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.

One of Those Weeks

And I just don’t care.

Things spill.

Pink hair dye in my purse.

Blueberries in my basket tonight, all over my liner bag on the back of my scooter, splashed blueberry juice all over my pink riding jacket.

Ugh.

Who cares?

I don’t.

I don’t give a fig.

I’m having a great fucking day.

Heh.

I just scored four tickets to Mike Doughty’s September 1st Living Room Tour here in San Francisco.

One night.

Someone’s living room.

27 people?

30 people?

Intimate like.

I messaged my three people who are Doughty fans and said, “save the date bitches.”

I don’t even give a fig that it’s the day before my first day of classes.

Fuck it.

I’ll be a little tired.

But I will be happy.

Oh so very happy.

Live music, getting to hear someone who I really like and respect, musically and from my own private personal view, we have a few things in common, a few friends, it feels special.

I’m really grateful and I didn’t blink at dropping the money on the tickets.

I love my people and I am super psyched to get to share the experience with them.

Now.

Not one of the bastards has responded to the wildly ecstatic message I just sent them, but I ain’t worried.

If, for some reason, any or all of them can’t go.

I am sure I will find three other Mike Doughty fans that would love to go.

I can actually think of a few that I should probably message and say, hey, there was 27 tickets available when I bought my four, which means 23 are left, and um, in San Francisco, that’s not going to last long.

I just had this pricking in my thumbs.

My blueberry stained thumbs.

To go check the website and see if the tickets were up.

And voila!

They were.

I whipped out the wallet.

Didn’t think twice.

The only thought I had was keeping it to myself until tomorrow when I see my ladybug at the cafe to do the deal, but I didn’t think I could keep it under my hat for that long.

I am not the best at keeping a surprise.

I mean.

I can.

I suppose I could have written this blog about how despite prepping for the poetry podcast yesterday and feeling really excited about it, that the recording was cancelled.

I suppose.

I mean.

That was what I was going to write about.

Also that I didn’t find myself all that wrapped up in that either.

I was like.

Cool.

God’s got better plans for my time that day.

Yoga.

Doing the deal.

Sex.

Heh.

Who knows.

All three.

Although not all three at the same time.

Ok.

Anyway.

That signals to me that I am in a good place in my life in general, that when something unexpected happens, getting this cancellation, I can look at it and say, well, something else is supposed to happen and here’s to knowing that what ever that thing is, it’s the thing that is supposed to happen.

Just like getting blueberry juice on everything, I mean, shit everywhere, I didn’t really get upset, just pulled the stuff that needed cleaning and tossed it into the wash.

Came inside my little studio.

Hopped on line.

And, ayup, bought tickets to see a small, intimate little show of one of my favorite artists.

Luckiest girl in the world.

And.

Tomorrow’s Friday.

Yes.

Plus.

I’m listening to the Cars greatest hits and that puts me in a good mood too.

I mean.

That synthesizer.

So good.

You’d think that I would want to listen to Mike Doughty’s Stellar Motel, but this is what called and when I feel a call, I got to go with it.

“What is this,” my lover asked (which one, wouldn’t you like to know).

“Wooden Heart, Listener,” I replied.

I love the album, but have found that nope, not everybody does.

In fact, the disdain for which someone says something about the music I’m wanting to listen to can be off putting.

“What is this shit?” An ex-boyfriend, “can you change this?”

I might.

But I might have to dump you first.

I was listening to a jazz mix which had some old Soul Coughing songs from Ruby Vroom on it.

You know that band Mike Doughty was the lead singer for, the band my long time boyfriend took me to see at the Eagle’s Ballroom, the album that gave me goosebumps when I first heard it and I resonated so hard to it that I still can tell you all the sense memories that I get stirred up even writing about it.

Yeah.

That relationship didn’t last long.

“Do you like this,” I asked my lover, the asker of the Wooden Heart album, “do you want to listen to something else?”

“Anything but this,” he replied.

Fucker.

So I put on Thomas Dolby’s The Golden Age of Wireless.

Take that.

Ah music.

How I love thee.

I remember when I first came out to San Francisco and was reading through an SF Weekly and all the music shows that were listed and I was just like a little gluttonous piggie in heaven.

I probably do not take advantage as much as I thought I would.

But.

I still love a live show and I was telling a date last weekend about a pen ultimate San Francisco night I had with a friend many years back where we went to see Tron at the Castro Theater, then hopped on his scooter and burned rubber to get to the Fillmore and we rocked out like maniacs to Gary Numan.

So close I could see how angry the lead guitarist was, and jaded.

So close I could see the black eyeliner on Numan blurring underneath his eyes.

Magic.

Goldfrapp that same year on her tour for Supernature.

God damn that was a good show.

I really must be on a synthesizer kick, now that I am thinking of it.

Heh.

And I still haven’t heard back from any of my friends.

Oh.

Ha!

I just remembered one of them is out of town camping, well, hopefully he’ll be happy when he returns from being off the grid to the knowledge of another good show that we get to go to.

As for me.

Whelp.

I got the weekend relatively free.

What’s happening my people?

Let’s.

Shake it up.

Shake it up/make a scene.

That’s right, I said
Dance all night
Go go go
Dance all night
Get real low
Go all night
Get real hot
Well, shake it up now, all you’ve got.

Shall we?

Top 40

Reasons why my life is awesome.

In no particular order and to celebrate the last few hours left in my day before I turn 41 years old.

1. Getting sober.

My sobriety is the best thing in my life, without it I have absolutely nothing.  I got sober nearly nine years ago and though there have been some true challenging times, I have never looked back, never thought what I had is better than what I have.

My only wish, every birthday wish, every eyelash plucked off my cheek, every new moon rise I see over my left shoulder, every pinch of salt I toss, every time the clock strikes 11:11, every time I soar through a yellow light, the wish is the same.

Not please Santa/God/Universe bring me a boyfriend.

Please keep me sober today.

I could end the blog right there, but what fun would that be.

Besides I want to see what my top 40 are, I haven’t a clue!

2. Living in Paris

I leapt, I dreamed, I went after it.

It was terrifying and wonderful and surreal and I still don’t know what it all meant, but I did it and I am stupefied that I lived through it and am still getting to connect with people there.

3. Getting a bicycle.

“You really need to get a bike,” my friend Calvin said.

Yup.

He was totally correct.

And once I got a bike, I never went back.

It all started with a hybrid from Pedal Revolution that I got about seven years ago.  Then a boyfriend gave me a Pogliaghi one speed Italian Steel whip.  God that was glorious.  After I was hit by a car and the frame got bent I went to a friends bike for a while that was too big and shifted on the down tube, don’t even remember what kind of touring cycle it was.  Then the Felt 35, which I rode doing the…

4. AidsLifeCycle 2010

The training rides, the butt butter, the saddle sores, the sag car (which I only rode in once and not ever during the actual event–I rode every 569 miles of that bitch), the drag queens on Red Dress Day.  Meeting my friend Shannon and her, not then, but soon to be, husband Alex, the man who came up to me while I was dancing in my clipless SiDi shoes at a rest stop on day 6 and said, “I know you’re doing this for Shadrach, and we all love you for it.”

5. Shadrach

Whom I still remember like yesterday.  An unexpected friendship that keeps on giving, even six years after his death.

6. The Essen Haus.

God you were a bitch to work at, but man, did I make some amazing friends there–Shannon, Stephanie, Beth, and I have horrifying, funny, and tortuous stories to tell of the place.

7. The Angelic Brewing Company

Oh, man, six years of my life running that place, the list is too long to thank all the people who affect me and infected my heart, I still get love and messages from one of the bar backs and bouncers there on every birthday, she remembers and finds me and sends me an e-mail or text or phone call.

All the mischief and all the growth.

8. Getting my black belt in Shaolin Kemp Karate.

Hiya!

9. Growing up in Wisconsin.

Yeah, and aside from  a “healthy” love of fried cheese dipped in ranch sauce, I won’t ever forget the winters, the summers, the snow, the fall colors, the apple orchards, Devil’s Lake, Rock of Gibraltar berry picking, the Lake Wisconsin Ferry boat crossing with bags of popcorn from the roadside stands.

10. My family

Whom I love beyond words.

11. Travel

London, Paris, Rome, Reno, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Miami, LA, Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saint Germaine-en-Laye, Toulouse, France, and so many other places in between.

12. Being asked for my autograph after a performance of “In Our Own Words.”

13. Burning Man

Just go read the gazillion blogs I have written, you’ll get the picture.

14. Being a nanny

a. Reno

b. Juniper

c. Ellaven

d. Milo

e. Rylan

f. Jones

g. Alice

h. Eve

i. Colette

j. Storm

k. Max

l. Sonya

m. Kareena

All the bunnies, monkeys, and pumpkins I could possible squeeze, squish, and love on.

15. Bachelor of Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2002

16. Certificate of Achievement in Independent Studies for the University Book Store Award for manuscript of poems, Translucent, 2002.

17. Getting published in the Bastille Spoken Word Journal of Paris, Summer Issue 2013 for my short story “The Button Boy”.

18. Recording and performing with Sunshine Jones of Dubtribe–music and lyrics–While You Were Sleeping, on his album Belle Ame Electronique.

19. Blogging every day for the last four years, this post will be #1,086

20.  My photography blog http://www.whereintheworldisauntiebubba.wordpress.com and really embracing the camera, and all the 1,000s of photographs I have taken since I got it.

21. My friends

I am nowhere without you.

No fucking where.

22. Trying surfing, trampolining, yoga, and learning how to ride a fixed gear.

23. My fantastic, amazing, incredible Mission Bicycle, my brilliant Navy Blue, RAL 5011, with a topcoat of Rock Star Sparkle and a big Classic Purple B52 rear rim.

24. Working a year in a bike shop

25. Moving to San Francisco

26. My tattoos

27. Seeing music live–Jeff Buckley, Underworld, Soul Coughing, M. Doughty, Beck, Pete Yorn, Goldfrapp, and so many other amazing musicians and shows.

28. Getting pulled onstage at the Spear Head concert by Michael Franti and dancing with him to an entire song.

29. Doing spoken word in Paris, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Madison

30. Having a spoken word album–Milk–which I don’t know that but five people have listened to.

31. Writing morning pages, three pages, long hand, every day for the last five years.

32. Moving to San Francisco in 2002

33. Riding my bicycle to the top of Mt. Tam

34. Getting pulled into the dj booth New Years Eve 2003 to dance with Donald Glaude at 1015.

35. Quitting smoking.

Eight years now.  Holy shit.  Almost forgot about that one.

36. All the museums I have gotten to visit.

The Louvre, SF MOMA, the Palace of Fine Arts, The DeYoung, Musee D’Orsay, the Orangerie, the Dali Museum, The Rodin Museum, Musee Branly, Musee Monet Momarttan, the Legion, the Pompidou, Musee Carnvalet, the National Gallery in London, the Tate Modern, also in London.

37. All the astounding, amazing, incredible, and wonderful women I have gotten to work with over the last eight and a half years.

38. Going abstinent from sugar and flour.

Losing 100 lbs.

39. Writing the rough drafts to three books.

40. Being alive to see and touch and taste and dance and sing and love.

Oh love.

How I low thee, let me count the ways.

I love so god damn much.

My heart so full.

Happy to be here another day, getting to be here another day, living another day.

Graced with my amazing life.

Graced.

 

It’s Getting Busy In Here

I would like to say “up in here,” however that would slant my meaning a little the sassy way and that is not what I meant.

Not that I am opposed to it, mind you.

No, what I mean is that the next few weeks just got booked solid with work.

One of the dad’s picked up a contract that will go through the month of November and probably through the middle of December.

Add on to that there will be a work retreat for the two moms in the second week of November.

I am working a lot.

This is good.

Off set that wetsuit cost.

Pay some student loans.

Stick some money in savings.

Buy a plane ticket somewhere warm for the winter.

I am just thinking out loud here, but there are some folks I would like to see and one of the families will be in Puerto Rico for a week in January and I thought, hmmm, I have an anniversary of mine to celebrate maybe I will go somewhere that month to celebrate.

Maybe.

Just things on the horizon.

I am also filled with story thoughts.

November is the next week!

The first of the month is Friday and that will begin my month-long adventure in novel-writing.  Which just happens to coincide with the busiest work that I have had on my plate in a while and the Mike Doughty concert on November 6th.

That week is going to be off the wall.

That is the same week as the retreat.

I shall, however, have extra scratch should I want to get some swag at the concert.

I used to not think much about grabbing t-shirts and such at shows, but there have been a few times that I wished I had.

The Jeff Buckley show I saw at the Barrymore in Madison.

Soul Coughing in Milwaukee.

The J. Davis Trio out of Chicago, their show especially when they were promoting the New Number Two, definitely would have liked some merch from that.

Goldfrapp at the Fillmore.

There’s a few more shows, I have a set list somewhere from a Pete Yorn show I saw before he broke out, again in Madison, and I certainly have plenty of memories about shows.

The show were Michael Franti pulled me from the floor up onto stage and sang and danced a song with his big lanky, sweaty, body draped over me.

Being behind the booth with Donald Glaude New Years 2003, San Francisco.

Yup.

There’s some good times in there.

I am looking forward to seeing Doughty.

I have seen him once solo, at a Cafe Montmartre in Madison, which was sweet and very intimate, despite friends who were there shrooming their brains out who kept professing their love for him.

Yeah, it will be a busy week.

It will be a busy month.

The novel idea is a great idea and I did find the time in my schedule, the dribs and drabs of the hours that will come to mean so much to me as I attempt to cram one more thing into my schedule.

Because I am going to try to grab some hours devoted to working on my other book as well.

I will write the novel long hand.

I have been back and forth with this in my head for a couple of days, well, basically since I signed up for it.

I don’t want to drag my laptop around and I am leery of writing a rough draft of a manuscript on a keyboard.

It is too easy to hit delete and lose thoughts, movements, ideas or feelings.

A rough draft is the cutting of the cloth, you want lots of it to drape your suit of story from.  You don’t want to have to go back later and add stuff.  I don’t anyway.  I want a big swath of material.

Which is the thought behind writing it that way and also that I don’t want to drag around my laptop to work each and every day.

Partially because it is a little heavy and a bit of a nuisance and partially because I want to stretch the life of this laptop out.  I have been experiencing some more difficulties with it and I am getting the feeling that there may be a new laptop in my future before there is a new surf board.

The notebook is the way to go.

The only nuisance with it is that I will need to word count my book into the format for the website.  And I wonder if I will need to transcribe it by the end of the month.

I was doing a little poking around the site to see what the parameters were, but it is unclear at this time whether I actually use the site to write the novel, or I just use the site to track the progress of the novel.

Should I decide to write the rough draft in my laptop I would save it first to the laptop anyhow and then upload to the site.

In both scenarios, there is a word count.

With a notebook, there is me counting the words.

I can make a fairly good guess at how many words I get out on a page and when the fire is hot in my hands and I am a conduit of the muse, which is really always what it feels like, I sit down and the words come from somewhere outside of me, I can write about eight to ten pages long hand in an hour.

I have written so fast before that my hands have cramped to get the words out.

There is a kind satisfying adrenalin rush that comes with being overcome with the word.

It is spiritual in nature and overwhelming.

I feel a little used by it, but outrageously wonderful when it is happening.

There is a high involved.

I won’t deny it.

Even here, the tip tap typing and clack of the keyboards provides me with some sort of visceral fulfilment.

My day is not complete without the words.

The sentences stacking themselves up.

My friend mentioned last night that if I write on average 1,000 word posts (they tend to be a spot over I think, but I will go with that estimate) and I have written over a 1,000 blogs, that in essence I have written over a million words.

A fucking MILLION.

Whoa, damn Gina.

What the fuck is that?

That is not me.

Not this lazy bitch that would rather watch Breaking Bad and House of Cards then type out a story.

How I got here I don’t know, but I have to say, I rather like it.

I think I will stay awhile.

Even when it gets busy, the getting is always good.

Getting some may never have been better.

Well….