best girl friends in my cohort and how wildly grateful I was for their presence today in school.

Especially after the unnecessary anxiety I felt yesterday.

The classes turned out to be just fine today.

And yes.

I do still have reading I need to do, but I handed in both my papers and there were folks who did not have the papers to hand in.

And I could tell there were plenty of folks who hadn’t done all the reading either.

But I had done enough, enough to stay in the flow of what was happening in each of the classes and to participate, which is huge in my schooling experience.

If I participate, the teacher remembers me, I get attention, positive for the most part, and I am a part of the experience.

That’s what I prayed for today, to be of service to my cohort, to show up without expectation, to be myself, to help where I could and to do good self-care.

I brought my lunch, my dinner, my homemade cold brewed coffee.

I had tea for the evening class that wasn’t caffeinated.

I had lunch with one of my darling friends.

I have a lunch date with the other tomorrow.

I was extended a Thanksgiving invitation that I am very seriously considering taking too.

So glad for these women in my life.

So glad that I just showed up.

Showing up is so much of the battle for me.

It’s a big deal.

Especially when I can run from things, or stick my head in the sand or not participate out of fear.

Actually.

I have gotten a lot better at walking through the fear and letting myself be emotionally vulnerable in class.

I mean.

Fuck.

I am going to school to become a therapist, I better be in touch with my feelings.

I volunteered to do a demo with one of my professors today and that was great.

The class got to practice assessing my presenting problem.

Was it PTSD?

Or.

Was it Major Depressive Order?

I’ll let you in on a secret.

It was probably both, but what I was presenting with was PTSD.

And it was the first time I actually understood what the hell was being shown when I was originally diagnosed with it.

I read it in the DSM 5.

I noted the presenting symptoms.

And voila!

I got to diagnose myself.

Not that I recommend that.

And frankly.

I did feel some tenderness around myself and a lack of wanting to engage with certain people and relationships in my life.

I needed a break from looking at all the child hood stuff.

I had to take it gentle and do some self-care.

There’s still stuff to work out and I could go into further detail, but really, why?

It’ll get worked out and it doesn’t need to quite be in this public of a forum.

Besides.

Read enough of my older blogs and you’ll make a damn good guess at some of the traumas I got to live through.

And come out stronger.

Not that I’m advocating trauma for growth.

It just happens to be a part of my journey.

That’s all.

No judgements around it other than I get to be really kind to myself.

Which meant coming home tonight instead of going out with friends from school.

Or.

Friends from life.

“What are you doing tonight?” A new friend text me as I was wrapping up my final class of the day.

I told her I was still at school.

Really my plans.

Go home.

Rub one out.

Take a shower.

Write my blog.

Drink some hot tea.

Watch a snippet of a video.

Go to bed.

Get up and do it all again tomorrow.

The only difference being.

I will be attired in pink.

So.

Very.

Pretty.

In pink.

Yes.

Please.

Maybe It’s the Sexy

Hair.

That is.

Calvin leaned in as he was pulling through another strand of hair and shaping it around my face, and said, “this is the ‘I’m gonna get laid’ hair cut, just so you know.”

Good.

It’s about time.

I have not photos for you of the new sexy hair cut.

It’s adult, sleek, and there are no sparkles.

There is also no more green.

Not that anyone has commented on that, but the blue from last year did leave just the greenish tint under the right light that though faded, has stuck it the fuck out.

Now my hair is dark, lustrous, and has just a spot of red in it, which counteracts the green and looks dark chestnut-brown.

I am as close to my natural color as I have been in years.

I also got a nice flattering cut, one that does look mature and refined, although cut in such a way that I don’t have to do maintenance.

Because although I am a girly girl, I don’t really spend that much time on my hair, I just let it go.  I don’t have the patience to muddle with it, I never have.  I will get jealous of a girl who has taken the time to figure out how to flat-iron their bangs, or how to do a blow out; but I have never had the wherewithal to do it.

If I had gotten a blow out today, there would have been photos.

But as it stands there was not the time and I don’t mind that.

I like a nice blow job, who doesn’t?

But, oh, I meant blow out, which had completely different connotations in my day job.

As a nanny.

Ahem.

Enough about the hair.

I just want to focus on the sex bit, the boyfriend bit, the romance me bit, and what does a girl got to do to get a date bit.

I suppose once I am back in the city proper it will be a little easier.

The pickin’s here in East Oakland are not really my flavor.

Not to say that Oakland is devoid of men, it’s not, I just have not found a platform upon which to meet them, unless it is the platform to the Fruitvale BART station.

Of course I will laugh if I meet some awesome person at Burning Man and they are from Oakland and then I will be in the Sunset.

But that is neither here nor there.

Just like me.

Sort of stuck in the in between.

Treading water, so to speak, until I land ashore in the Sunset, a land of fog, quiet, soft cat paws of mist, and the slap and bang of the ocean surf pounding the beach head.

It will be good for me to be muffled and swaddled and caught in the softness of the landscape.  Maybe a place for me that is not so tough, not so edgy, just a crash pad of comfort.

Ah.

Nesting.

Can’t really do it yet, can’t tell where the money to do it is going to come from.

Can’t tell if I am going to get back from the burn and have full-time nanny hours with the three families.  I know I’ll get three days, outside of that I don’t know.  I do know that I don’t want to commute to North Oakland/Emeryville to nanny although I am in love with my little girl charge there.

That sucks.

And does not all at the same time.

I mean, how many of us can say unequivocably that we love our employers?

Technically the mom and the dad pay me, but the little girl is my boss.

I love my boss.

But will I take an hour and a half to get there to work.

I don’t think I can do it.

It thought about asking them to pay for the commute.

But who is going to do that?

That’s like paying me for three hours a day that I am not working, I mean it will feel like work, but it’s just getting back and forth.

Fuck.

I am exhausted thinking about it.

Maybe a temp agency is the place to go to next.

Keep doing what I can with my friend at the design agency and then look into getting my chops at a few other places around town.

My crystal ball is clouded, foggy, you could say.

I cannot see into the future.

I just have the faith that it all works out.

Today what I have left, aside from trying to get a nice photograph of my new hair, yes I am vain, I have just a few nice little things of self-care to do.

I took care of the hair, I got the phone paid, went to a late lunch with my friend, got a little time in for the design firm, rode my bike over to the Castro for a little of that taking care of business, business, and got back over to Graceland to feed the out-door kitties they dinner.

I am going to miss my some kittens when I leave Graceland.

I will.

Standing on the precipice of a new decade of time in San Francisco with Burning Man to usher me in.

It is the sexy.

The hair.

The age.

The softening instead of toughening.

I am a cream puff and I am getting more and more ok with that.

“You are so hard on yourself, so tough, you need to ease back a little,” my friend said to me today as we caught up and I think I don’t even realize that, I feel so directionless and untethered and don’t know what I am doing most of the time that to even say I surrender to this idea that I am is surreal.

But if I hear it from one friend I hear it from ten.

So like the new hair, which is really just the old hair, I’m going to show that softer side and ease back a little.

Soft is the new sexy.

Is, you could say, the new black.