You Have My Thoughts

An old friend reached out to me yesterday.

We talked for a long time.

We have been friends for a bit over fifteen years.

He was so effusive about how my life has turned out and all of the challenges I have faced to get to where I am.

“I know what you did, it’s amazing, you pulled yourself up from literally nothing and worked harder with constraints that few people I know would have been able to get through,” he said.

He witnessed me in my first year of sobriety when I literally had nothing, could barely make the rent, even cheap, rent controlled rent, barely had money for food, let alone a bus pass or taxi cab.

He took me everywhere.

He had a scooter and a convertible Mercedes Benz.

I was either on the back of that scooter or I was in the passenger seat of that Benz all the time.

We were joined at the hip.

Everyone.

EVERYONE.

Thought we were dating.

But nope.

Nary a kiss, never a date, nothing.

Although we would do things that if I was witnessing others do, especially a man and a woman, I would think, oh yeah, they’re totally together.

He took me out to lunch and dinner all the time.

He bought me clothes.

I was so broke in my first couple of years of sobriety, so broke.

He took me out dancing.

We both loved to dance.

We saw djs all over the city.

Sometimes we would just drive around in his convertible with the top down and blast music and find spots to dance–Twin Peaks, the little cove down by the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, random parking lots in the SOMA, Treasure Island.

It was a night out at Treasure Island, with no fog and a warmer than usual temperature, the city across the bay sparkling and magic, that I asked him after we had been dancing in the headlights to music and had collapsed back into the car to drink water and catch our breaths.

“Why aren’t we dating?” I asked.

He paused.

He was quiet for a long time.

He said, “well, I mean, I guess I could see you giving me a blow job, but where would it go after that and we’re such good friends, I mean, it just doesn’t seem worth going there.”

I punched him in the arm, “you could see me giving you a blowjob?!”

“Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you’ve got a great mouth,” he replied and grinned at me.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” I said and looked back out over the water.

I never gave him a blow job.

We stayed friends.

Thick as thieves.

And life happened.

Life happens.

My best friend died, he know I had a crush of sorts on my friend, and would tease me once in a while about that, but also in a way that didn’t really razz me up.

When Shadrach died in General Hospital someone reached out to my friend and said, “come and get Carmen and take her out and feed her.”

I was shellacked.

I had been in that ICU by Shadrach’s side or with his family for seven days in a row, eight maybe. My friend had not been able to make it in to say good bye to Shadrach.

But.

He showed up that night in his Mercedes and took me to Chow on Church and Market and he told me to order a steak and eat it.

I did.

Then he took me out to Treasure Island and told me, “talk about it.”

I did.

I told him all the stories and the sadness and the horror of watching Shadrach die and he just held my hand and let me cry on his shoulder.

He was a good friend.

He always was.

Sometimes a bit intense, sometimes suddenly unavailable, but someone I could talk to for hours, someone who made me laugh, someone who always was up for having and adventure.

The time we went to see Gary Neuman at the Fillmore and then got out of the show with enough time to whip over to the Castro Theater and see Tron.

Or Goldfrapp at the Fillmore.

Or Sunshine Jones in so many different clubs.

Or Eric Sharp at some underground deep in the SOMA in a warehouse.

Or when he got a projector and we found a deserted parking lot in the SOMA next to a huge white painted wall and watched the Daft Punk Movie Interstella 5555.

Or sitting in front of Ritual in the Mission, before they had outside seating, on the sidewalk drinking lattes, with a boombox blasting Michael Jackson.

He taught me how to play dominoes, “bones,” and then would brutally beat me at it all the time.

I could name a lot more.

There were many, many, many adventures.

The weekend in Vegas.

And there were many, many, many girlfriends.

Some who liked me.

Some who absolutely couldn’t stand me.

My friend dated women I worked with, mutual friends, women I sponsored, (Shadrach joked once, “why doesn’t he just go right to the source,” meaning me), friends of other friends.

All sorts of ladies.

He got serious with one of them and I really liked her, hell I even lived with them for a couple of months when I had lost a job and my apartment in Nob Hill with seven years sober and ended up taking a huge pay cut and going to work at Mission Bicycle Company as a shop girl, she was sweet.

They opened a hair salon together.

One or the other of them was always doing my hair.

I was my friend’s hair model for a long time.

I got to rock some ridiculously fabulous hair.

Most of the time.

Every once in a while he did something that I was like, “dude, no, cut it off.”

The time he gave me a tail.

That only lasted two days.

Maybe only half a day, now that I think about it.

He also went to school to learn make up and to this day I credit him with teaching me how to do makeup.

And to love glitter.

When he reached out to me recently I told him I had stopped dying my hair crazy colors, after he and his girlfriend moved away, I went to a mutual friend who took me blonde and then hot pink, to be a therapist and have a professional look.

I even toned down the make up for a bit.

But it snuck right back in.

I couldn’t give up the glitter.

He texted me, “NEVER give up the glitter.”

A lady likes a man who isn’t opposed to glitter.

He got engaged.

He bought a house.

They broke up.

He moved to L.A.

That’s where he’s at now, muddling through the pandemic as an essential worker.

I can’t even imagine, although a number of my therapy clients have indicated that they consider me an essential worker, I just can’t imagine being out in the public as much as my friend is.

We reconnected back around July or August, played a lot of phone tag, and didn’t actually get to talk until after Thanksgiving.

And it was like riding a bike.

We talked for hours.

Every week or so we’d text a little.

And we caught up after the holidays and.

And.

Well.

Ha.

He’s interested, all these years later, in dating.

I was surprised as hell.

Although, when I have had some time to think about it I realized he’d asked a few times what my dating situation was.

“Non-traditional,” I replied once.

And.

He sent me a song one day on Spotify, “I Adore You,” by Goldie.

I loved the song.

I looked up the lyric’s, well, huh, those are some interesting lyric’s.

This seems like a love song.

Is my friend sending me a love song?

Maybe.

When all is said is done
After the run we’ve had
Let me be the one
I’ll be there for you
Better to let, better to let you know I was a fool in love
Just enough to want you more I adore you
And I’ll never let you go I adore you When all is settled dust
After the storm has passed
Let me be the one to shine on you
Better to let, better to let you know I am a fool in love
Just enough to want you more I adore you
And I’ll never let you go After the run we’ve had
After the tears we’ve cried
On all those lonely nights
I still want you in my life I see you in my mind
And now the sun don’t shine
And I’m just getting by
So why can’t you be mine?

It sounds like a love song!

And then.

One night, it came out, he was texting me and he said, “would it be crazy if we went on a date?”

What?!

We texted back and forth for a while and decided, maybe it would not be.

We went a few weeks without talking about it and he did his thing and I did my thing.

But.

It’s come up again and we talked yesterday, for a long time, and we’re going to give it a shot.

Holy shit.

I mean.

I still can’t quite believe it.

He’s going to take some time off from work and come up over a weekend and stay at an old friends house and we’re just going to see what it feels like.

HOLY SHIT.

I’m excited, nervous, think I need to lose five pounds, happy, curious, all the things.

We both agreed that whatever happens, we’re just investigating and we won’t stop being friends.

It could be a hilarious wrong turn.

Or it could be a dance party.

I don’t know.

He doesn’t have a Mercedes anymore.

But he does have a Cadillac.

So I expect we will cruise around the city and revisit old haunts.

And maybe.

Make out?

We shall see.

More will be revealed.

Did It

I wasn’t sure there for a moment, but I got it done.

I wrote my big paper that was due today in the middle of a full day, and just now finished editing it and sent it out.

10 pages.

3,759 words.

Hello.

It wasn’t a hard paper to write, the words came fast and furious and there was much I could have written about but did not.

The paper, at least this portion of it, was very self-reflexive, I was really writing about my own experiences in school and showing where and when I learned and what was valuable to me.

There have been so many things that I couldn’t even begin to touch upon them all.

And since I have a way with words, words way with I have, I wasn’t too hard pressed to just let them come  out.

Still.

I have to say I was impressed.

It may have been the fastest I have written and the biggest quantity of work I have done in a one day go of it.

The paper will eventually be thirty pages, but if the rest of the paper goes as swimmingly I don’t think that it will be too challenging to do the rest.

Heck.

I only have to do twenty more pages.

I have an option of not writing the full thirty, I could instead write a 12-14 page paper and do a live website.

I was going to do the website and the short paper, but at this point, fuck it, I figure I’ll just save that headache, building a website, for another day.

Hell.

I’ll probably ask a friend to build one for me.

I know little about building a website and though I’m sure it’s not difficult, I don’t want to stress about it.

If I can knock out ten pages as quickly as I did today I won’t have a problem just doing the big paper.

I also had just a fabulous day, I’m quite certain that there was something in the air that helped me to get the writing done.

I did get up quite early.

I was having a dream and in the dream there was very loud classical music playing, it sounded baroque, perhaps it was Bach, and I was doing pirouettes in a huge ball gown through an enormous ball room that was framed by these huge windows, so high, leaded glass and arched, and the floor was parquet and there were trees outside the windows through which this golden green dappled light flooded the room and splashed off my flying dress and my hair whirling around me.

I swear it was how loudly the music was playing in the dream that woke me up.

I awoke and it was dark, pre-dawn dark, I looked at my phone and it was 6:07 a.m.

Sigh.

My alarm would go off in eight minutes, so I might as well get up.

I got up put on my yoga clothes, made my bed, drank some water, prayed and did my morning routine, then set off to Java Beach with a couple of blankets in a beach bag.

My friend was already at the cafe and it was so good to connect.

Really good.

We got coffees and then walked to the beach.

We found a great spot in the dunes, pulled out the blankets, spread them on the sand and sat and talked and watched the moon set over the Pacific ocean, the surfer’s up doing their dawn patrol, the ship on the horizon pulling closer and closer to eventually sail somulent and slow under the Golden Gate Bridge.

The sun rose behind us and lit the sky with rosy pinks and striations of mauve and light purples.

It was warmer than I expected.

The company was fantastic and I got re-acquainted with my friend whom it felt like I hadn’t seen in years, though it was just a few weeks ago.

So much can happen in a few weeks.

We caught up and drank coffee and got sand every where and it was good.

The best.

The best.

The best.

And someone had a bonfire down the beach and the smell of it intoxicated my heart and reminded me of the night so many years ago when my mom and her boyfriend scooped up my sister and I and took us to the beach at night and we built a bonfire on the shore.

I collected shells in the morning and then we went to a little roadside cafe for breakfast.

It may be one of my favorite, if not my favorite, of my earliest memories.

And to have that same smell, morning ocean smell entwined with the drifting smell of bonfire, oh, it made the company that more exquisite.

How lucky I am to have the people in my life I do.

So.

Very.

Lucky.

Then yoga class at 9a.m.

And it was a fantastic class.

The instructor was great and I did something today that I have never done before in yoga, I had a fully extended stretch sitting on the mat, feet forward, arms in front of me, bending at the waist, flat back, hands wrapped around my feet and yes, I was able to touch my forehead to my knees.

I have never done that.

I have always wanted to be that flexible and there it was, the stretch happened today and it felt glorious, to be in my skin, in my body, and stretched out.

Afterward the hottest shower I could stand and breakfast, coffee, morning pages.

I wrote a lot of morning pages today too, just trying to capture all the things I saw and felt at the beach, the intermingling of memories and how they became big and miraculous and full of love, sublime.

And of course.

I had to clean the house.

Because.

Um.

Yeah.

I had a big fat paper to write, so best scrub, vacuum, cook, do laundry, and dust.

Fuck, I even washed the rugs in the bathroom.

Then I just said, enough, get to it.

And I got to it.

Super grateful I got done what needed to be done today.

It was a big push.

But.

Well.

When your day starts out as lovely as mine did.

Anything is possible.

Anything.

Camera Time

And that’s what days off are for.

Spending a lot of time on the phone with a tech guy figuring out what is the issue and how to fix it.

The issue for me has been that when I got my new camera, the same guy I used to have, just a newer version, my computer would only get halfway through the process of uploading my pictures.

It was really frustrating.

I had a friend look at it recently and he said take it to the Genius Bar.

But.

I did not want to be in an Apple store the day after Christmas, fuck no, so I looked up an appointments for calls on-line and set it up so that I could get tech support when I got back from my yoga class.

Yes.

Back in it after a weird week off with the work and the holiday and the cold.

I still have the cold, but it doesn’t seem as tenacious as it was the last few days.

It maybe all the sleep I let myself have.

I slept nine hours.

I never sleep nine hours any more.

I used to, a long time ago, sleep nine hours and even once in a while I would get a big fat ten hours a night.

No longer.

Thank you grad school and full-time work.

Anyway.

I had a nice yoga class.

A hot shower.

A delicious breakfast.

The persimmons are just about gone and I’m jolly well enjoying them to the last juicy bite.

Then some writing and laundry and the phone call.

It took about twenty-five minutes and then I had to reboot and restart the computer.

I went to the co-op up the street and grabbed a few things.

Came back, unpack my goodies, signaled the computer it was ok to restart, plugged in all the passwords and such and then still had to wait another bit of time while it updated.

But.

I used said time well and took out the left over pork roast from yesterday and made some pork fried rice for lunch.

YUM.

By the time I had folded my laundry and did my dishes, the upgrade had finished and my computer was back up and running with a bunch of slightly different little icons on the dock.

I opened up my Iphoto and hooked up the USB cable from my camera to my computer.

And.

YES!

It took.

Yay.

My photographs all downloaded.

And I discovered a whole batch of photographs that hadn’t been moved over to my hard drive.

Old photos from Paris, a bunch of Burning Man photos, nanny photos and just general out and about in the world, Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles.

It was pretty cool to see them, I hadn’t realized they were there.

Another project for this week.

The getting my camera to sync with my computer was a big one.

I need to attend to some school stuff, renew my FAFSA for next year’s round of financial aid, update my Linkedin profile, which I haven’t touched in years but was strongly advised that I want to have a good profile up for school and practicum interviews.

Who knew?

I’m also going to peep my syllabi and buy any text books that need buying.

I want to run over to Optical Underground and see if I can get the lenses taken out of an old set of frames and into a new set.

I have had the frames forever, really like them, but they are old and just not holding their shape, the lenses, however, are fairly recent (I had my optometrist re-lense my current prescription into them).

I’ll probably do that Wednesday since I had a date to the MOMA with two of my favorite men in the universe.

We’ll be meeting at the MOMA at 10 a.m. for a good wander and then out to lunch.

I’m super excited to spend time with both of them, so near and dear to my heart.

Tomorrow I’m signed up for an early yoga class but I’m not sure what the rest of the day will look like.

Definitely more out and about with my camera.

Having downloaded the photographs I was eager to take more.

I posted to my other blog.

Which is exclusively photographs.

I hadn’t put fresh photographs on that site in about two years.

It was high time.

And then I decided I wanted to get out and take more.

It was pretty close to sunset and I speculated that I might be able to make Twin Peaks.

But.

It would be really close.

I hopped on my scooter, went to the gas station, topped off the tank–all of a $1.26–and headed out.

The light was fading fast and as I zoomed up Lincoln Ave I caught a glimpse of Grand View Park.

And I thought, there, that’s where I need to go, I’ve been to Twin Peaks, but I have never climbed up Grand View.

And it’s a climb, there’s no driving all the way to the top.

Although I took my scooter as far as I could, parking it at 14th and Moraga.

Then I scooped my camera and began climbing the flights of stairs to the top.

Which was helpful to warm me up a little.

My God it was cold and windy.

But.

It was worth it.

The views were out of this world.

I am so happy I did it.

My fingers could barely move as I took photos and I bumbled around a bit with my glasses and my feet and trying to line up shots with a steady hand that wasn’t shaking from the cold.

I got a few good ones.

Go check them out.

I hope to continue getting a few good ones.

I can’t promise how often I will post.

The editing takes time and then getting them up to the other blog, although there is not much writing, there is a lot of editing and it takes awhile to put together.

That being said.

I really enjoy doing it.

So I will as much as I can.

Especially this week when I have some free time to indulge in my little amateur hobby.

I love photography.

It makes me happy.

And as far as I’m concerned.

There is always room for more happy in my life.

Always.

Is It A Little

Dusty in here?

Just a mite.

But not too bad.

I got all my Burning Man gear sorted, finally.

I still find it rather amusing that I was back almost a week before my stuff landed back in San Francisco and then it took another week for me to source a vehicle.

It happened last night though.

I got done with work and my friend picked me up from work and we headed over a few blocks to 19th and Valencia.

My friend gave me heaps of shit about the dust and my badge of pride.

I don’t know about that, but it’s amusing.

I always know my friends by the amount of shit I’m willing to take from them.

Some people.

I have absolutely no tolerance for, you want to give me shit, I might beat you.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

My friend gave me a lot of shit over the last day about my gear and that allowed me to gauge our burgeoning friendship pretty well.

He’s a good egg.

Nice to have more friends.

I wasn’t expecting to have this coalesce and it’s been a little bit of whirlwind here at Casa Carmen.

Hmmm.

That looks right, but you know, not quite.

Maison Carmen.

AH.

Yes.

Better that.

Anyway.

I ended hanging out a lot with this person the last few days.

Totally unexpected.

I had a date Sunday who cancelled in the weirdest way yet.

He, the guy who cancelled on me, texted that he’d had a date the night before and they hit it off so well that he wasn’t interested in going on a date with me.

The message I got was that he was super happy (don’t recall asking, but great) and that things had radically changed (I should have known when our date was rescheduled–he’d originally made it for Saturday) and the new set of circumstances being that he wasn’t available to date.

But.

Hey, if you want to hang out as friends we can still meet up.

Um.

No.

Not even going to waste my time doing that.

I don’t need to cultivate more male friends, I need to cultivate the female friends I already have.

Of course, I already mentioned my other male friend, who is a new friend.

Um.

Ha.

Friend with benefits.

Ahem.

Heh.

But.

I, ah, get a head of myself.

The other title to this blog, fyi, was going to be “Hickies at the 7-11 in Sausalito,” but well, it didn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Anyway.

When Sunday’s date cancelled I decided that I would take my own damn self on a date.

I eye-balled the Mike Doughty poster my friends had gotten for me for getting the tickets to the show, the poster Mike signed for me, yes, and decided I would hie over to Cheap Pete’s and get it framed and then in the spirit of more art, go to the MOMA.

I did my Morning Pages, cleaned around the house a little and hopped on my scooter.

Oh.

Small scooter update.

Total wash on the cost of getting the repairs.

Yes.

It does turn out I have a deductible for collision, but it’s $500 and the cost to repair my scooter was $246, so no go.

All out-of-pocket.

Thanks hit and run, hope that karma bites you in the ass.

My insurance agent suggested though that I could probably right it off when I do my taxes this year.

I had no clue.

He told me the deal and I said thanks and got on with my day.

End of aside.

So I hit Cheap Pete’s dropped off the poster–I’m framing it in white with a black mat, it’s going to look hot.

Then I headed down town to the MOMA.

As I approached the museum, I realized that I was going to go right by the Nordie’s Rack on Market street and I had a twenty-dollar gift certificate that was going to expire if I didn’t use it.

I turned right on Mission street and hit the motorcycle parking by the old Mint.

Then a little shopping.

I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize.

I’m still not sure why I answered.

But I did.

New friend on the phone, and we’ve had some social media contact prior, so it wasn’t weird that he had my number, also we have a lot of friends in common, a lot.

He needed a favor and was calling for some help.

I explained that I wasn’t in the position to lend a hand, I was downtown shopping, and I’m not sure how it fell out my mouth, but that I had basically gotten stood up on a date so I was heading to the MOMA.

He thanked me, asked if I might change my mind and I said I might check back in later, depending on how my afternoon went.

I hung up and got to the shopping.

I was in the changing room when I got a series of texts.

Hmm.

Yes.

Actually.

Ok.

The gist being this gentleman wanted to know if he could be my stand in date since I had gotten stood up.

I was flattered and thought for a minute, then a light bulb went off in my head.

He’s pursuing!

Aha.

This has been a thing I have been writing about, being pursued rather than being the person that chases–I tend to chase guys who aren’t interested.

So.

I said yes.

We made plans to meet up at my house.

He picked me up looking dapper as fuck.

He’s a handsome guy.

In a suit, thank you very much.

And we headed out over the bridge to Sausalito.

Dinner at a little Italian restaurant.

Then.

Parking his vehicle over by Fort Baker, we changed up into riding gear and went for a motorcycle ride.

To the 7-11.

It was with some chagrin that he realized that I don’t eat sugar.

He was taking me to get a Slurpee.

Ok.

Now I don’t know about you, but it struck me as so adorable I almost couldn’t stand it.

Fast forward two days and being back at that same 7-11 at 11:30 p.m. at night getting snacks and water and giggling like I’m a sixteen year old.

Because.

Fuck me.

I have had a fucking blast over the last 48 hours and there’s something so 80’s movie perfect about being in a 7-11 with a paramour getting silly shit from the aisles and making out at the cash register.

I am not kidding.

I’m 43 but I was definitely channeling some teenager glee.

And today.

Well.

Back to reality.

I won’t say that I won’t be hanging out in the 7-11 again I probably will but the adult world is calling to both of us and we agreed at the beginning that whatever happened it was going to be light and fun.

It may have gone a bit deeper than that, I’m pretty sure it did, but it circumstances being what they are, he’s not really available.

So.

I get to be super grateful that I let myself be pursued and for 48 hours I had a goofy, sweet, silly, sexy, fun, amazing time with a new person who surprised me in more ways than one.

Here’s to new experiences.

And being hella grateful that my date on Sunday cancelled.

I hear “rejection is God’s protection.”

It wasn’t meant to be, that date, but it was the impetus for the two dates that followed with this new paramour.

Thanks God.

Let me be sure to remember this experience the next time a date cancels.

Seriously.

Hello Again

My friend.

I have missed you.

I have missed my bed.

I have missed the smell of my home.

I have missed the fog.

Not really, but it certainly felt like I was being lovingly, if in a rather chilly, cold, wet way, embraced with wide open arms.

My heart blew open a little wider as I saw the Golden Gate Bridge after coming out the other side of the Robin Williams tunnel.

Which I had not been through since it had been re-named and it gave me a pang of sorrow still at the loss of the man to this community, here in the Bay and all over the world, I suppose, but especially here.

Then the sweep and the swoop of the Industrial Orange painted bridge and the wallops of fog blowing in.

I reached into my bag and pulled out my cardigan and glad was I that I had remembered to put it in with my bag before leaving the school retreat in Petaluma.

Which, fyi, is not a retreat.

I got a chuckle from a message I received while I was crossing over the bridge in regards to how was my weekend of getting seaweed wraps and mud baths.

Ha.

I repeat.

It’s not a fucking retreat people.

My friend who gave me a ride back from the “retreat” said, “I just tell people it’s an intensive,” he added, “retreat means spa time to every one.”

And granted.

This year was certainly easier than last year.

For a number of reasons.

Amongst which, probably the top was that I know my cohort and I’m close to them and I have some really awesome and amazing friends, two of whom I got to bunk with for the eight days and it was so nice, really, awesome, to get to spend the week with them.

To check in, to chat, to snuggle, to walk hand in hand with my girls.

It was fucking fabulous.

It was also really nice to get re-connected to a lot of the cohort and also to make new friends, strengthen bonds and deepen friendships that have begun to bloom.

I had some intense, amazing, awe inspiring, very eye opening experiences and I have now a stronger sense of what I want and what I need from the program and also for myself in general, from life, from my heart, and I feel an easiness and grace that I did not have quite so much before going into the retreat.

Er.

Intensive.

I mean.

Really.

9:15a.m. to 9:15p.m. every day.

Except today, we got out early at 4:15p.m.

Yes.

Of course I had breaks for meals and tea and wanders, short, but sweet through the garden and a couple of times in the hot tub.

Yeah.

There’s a great big hot tub there, I think the most crowded I saw it was about twenty people.

The effort for me, though, felt like a lot to get in and out and shower and dress and undress and sometimes, most times, I just skipped it.

But.

I did socialize more, I hung out more, I connected more with the cohort and I feel stronger for it, more supported.

I had some work stuff come up and I got to work through it and do some stuff for myself that I’m not sure I could have done on my own.

Sometimes I just need a friend to help me write an e-mail, or tell me it is not just ok, but really important to ask for what I need.

There will be some conversations with my bosses tomorrow.

It’s been a strain and I’m not really through it yet and honest to God, I’m too tired to think about it or do anything about it right now, but it basically comes down to proper compensation for the accommodations I am doing for the family.

In a nutshell, renting the car for the trip was a bit of a shit show despite the help I got in regards to getting the car rented.

It all worked out and I’ll be driving for the next two weeks an adorable light blue VW Beetle.

It is so stinking cute it’s sort of hard to even describe it.

The gentleman at the car rental place was so sweet with me and totally helped me out, I was having a bit of a melt down.  The original rental was through Enterprise, my boss had made the reservation.

But guess what?

They don’t take debit cards.

I was hyperventilating at the desk.

Tired.

I was so tired.

Gestalt’ed out from all the work at school and in class and all the processing, jesus fuck there’s a lot of fucking processing in this program.

Sometimes it took every bit of me to not shout, shut the fuck up!

Enough fucking processing people.

But.

I didn’t and I learned to soften and ease up and let go and work, I mean really work, on judgements and projections and all sorts of super psychological stuff.

Stuff.

Yeah.

Real technical I am.

I also laughed my ass off, slight aside, when I got home to find the book for the class that I was taking all this past week had finally showed up.

A day late, and a dollar short, as they say.

But I’ll be taking it to Glen Ellen in my spiffy little blue Bug, I still have to write a final paper for the class.  The other class I took the final exam in yesterday, Ethics, and I got 100%.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Back at the car rental desk and trying to not cry, I might have put my head down on the desk, or maybe I just thought about it, I asked, what other companies there were at SFO and if I could rent from and have them cancel the car I was supposed to take to Glenn Ellen.

There was such a place!

I dashed down to flights of stairs, bombed through the queue and got the sweetest guy, who was so accommodating and helpful and dropped a huge amount of money on my debit card to rent the car.

It was obscene.

I don’t want to think about it.

And.

Then I thought about how I get to learn to value myself more and my time more and how lucky am I that even before I am a therapist, even before I go for my PhD, because, oh yes, that is happening, more on that later, I get to learn how to set boundaries, ask for what I want and practice conflict and repair.

I have to ask for my time to be compensated.

I have to set some boundaries and what ever happens, no matter how uncomfortable, I just need to go for it, because I can’t handle the the transgressions on my time and energy any more.

Oh.

And yes, I’m in the market for a new job.

I think that it’s time to return to babies and families that work out of the house.

I need some simplicity and a returning to the land of baby sounds really delightful.

Big, fat, delicious baby naps.

So I can read, and start preparing for my next steps in my academic career.

Like, um, the PhD track I’m going to be on.

Yes, yes indeed.

Dr. Martines.

Has a mighty nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

I like it anyway.

And I’m happy.

Oh so happy.

To get to do all the things.

REALLY.

All the things.

 

One Shot

It doesn’t happen very often.

And.

When it does.

It happens on the way home from work rather than on the way to work.

Every once in a while I make it the 6.5 miles from work to home without having to put my foot down on the pavement.

It is the most delicious and delirious thing and I realized as I was crossing Divisadero on Oak that I might actually have a unicorn of a ride happening.

I made the timed lights, I picked up my speed, I felt my left knee complain, I said, come on baby, we got this, and zoom zip, through the light and rolling down the Pan Handle and it’s all, almost, but not quite, downhill from there.

I have made it once to work from my house, 46th Avenue and Judah to Lexington and 20th, on my bicycle without putting down a foot.

It was a reckless ride and not something that I need to experience again.

I just wanted to see if I could do it, and I could, but it meant running lights, stop signs, riding down Lincoln all the way to the Wiggle and a lot of clever maneuverings on my bicycle that weren’t the safest.

I am really safe on my bicycle.

Some folks are nuts.

I want to live.

I have so much to live for.

Just the level of contentment I have for my little home right now, it knows no bounds.

I got the cutest message from a woman in my cohort about a photo I had put up on Instagram with my little nook in the corner of my studio that has a chaise lounge and a “new” reading lamp, that it looked like just the place to curl up and read all of Professor Dubitzky’s reading in.

Of course she didn’t say Professor Dubitzky.

Ha.

She said, “Milly D.”

Our inside, though, I am sure the professor does know and winks at it, name for the teacher.

What I love is that the class is all Freudian analysis and yes, that’s right, my corner seat is a chaise lounge.

The doctor is in.

Er.

The graduate school student is in.

I have started writing “I am a therapist” in my morning pages where I write my affirmations.

It follows right after the one that says, “I am an artist.”

And I added another today.

“I own a brand new Buddy Scooter.”

Yes.

I am back in the market.

I talked a lot about it with a friend of mine who is really good with money and negotiating and asked if he would help me go down to Scooter Centre and get a good deal on the scooter.

It does not look like they have the Buddy I want, I want the Buddy Italia in Avocado, in the shop.   Although, I bet they could get it in if they don’t have it in stock.

It’s a 170cc, goes up to 60 mph and gets 92 miles per gallon.

It also has a two-year parts and labor warranty which includes road side assistance.

It’s about $3200.

I could go buy it right now.

But.

That would mean using my prudent reserve and my student loan disbursement up.

I would feel uncomfortable not having a prudent reserve and I don’t like that feeling where there is nothing in the savings account.

So.

I talked to my friend tonight and told him about how I have been setting aside money and also that I expect I will get a bonus at work on my birthday again, which is a week before Christmas, so it was basically a holiday bonus, but whatever, I don’t have to label it anything other than a gift.

A gift that I am banking on using to buy the scooter.

In conjunction with the money I have been setting aside.

The plan, God is laughing, I hear you, my thought, is that I will go down on December 19th, which is the day after my birthday and hand my friend my money, I figure, go to the bank, withdraw the cash and walk in with cash and get a better deal, and let him do the negotiating.

Which means in 60 days I’ll have a new scooter!

This is the plan.

Who knows if it will happen, but that’s the thought process so far.

I won’t get burned buying a used “Vespa” again, although I wouldn’t mind a Vespa, new, they are a bit more expensive then the Buddy and I would have to wait a bit longer to save up the money, probably at least another six months.

I don’t want to wait that much longer.

My knees be aching again and maybe, yes, maybe, it’s time to stop commuting 15 miles a day on the thing.

It’s been 10 years of riding a bicycle in this city.

I would miss it.

And.

I would miss the exercise.

But.

I can do different things.

I can learn to surf, I got a wet suit.

I can scooter to a pool.

I can go to yoga.

The time that I would save from riding my bicycle would not be a great deal, but it would be significant enough that I think I would be able to take a yoga class or go swimming at a pool on the way to work.

Who knows.

I am not going to worry about the exercise part, it’s important to my life and I need it to keep the crazy brain at bay.

I thought all these things when I was riding through the park, the cool breath of October flowing over my body, ruffling my hair, there is nothing quite as sexy, to me, I don’t know that any one else who’s ever experienced it (not that I have asked), but, there is something so sensual about getting off my bike when I get home and after I lock up the garage I go inside my cozy, sweet studio, and sweep the hair up off my neck and it’s cold.

Cold.

From the wind and the air.

It is such a delicious feeling to lift the cool hair off my neck and swirl it up into a bun.

I shiver thinking about it.

I would miss that.

But then again.

I won’t miss the painful knees.

I did make sure to get to work early and do a lot of stretching, it’s the IT band in my knees that is too tight and I can do some things to strengthen the muscles around my hips, that’s why I was contemplating yoga a little while ago–although, really, in what time?  The stretching helps, but sometimes I think, maybe, just maybe, 10 years is a good run for bicycle commuting in San Francisco.

A decade of riding these mean streets.

I have seen a lot of change.

And more than one lost tourist with the Blazing Saddle logo on their bike stopped at Oak and Stanyan trying to figure out where they are on the map and where the hell the bike path goes and where is the fucking ocean anyway?  And the bridge, how do we get to the bridge?

I have even ridden folks through the Pan Handle and around the Wiggle to get them to go where they are going, I did that not too long ago, I was stopped, asked for directions and I noticed the glazed look coming over the woman’s face when I told her where to go and what streets to take, and just took pity.

“Follow me, just follow me for the next ten minutes, and I will get you to Market, at which point I will cross the intersection and you will turn left and be able to follow Market Street where you need to go.”

Just here to be of service.

I don’t have to think about it too much.

But it is exciting.

I like the idea of change and my life getting bigger and fuller and lovelier.

Not that more is needed.

I have everything I need.

And more than I ever expected to have.

So.

Much.

More.

So.

Much.

Love.

Did I Get It All Done?

Fuck no.

Did I do a lot?

Yes.

Including and in no particular order, meeting with a ladybug and teaching her how to do spot check inventory, no need to sit in that dirty diaper all day, change it, change your perspective, get on with your day, walk through the fear.

Please.

And.

Thank you.

Cleaned my house.

Like really cleaned it.

REALLY.

Swept the floors, Swiffere’d the floors ( I know, I know, I used Swiffer as a verb, shut up), scrubbed the bathroom, did my laundry, stripped the bed, even washed and dried the duvet cover.

Which is a pain in the ass if ever there is one.

Putting the comforter back into the duvet cover after it’s washed, that is, pain in the tuchus, let me tell ya.

I even made extra food for the week, since I won’t be doing any cooking or grocery shopping before school next weekend or during the time I’m in class.  But I don’t want to have the experience of bonking out again like I did last time I was in class.  I will have food prepped and ready.

I made homemade pork fried brown rice with peas, carrots, corn, onions, brown mushrooms, garlic, and ginger.

Like that.

Then.

I read.

And read.

And read some more.

I also drank a lot of tea.

Excuse me while I go pee again.

Kidding.

Barely.

I read a lot about Freud, I read more Freud than I have in my entire life up until this point.

I read a lot of Freud, a lot of criticism of Freud and a lot of defense of Freud, that was really good and quite compelling and I find myself actually liking Freud a whole lot more than I used to.

Not that I had many great experiences with Freud prior, just assumptions.

I looked over my syllabi as well.

Although I felt a touch frustrated with how much I still have to read, I read as much as I could.

I switched up spots in my room to encourage better reading consumption.

Moving from kitchen table to chaise lounge.

I read outside on the back porch for a little while, although that was challenging as I found myself just wanting to lie back and enjoy the warm sunshine whenever it poked through the cloud cover.

I read until a friend texted me and we made plans to go up to Twin Peaks tonight and watch the Super Moon rise with lunar eclipse.

It was spectacular.

My friend grabbed me at 6:30 p.m.

Right about he time I was hitting my limit of Freud intake.

It was nice to gel out in the car and not think and let my friend ramble about the new house and new room mates and situations and I wasn’t tuned out, I was just there.

Appreciative.

Grateful.

Held.

Warm.

Because, damn Gina.

I forgot.

It gets cold up at Twin Peaks and after we had parked the car and gotten out to survey the lay of the land and make a spot to watch the moon rise with what felt like a great deal of the city as well–I love you San Francisco that so many of you came out to watch the moon rise and lunar eclipse, I love my city–we decided to get back the fuck into the car.

It was that breezy and cold.

The car.

Oh.

It was lovely.

Warm.

Good music.

Good company.

And the moon rise and the orange glow of eclipse as the earth reflected back it’s refracted light upon the surface of the moon, a reddish-orange hue, the burnt umber red floating in the East over the Bay, the sodium lights of the dockyards in Oakland glimmering, the dusky orange of City Hall shimmering in the cityscape, the flash of a red light on top of the TransAmerica Pyramid, the thread of white gold light sparkling on the Bay Bridge as traffic flowed over the top deck, the fog ghosting in over the back side of Twin Peaks.

And I am reminded of how beautiful this city is.

How lucky I am to get to live here.

And yes.

I had a moment or two, perhaps three, when I thought.

I really should be reading my Freud.

But then.

I would look up at the moon and sigh inwardly at my fortune.

And memories.

The times I have come up to Twin Peaks.

The first time I was taken to the top a couple of years before I moved to San Francisco, at sunset, the fog thick and blanketing the buildings, the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge poking through the grey bed, rosy and red and industrial orange and golden in the setting sun, the clouds over the East Bay a spectacular color guard of pinks and royal purples, blushed with persimmons and pumpkins and creamy rosettes of cloud clusters.

I was smitten.

I still am.

I can still see that first sunset and I can contrast and compare it to all the other times, really, not all that many, despite living in the city for over 13 years I can probably count about ten times that I have gone up to Twin Peaks and taken in the view.

Maybe more.

But not that many more.

I remember the time when I moved to San Francisco and I hadn’t been in the city more than a month and there was a huge spectacular meteor shower that was happening and I walked up to Twin Peaks from 20th and York in the Mission.

The meteor shower was amazing.

I counted 56 shooting stars that night.

And.

I wrote down a wish for each one of them in a notebook.

I have that notebook somewhere.

I feel compelled to dig it up and look at those wishes.

See how many have come true.

So many of my dreams have coalesced.

I have lived a grand and fabulous life.

I have lived in Paris.

I have written short stories in cafes in the Montmartre.

I have travelled to Rome and sat at the cafe on the top of the state museum and written in my journal while sipping an Americano.

I have gone to Burning Man a few times.

Nine.

I have loved and lived and grown in San Francisco.

I get to live here.

Who is this girl, this woman?

Who is this person who now gets to go to graduate school and balance all the things with all the other things, which make all the things possible?

She is a woman who once in a while is going to let herself off the hook from Freud.

To play a little hooky and watch the moon rise over this city.

This beautiful city.

My city.

By the Bay.

Got My Cable Car On

“We want to do the trolley.”

My friend from college is visiting with his company on business.

“And the Painted Ladies, you know that place where they filmed Full House.”

Ugh, yes I do know.

“And the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Oh sweet jesus.

I just thought we were going to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on the past few years that we haven’t seen each other.

And how the fuck did he turn 40? Or for that matter, how am I 42?

I also don’t remember him being taller than me, but that could be because the guy I am dating is shorter than I am and I am automatically thinking that all men are shorter than me.

My friend is also losing his hair.

Mortality.

I gave him a little grief about the hair, I had to poke some fun, but I get it, he’s got a 13 month old baby boy, I’m sure the hair loss happened shortly after realizing that he wasn’t going to get any sleep for the first 8 months of his child’s life.

He always hollers “hola” at me because of my name and despite many years of persuading him that I do not, in fact, speak spanish, despite my spanish sounding name, the “hola” has continued.

It is like my family calling me Bubba.

Which is not a bad nickname when I acknowledge it, and I may have inadvertently gotten a new nickname from my boyfriend.

“Hey lip gloss,” he said to me the other night as I re-applied some lip balm.

“I just brushed my teeth,” I warded him off, “I need to re-up.”

Poor man.

He got more than he bargained for with this sparkle pony.

I joke that I am not going to prank him by mowing off an eyebrow while he sleeps or shaving some silly design on the side of his head; no, I’ll just dump loose glitter on his motorcycle jacket.

Or spray him down with aerosol adhesive and then dump loose glitter on him.

I have red, purple, and sky blue.

I bought them years ago for Burning Man and then never used them.

But he’s right, I do have a fondness for the lip gloss.

I like my mouth to feel a certain way and I hate dry lips.

I digress.

I basically played tourist today.

I took my friend and his boss on a little sightseeing of San Francisco.

I didn’t mind, although, truth be told, I was surprised at the number of things we crammed into a short amount of time.

They picked me up around 2:45 p.m. and dropped me off just before 6 p.m. having to give themselves enough time to get the rental car back to the airport and pick up another person from SFO for the rest of the business trip.

In that time we drove Great Highway, went up to Lands End, parked, walked around Seal Rock, Lands End, and took photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Then we hopped back into the car and I navigate us to the NOPA neighborhood so that we could do a quick spin around Alamo Square Park and see the Painted Ladies.

Which actually looked really lovely in the late afternoon light.

Plus the scaffolding that has been up on one of the girls finally has been pulled down.

I’m not always the biggest fan of the Painted Ladies, I think there are far prettier houses, but the view is gorgeous and my friend and his co-hort got to snap some photographs.

Before heading to the cable car.

At least I know my cable car lines.

I did not direct us to either the downtown turn around on Powell or the one at the end of Fisherman’s Wharf.

Nope.

We hopped on the California Van Ness line at California and Polk Street.

I pointed out things like a good host guide–“there’s the Masonic Temple, in case you wanted to see any Mason’s,” I chuckled when we passed the venue.

“On the left side of the car is Grace Cathedral, there’s Huntington Square Park, here’s the Fairmont Hotel with the Tonga Room, and on the other side is the Top of The Mark, where Vertigo was filmed.”

I told them about how the cable cars run and the difference between a cable car and a trolley.

I got to see some San Francisco I don’t normally see.

Then we hopped off at the end of the line in the Financial District and walked over to the Ferry Building.

They joked about hipsters and gluten-free diets and hippies and vegan donuts and I used the bathroom.

We grabbed a Boccalone sampler of salted pig parts and walked back to the Financial District and for the first time in so long I can’t remember when this actually happened, we went to a bar and watched the end of the Dallas Detroit Game.

My friend was determined to find a place to watch the last few minutes, and his compatriot seemed just as eager, I think they were on the spread (what does that mean anyway?).

So, that’s how it happened to be that at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon I find myself in the hotel bar of the Hyatt Regency downtown sipping a Pellegrino and sending texts to my boyfriend who is away on business in Santa Clara while my friend drinks a pint and watches the football game.

I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

Twice in one weekend I find myself in social settings with bars.

I’m not interested in drinking, if anything it really grosses me out, the smell of it especially, I find myself more and more sensitive to it, but I did not like that I had ended up in a bar on my day off.

I was glad to see my friend.

But I was ready to go home.

We took an Uber from the hotel bar to the rental car after the game finished and I thought, my life, it really is so different from the everyday hustle bustle of the rest of the world.

Not just because I live and work in San Francisco, but also because I practice an actively spiritual way of life that does not include drinking.

I have been reminded at New Years and again today, how the rest of the world works and plays, oh, yeah, this is what “normal” people do.

I have to say.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I don’t mind playing tourist once in a while.

But that’s not a part of town I need to revisit again.

Literally and figuratively.

That being said, it was a gift to see my friend, it is nice to see people from Madison, from UW, from that part of my life.

If only to smash home how radically different a person I have become.

“Your place looks entirely Carmen,” my friend said as he used the bathroom and I gave him the “grand tour” of my in-law.

Although not exactly the person I was when I went to school back at UW Madison, I am apparently not too different either.

Just a bit more clear-eyed.

And present.

And now back to my regular programming.

My “normal.”

Living my own little slice of San Francisco.

Away, way, way, down by the sea.

In my little bungalow that looks like me.

 

Oops I Forgot

That was the gist of the message I received late last night, after I had gone to bed, in regards to the mornings’ date.

The gentleman in question overbooked himself.

Felt awful.

Had to go work out with his trainer that he booked at same time.

Cool.

Glad to have seen the message this morning at 8 a.m. when my alarm went off.

I suspected something was up when I did not get the promised confirmation message yesterday as was told to me earlier in the week.

“I’ll confirm on Saturday.”

When I got home last night at 10:15 p.m. and there was no message confirming I sent him one, just let me know, I’ll be up for a little bit.

But not that late.

Since the date time was for 9:30 a.m. today.

I wanted to have about 8 hours of sleep and a little breakfast and get ready time before meeting him at Trouble Coffee and Coconut Club before going and walking his dog around Fort Funston.

My alarm went off at 8 a.m. and I saw no text, no call on my phone, I checked my Okstupid profile and yup, incoming message at 1 a.m. saying he’d over booked, scheduled himself to work out with his trainer, so sorry, feel awful, please let me make it up to you.

Yada.

Yada.

Yada.

I got up, went pee.

Went right back to bed.

I slept until 11a.m.

Apparently God wanted me to have some rest instead of a date with someone who over books themselves.

And cool.

Rejection is God’s protection.

No skin off my nose.

I even did the nice thing and sent a nice response, “no worries, have a great day, if you want to hang out, you know where to find me.”

And that was that.

I had a free day to do with as I pleased.

I wasn’t sure what to do and truthfully, though not miffed, I was just a little flummoxed.

First week of trying to date and date is no-show.

Then I thought.

I didn’t say I was going to go on one date a week, I said I was going to try.

And try I did.

I made a date with someone and I set aside time to do so and opened myself up to being vulnerable.

And it felt kind of fun to know that I had a date.

I actually never really thought anything would come of it and a couple of times wanted to cancel, haha, but didn’t as I feel that’s self-sabbotage.

Now the funny thing?

I decided to take some action and tweeted my status as stood up and did anyone want to hang out as I was suddenly free to move about the day.

And what do you know.

I got a response.

And we chatted a bit.

And now I have a date for this Friday.

So there Mister I Got to Go Work Out With My Trainer.

FYI.

Posting pictures on social media of cheeseburger, fries, assorted dips and sauces, and the 49’ers game on your big screen tv does not scream working out with personal trainer, but hey, that’s ok.

Sometimes I get overbooked too doing my nails.

I bear the guy no grudge, in fact I thought it was pretty fucking funny.

And I think that’s what this experience is going to be, a lot of amusing stories and maybe, if a girl is lucky, a date or two with a nice guy.

I would love me some courting.

I don’t expect any.

In fact.

I have no expectations about any of it.

The only expectation I have is that I am going to put myself out there and learn how to date.  I hear that some folks can do it and I have seen a number of friends in my life, women and men, do it, and heck, they seem to enjoy themselves.

So.

I didn’t sit on my ass, I took myself on a date.

First I got cute, because you never know who you might see or whom might see you and I like looking cute.

Then I got on my scooter and drove it up the coast.

It’s awful handy that the coast is just three blocks away.

I went up the Great Highway and hit Lands End first.

It was glorious.

The view, well, amazing.

Lands End

I walked along the cliff edge for a while and then decided I was going to do what tourists do, I was going to walk the bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge, that is.

I have ridden my bicycle over it countless times, but I have never walked over the pedestrian side.

I climbed back onto the Vespa and took Sea Cliff over towards the other side of Lands End and then dropped along Camino del Mar and around Bakers Beach and China Beach, then up and around the Presidio.

The views were astounding and I was so grateful that I had not decided to stay at home and mope.

Not that I really felt mopey about the date cancelling, just that I can get into the habit of staying at home and it’s better for me to get out, do things, take actions, live my life like, this is it.

Because.

This is it.

And when I live so close to so much beauty it’s a shame to not appreciate it.

So I got my appreciation on.

The bridge was packed.

Packed.

But, as I was on a scooter I got motorcycle parking right up close and was able to amble right onto the bridge really quickly.

I got to say I like that about being on a scooter, easy peasey parking.

And voila!

The Golden Gate Bridge, established in 1937,

 

1937

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

spanning the bay, slightly shrouded in light fog, crisp wind blowing, but not too bad (I have certainly ridden over it in really nasty fog and high winds), just enough to blow my hair about my face in a sexy manner.

I felt really filled with joy and gratitude looking out over the view.

I live here.

I live here!

Golden Gate Bridge

How freaking amazing is that?

I took a few photographs.

I played tourist.

I called my mom from the bridge because I wanted to share with her the experience and it made me giggle to be calling my mom from the Golden Gate Bridge, I don’t know why, but it felt sweet to do so.

I went to the gift shop after walking the bridge and I bought myself a souvenir–a refrigerator magnet, what else?

And I scooped a little something for my mom too, since I had called her while I was on the bridge and her birthday is coming up soon.

I laughed as I was checking out and said something in regards to the compulsive gift buying.

The clerk smiled and said, “where are you from?”

I laughed harder.

Then I leaned in, “here, I live here, in San Francisco, Ocean Beach.”

We both laughed.

I rode my scooter back along the edge of the world full of joy and lightness and gratitude.

I came home and put my magnet on the fridge and cooked up some soup, it’s Sunday after all, and had a late lunch on the back deck with the sun on my face and the sound of the neighbor playing jazz piano.

How good is my life?

So good.

And I have a date for Friday.

I don’t think he will be cancelling.

And if he does, well.

I live in a pretty incredible place, I can probably figure out something to do.

 

NOT GUILTY

Ahem.

Just practising.

Let me try that again.

“I am not guilty.”

Ok.

That’s not true.

I just don’t want to pay the $197 for the ticket.

Can’t I just say that I’m sort of guilty.

I stopped, I had my foot down, I looked both ways before crossing the street, mom, I mean officer, I mean, what the fuck do I mean?

Ugh.

So, off to the notorious traffic court tomorrow to see which way the winds be blowing.

Hopefully the court will call my name first, doubtful, but hey a gal can hope, then I can go get a manicure.

I thought about that today and for just a moment was going to run over to Cole Valley, pick up my nanny clogs, and get a clean manicure.

I have a great manicure right now, pink sparkles, and there’s nothing wrong with my Converse and I have to nanny before I go to court, so what ever I wear is going to have to be nanny proof anyhow.

I am not going to dress up for court.

I will be respectful and on time and I will pay whatever fine the judge hands down.

I will not argue.

I will state exactly what happened, and keep all short cop small dick jokes to myself, I will be polite, calm, and rational.

That will be my outfit, a person of principle.

And I will be nice.

I think that about covers it.

I will also not be rushing around like a mad woman in the morning trying to get up early and scoot into the DMV.

Nope.

I made an online appointment today for the first available day that make sense–Tuesday, March 25th at 10:35 a.m.  I just sent off an e-mail to my employers and asked that I be given the morning off.  I would rejoin the boys at noon.

I can’t imagine that with an appointment it will take me longer than an hour and a half to do the whole she-bang.

Now all I have to do tomorrow is show up for work, a little early to help out with my early departure, and show up at 850 Bryant for my 3 p.m. court date.

Showing up is almost always the true battle.

It will be an experience I can then cross off my bucket list.

Just kidding.

Traffic court has never been, nor I believe ever will be, on my bucket list.

Hmmm.

When was the last time I thought about that?

Things that I want to do before I die.

Not that I am planning on knocking off anytime soon.

I wonder, too, if having certain things is equatable to having certain experiences.

For instance, I really want a Jeep Wrangler 4.0 Sport.

Don’t ask me why, but I have always wanted one, always, since I was a kid, might be the first car I ever wanted to own.  Something about it spoke to me and it still speaks to me.

I want to take said Jeep on a long road trip to Alaska and see the Northern lights.

I also want to take said Jeep to Joshua Tree, never been, ditto, the Grand Canyon, I would like to drive the entire Highway One from the top to the bottom, and camp on as many beaches as I can.

Other things to do or go–Hawaii.

I am Polynesian and I have never been, time for that to happen.

I would really like to see Venice, Barcelona, Cape Town, Amsterdam, Bruges, the Pyramids in Egypt.

I want to go to Coachella.

I want to learn how to hang glide.

Go skydiving.

I would like to go to the Caribbean.

See the Galapagos.

I would like to sail around the world.

I think that would be fantastic.

Charter a catamaran and go.

Love to see the Greek Islands.

I do, at some point, want to get my MFA in Creative Writing.

Do you think there will ever be one for blogging?

I could master that.

Hot air ballooning.

Bicycle through the Loire Valley.

See Niagara Falls.

Go to New York.

Actually, I think that last one is closer than I think it is.

Lots of this stuff is, I don’t doubt that I will do the vast majority of it, I don’t know how or why or when, but I can see doing a lot of it and I am sure that more will be revealed as far as what I like to do and what.

I still find that I am finding out what I like and want to do and that is exciting.

I have to keep on the learning groove.

Showing up for tomorrow is just another experience to add to the richness and depth of my life.

I found myself up in Pacific Heights last weekend, and will again this Saturday, and just the view alone blew me away.

I have seen it before, but it is always breath-taking–the Bay, the green capped hills of Marin, the Golden Gate spanning the water, the islands in the distance–Tiburon, Angel Island, Alcatraz–the deep sky cupping the world in light and fog, it is something else.

I have already done and seen so much, I have come so far, and then to call San Francisco my home, to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge on so frequently that I can take them for granted.

Or the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts, the Presidio, or the Marina green, the very Bay itself or the ocean, I am surrounded by all this beauty and lushness and am probably living, daily, someone’s bucket list dreams.

I do know that the traffic court is not something that I really want to show up for, but I can consider it a gift that I can, that I get to do so, that I will walk in and take responsibility for my actions and leave a free woman to go explore some more of this lovely life I lead.

In this beautiful city.

My city.

San Francisco.