Scheduling

And moving forward.

I spent a great deal of time talking with the mom today at work regarding the rest of the school year.

What the family needs.

What I need.

It’s been a little over ten months with them.

We are going to sit down and renegotiate the contract in December, make sure my health insurance needs are being met, talk about vacation times, and schedules moving forward past spring when I graduate in May.

I asked off for a little travel time in February.

And I asked off for May 18th.

Which is the day before I graduate, the day before the commencement ceremony.

I suspect that my mom is going to want to spend some time with me.

She has told me that she and her partner will come to San Francisco to see me walk, to see my graduate with my Master’s Degree.

I have some feelings around that and no little nervousness, I haven’t seen my mom in a while and there’s a sense of wanting to show her a different San Francisco than the last time she was here.

Oh.

I didn’t entirely disappoint, I think.

I took her to Hawthorne Lane for dinner.

I took her out to the bars.

I took her to Coit Tower.

I can’t remember if we did Twin Peaks.

I took her to Chow on Church Street.

Philz Coffee before it was hip and Phil flirted his ass off with her.

I got her quesadilla’s from El Farolito, super quesadilla suiza with carne asada.

I took her to Tartine.

I did pretty good

I also ditched her at some point to get absolutely shit faced obliterated.

I was just going to go out for a few drinks with a friend at Blondie’s in the Mission.

I had already been with my mom for a week, I had taken her to London, on my credit card which I was soon to max out, but it still had a few dollars on it, hung out with her, fed her, bought her smokes, and drinks, and tuk tuk rides around Buckingham palace, to the Wheel, to the National Gallery, to see a show, we saw Stomp, I took her to a fancy tea place where we got stinking tossed on fancy ass over the top expensive cocktails.

So.

I was ready for a little mom break.

I ran down to El Farolito and got her the quesadilla.

I called my friend and said, “I need a margarita, I need a break from my mom,” and she said, “I’ll see you at Blondie’s in a half hour.”

I got my mom situated in my apartment on the couch in the living room, my room-mate was out-of-town, thank God.

And I got dressed and fled into the night.

I had two double margarita’s on the rocks with extra salted rim and when my friend said “let’s have another!”  I got a little scared.

I could feel it coming on.

It was probably coming on before I even got off the plane at SFO.

I think I knew.

I could feel it in my body, I knew it in my conscious even if I wasn’t saying it out loud.

I was going to score.

I had all the reasons in the world to get fucked up.

I had been with my mom for a week in a hotel room in London, flown there and back with her, I deserved a fucking drink.

But I knew if I kept drinking, well, something else was going to get up in the mix.

I looked at my friend and said a bit under my breath, “if I drink more I’m going to want to do blow.”

I said this because this was the friend who had used to be sober who had done that AA thing and had said to me once while we were on a run that maybe I might have a problem because of how I didn’t like myself when I used.

I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about and was aghast.

I didn’t like myself?

Truth was I fucking hated myself, but I couldn’t let myself see it.

She had told me that all I had to do is let her know if I wanted to use and she would help me to not pick up.

What ever that meant.

So in that moment, two double margarita’s in, with the urge to call my dealer on my phone and arrange a little something, something for delivery, I said, to the best of my ability what I thought was a plea for help.

Her response?

“I could definitely do some blow!”

Fuck me.

I sighed.

I know I sighed.

I got my phone out of my purse and I dialed my dealer and arranged for him to meet us at Blondie’s.

I went across the street.

“Hey, where are you going,” the cute guy sitting next to me said.

I flippantly replied, “my friend wants to do some blow so I’m going to the ATM across the street to get some cash before my dealer shows up.”

“Holy shit!” He jumped up, “me too, can I get some too?”

And like that, I had a new friend.

I was so popular.

Ugh.

I will spare you the dirty details of the night.

It was so close to my bottom that it was a pretty intense scene.

And I remember all of it, oh yes I do.

Right down to getting back to the house, while my mom was still asleep in the living room, with a couple of grams of blow in my bra, what I hadn’t yet used, to chop and snort and cram as much in as I could before she woke up.

I was that kind of addict.

I did not fucking matter that my mom was in the front room, probably heard me come in, probably knew what I was doing, nope, didn’t matter.

Because once I started, the party was not over until every fucking last bit was gone.

Suffice to say my mom’s last day in town was a bit of a rough one.

I muggled through.

I guess what I’m getting around to is that maybe I’ll want to show her a nicer time than I did before.

We are both in different places, and I also hope to have some time to celebrate my graduating from graduate school.

A nice meal somewhere with friends, good coffee, laughter, connection, company.

A party.

I should throw myself a little party.

Ah, May, you’re a bit away.

But when my employer and I walked through the months and worked on getting my schedule lined up with theirs, well, there you were, a tiny bit bashful but a little smile on your face, a daisy tucked up behind your ear, saying here I am, let’s have some fun.

Yes.

Of course, my dear.

Let’s.

Bring It

It was brought.

Of course, I don’t remember what I brought.

But it was brought.

It’s best when I don’t recall what I said, then I know that I was speaking from love, from my heart, that I have become a conduit for the message and not the mess.

Because, frankly.

I am often the mess.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

Life.

Well.

It’s messy.

My heart, it’s a messy place, but at least I get in it, I try, I stumble, I get hot and flushed and flustered and say something and cry.

And that’s in school.

But hey, I’m going to school to be a therapist, processing the pain is a part of it.

Being in the pain, meeting you in the pain, holding your hand and walking through to the other side.

Or just through the Castro.

I had the distinct pleasure of hanging out with a girlfriend who’s husband is out of town for the weekend she came with me to the Castro.

We had Philz.

Which might have been a mistake, I am not sure how I am going to fall asleep tonight.

I am a bit keyed up.

A wonderful early evening with a dear friend, a meal with my fellows, and meeting new friends and having old friends surprise me and so many hugs

So many.

My day was filled with hugs.

That is such a gift.

I gave a Valentines Day card to each person in my cohort and it was just the best feeling.

Plus.

Well, when you’re told to bring it, I do and I was all gussied up, my new teal dress with the big flare skirt and the sweet heart neckline, loads of flowers in my hair my black and cream cardigan with the hearts on it (I literally wore my heart (s) on my sleeve all day long) and it was so much fun to deliver Valentines to my cohort.

I felt like the Valentines Day Fairy.

I got such wonderful response and it felt really good to give and not have asked for anything in return.

The return was the feeling I had when I was writing the card and thinking of the person and wishing them light and love and joy.

It was more for me, I think, in the end so much of it is, but I also know that the gesture touched a lot of my classmates and that felt special and joyous and I am grateful I took the time to write them all out.

31 Valentines.

Whew.

I also got a surprise text from an old friend back in Wisconsin wishing me a happy Valentines Day.

There was a time when getting a Valentines Day wish from this man would have been a loaded gun to point and shoot at my unrequited love trigger.

Today.

It was just a sweet message.

Not an offer to fall into fantasy land.

Not an invitation to get miserable for the love I did not “think” I had.

I have so much love.

I mean.

I was inundated with it today.

These are your friends.

Plus.

I gave myself lots of love.

I took some actions and really let myself feel the love that was there for me, I was available to take it in, to touch, to hold a hand, to pat a shoulder, to be present, to be of service.

It was an amazing day.

I practiced good self-love too.

I treated myself to lunch out during my school break and ended up having the most amazing lunch with two of my girlfriends from the cohort and a professor and a TA and it was just out of this world fun to hang out and eat lunch and connect with these incredible, smart, talented, creative women.

I felt like I held my own and added to the conversation.

I want to bring my best forward and I really felt like I was able to do that.

On the day that celebrates love I choose to do just that.

I will choose to do just that again tomorrow.

I choose it for this moment.

For all moments.

I may falter.

I may forget.

But I have faith that I will always get back up and dust off and do it again.

I may get heart broken.

But the heart grows bigger.

And that’s good.

I had a basket full of love to give out today and it felt extraordinary.

The noise of love.

The thrush in my heart.

The swallows swooping in the skin of sunset.

My face lifted to the smattering of stars riding into the indigo night.

I run rampart through the cacophony.

I am a part of this world, I don’t feel separated, I feel joined and loved and blessed and lucky.

Oh, so god damned lucky.

I have a vase, a Mason jar, but who’s counting, full of flowers on my table that I let myself buy for myself on Friday, I participated in class, I showed up, I was my best self, I tried.

I dressed pretty for myself.

And to say.

Hey, this is me and I’m done apologizing.

And I let the day happen the way the way the day was supposed to happen.

I got a pinky promise from a drag queen sitting in the window of a restaurant to continue to be so fabulous, “Girl you got it in that dress,” she said.

Snap.

That’s something coming from someone as fabulous as she was.

I mean, I was flattered.

And best of all?

I am almost there.

One half day to go.

I’m going into work at 9 a.m. and I plan on being done by 2p.m.

Then.

Six days off.

Six.

Oh glorious time off.

Time off that I have promised to let myself enjoy and have fun and continue in the vein of self-love and self-care.

Valentines Day is once a year.

But my love.

The kind that sustains me.

Is always.

Forever.

Valentines Day.

Every day.

Times infinity.

To the moon and back a thousand times.

Like that.

Early To Blog

Early to bed.

Home again home again.

Jiggedy jig.

Home.

God what a fantastic thing that.

I am so looking forward to crawling into my own bed tonight.

Just cannot wait.

Started my blog early, I am beat, I never blog this early, usually I have something going on something on my agenda, a thing, a person, an idea, a I dunno, somethin’.

But tonight I have bed on the mind.

Bed and an uninterrupted night of rest.

“Mommy, daddy?” She said with a small plaintive cry, that crept into my ear as I lay on the couch in the dark, the hooting and revelry in the Mission winding down a bit.

Although, it would wind back up at certain moments, a few times I wondered if there was a block party happening or a roving party, sometimes it was just fast cars and slamming doors, sometimes hollers for cabs or drunken revellers coming in from the night.

Either way, I was on high alert despite the hour and I had woken a few minutes prior wondering if I had heard a shuffling noise from the bedroom.

I had just drifted back down to a possible level of sleep when I heard her little whisper from the other side of the door.

I got up, looked at the clock, 3:40 a.m.

Ugh.

I opened the door to her room and found her having crawled out of her bed laying propped against the door face down on the floor.

I scooped her up, “mommy, daddy, home soon, let’s get back in bed,” and snuggled her back in, resetting the lullabies on her little music machine and quietly shutting the door.

I stood outside in the hallway for a moment listening as her breathing deepened and she went back to slumber land.

Slumber land where I will be tonight, repeat, in my own bed.

Ah, my own bed.

Nothing like a night on a strangers couch to make one realize how happy and wonderful it is to have one’s own bed.

I am not doing another over night nanny gig.

“What if someone gave you a $1,000 to do it?” My friend Calvin asked me as we headed to Trouble to catch up and have coffee, soon thereafter to be followed by Thai Cottage, a good New Years day combo.

“Ok, sure, I might consider it, but man, it sucks, and nothing, nothing went wrong,” I replied.  “In fact, it was the perfect scenario, both the babies (I say babies, but it was an eleven month and a two and a half-year old, so not exactly babies) went down right on schedule.”

There was no struggle with the bed time routine, there was no, “I need to pee again, or I want water, or read me another story.”

It went off without a hitch.

I even watched a great movie, The Reader (ok, a bit depressing, but beautifully done) on the large flat screen television in the living room with the worlds largest cat on my lap keeping me warm.

I had hopped in the car from the Cole Valley gig and went directly to the Mission, 25th between Guerrero and Valencia, and got the low down at the house there.

I met the two and a half-year old little girl, adorable, the dog, ridiculously sweet and cute, got all emergency numbers programmed in my phone, got paid, and was invited to partake of anything I could need or want for food.

In fact, the dad left a twenty spot on the counter in case I had not had dinner (I had already eaten, but was very touched by the generosity) and said “help yourself to anything.”

Thanks, but no, not so much.

I did have a snack in the evening after I finished last nights blog and had started watching the movie, and breakfast and coffee this morning, but there is nothing quite like your own home with your own food and the things that make you feel comfortable therein.

Like I said, nothing went wrong.

No emergency, aside from re-tucking the little girl back in, and the inevitable cry of the baby, hungry for his first morning bottle, at 5:40 a.m.

Double ugh.

But just being on high alert at all times, not really getting sleep, not really resting.

“This is why I don’t want kids,” I thought as I stumbled up for the couch, to the kitchen, in the dark, grabbing a bottle from the fridge I popped it into a bowl in the sink I had set up the night before, just a few hours before really, and ran hot water over it.

I got the baby out of the crib, trying to not engage, I knew if I was quiet and calm I could probably get him re-settled in with a warm bottle and he might sleep another half hour or more.

I quickly changed his diaper, re-settled him in the crib, re-set his noise machine and slipped the warm bottle into his little paws.

I walked backwards out the door, shut it and lay on the couch again, dozing off fitfully until 6:33 a.m. when he hollered out he was good and ready to get up, so let’s go, lady!

And go I did.

It feels like the same day in some weird kind of way and not a holiday or a day off, it feels, really it is, like I worked some marathon shift and am now recuperating from it.

I got done at 10:15 a.m. and hustled over to Philz to meet someone and do the deal.

I was going to stay in the neighborhood, but we finished early and all I wanted was to get out of the Mission.

I wanted home, home by the sea.

I made a short pit stop at 7th and Irving to get my head screwed on straight and decided to eat out for lunch, forgetting that its New Years day and the few places that were opened were swamped with lines.

I climbed on my bike, shouldered my messenger bag with all my over night stuff and just hit it to the ocean.

I made an omelet and started the day over.

By 3:30p.m. I was back in my right mind, but still off a little, uncertain how to spend the rest of the day when I got the text from Cal saying let’s get coffee and though I had a full pot of French press at the house and a Philz Canopy of Heaven, large, and I need to be up tomorrow at 7a.m., I said, “yes!”

Finding myself in Trouble at 4:30 in the afternoon doing the unthinkable, having a large Americano, banking on the fact that I may be pushing over my caffeine threshold and getting the opposite effect.

Caffeine doesn’t “wake” us up.

Adrenalin does.

Caffeine triggers the adrenal glands to release adrenalin into our bodies, but the glands only have so much, so if you constantly are releasing adrenalin into your body eventually the glands have nothing left and you get the reverse action.

You get tired instead of awake.

I knew this and gambled.

Gamble paid off.

I am fucking zonked and it’s not even 8p.m.

I could have skipped writing this at all and gone straight to bed after dinner with Cal.  I figured I better not, though, don’t want to muck with my sleep schedule any more than I already did.

Besides you don’t “catch up” on sleep either.

And according to my Wikipedia:

However anecdotal evidence suggests that many individuals with ADHD already use caffeine to self-medicate themselves or their dependants, and they find that it has the opposite effect to normal, such as inducing a “calm-down” effect that encourages sleep instead of making them more active and stimulated.

Now, I ain’t saying I have ADHD, but I do have a racing brain and maybe a touch of the OCD thing, and I do find this to happen when I get over caffeinated.

And now, I am losing the blog’s focus altogether, hit by another wave of the sleepy.

Time to pack it in, time to crawl into my little blue bed down by the sea.

Night all.

Welcoming in 2014 high on caffeine, Thai food, and good company.

Not a bad start to my year.

Not bad at all.

I Am Seeing A Pattern Here

My friend said to me as we sat on the bench outside of Philz Coffee at Folsom and 24th.

I had deliberately not planned anything except one thing, meet a lady, have some tea, and go do that thing were I sit in a room for an hour and listen to other people’s crazy.

Other than that, I wanted, as I have been trying to do, to have a free Sunday.

So, when I received the text asking me what I was up to I was able to say, nothing really, chilling, hanging out, maybe a wander through the Mission.

Let’s meet!

She was on call and had to stay in her neighborhood, the Mission, and I for once, was back in the Mission.

Rearing its busy, confused head with tourists, locals annoyed with the tourists, hipsters staying in for the holiday, people complaining about the Air B-N-B situation at their TIC that was trying to get bought out and not for an owner move in, but so that the land lord could rent out the place to tourists.

I will say the Mission is a long way from being full on Disney, but it’s happening.

Truth be told, I don’t have much of an opinion about it all, I find it interesting for sure, the neighborhood changing, the increase in traffic, the people looking at maps, the number of younger and younger people.

Or maybe, I am just getting older, I remember when Philz was actually manned by Phil.

When the coffee shop was a quiet local secret.

Before they had the mugs and the hats and it was cash only and Phil would hand feed me spoonfuls of some coffee blend he was making up.

“Here, now, try this,” he said with deep sensual pleasure, skimming the foam off the coffee roast after having poured piping hot water over the fresh grounds. That same concoction a few weeks later was to become Canopy of Heaven, a very special light roast coffee blend.

Light in roast, high in caffeine–which also may explain why it, Canopy of Heaven and his other light roast, Greater Alarm (blended up for the firefighters who worked the overnight shifts in the Mission) became my favorites.

I learned from Phil that just because those beans are darker roasted does not mean they have more caffeine, nope, it is the exact opposite–the lighter the roast, the higher the caffeine, and the more tender, I believe, you have to be with the bean, to coax out the flavors–lemon, currant, butterscotch in Canopy of Heaven–as opposed to letting it get too bitter.

Oh.

Yum.

Then the heavy cream.

I do mean heavy.

It’s not half and half.

It’s not milk.

It’s not regular cream.

It’s MANUFACTURING CREAM.

Jesus on a pogo stick, when Phil told me that, well, no wonder.

Manufacturing cream is whipping cream, you know the stuff you put on top of pumpkin pie or a Belgian waffle.

Sinful.

I remember when there was no counter, no line, no tables, a battered store front with weird art and odd posters, no restroom, coffee sacks in heaps on the floor, the cooler had six packs and the odd bottle of Champagne in it, eggs, sad-looking bananas by the front, and a couple of old battered metal shelves with the strangest array of grocery store items ever.

It was a down and dirty Bodega with a guy in a fedora hat winking at you while he made you a pour over coffee.

Now it’s being served on Virgin Airlines.

Um, yeah.

And that is what the Mission is.

It’s now in all the tour books and that’s cool, you know, that means money into the local economy, but sometimes when I am waiting ten minutes to order a coffee from a person who is ironically being condescending to the people in line–do you want to get a tip dude–I do miss the old Mission.

However, the coffee, as always, was really good, and the company amazing.

We sat outside, watched the world go by, talked about an upcoming trip she is planning, one in which there is a Paris leg to it, and I down loaded, probably way too much information into her brain, and then, as well, about the house sitting gig I am at and the person who was staying at the house.

They Air B-N-B the front room.

I felt a little bit too much like a concierge.

On one hand I don’t mind sharing tips and tricks to San Francisco.

The guest wanted to ride the Golden Gate Bridge and I told him where to go, whom to rent from, how to get there, what to avoid, when to go, how to get back–take the ferry–and a few other details.

I had no problem with that.

But I did take a little issue to having to show him a few other things and having someone rely on me for information when I was trying to get out into my own day.

And I was not about to clean up the mess he was making.

I recounted some things and told my friend how I was thinking, acting, and learning.

She told me my pattern.

Actually she and a few other folks recently have.

And I am listening.

Truly I am.

I don’t want to isolate anymore by being too busy to see my friends because I am house sitting, cat sitting, being tour guide to strangers I don’t know, dog walking, or baby sitting on nights when I am not working as a nanny.

I isolate myself by making busy.

I get busy.

I don’t have to feel.

We walked.

The sun shone down.

We went down Balmy Alley and I took photographs.

Murals

It made me chuckle.

I was a tourist in my own city, in my old neighborhood, I was a tourist, no longer quite a local, I live in the Outer Sunset, you know that place way over on the other side of the mountain, Twin Peaks, in the land of Nod.

It’s so much more mellow and quiet where I am, although, truth be told, there’s a bit of the gentrification happening there as well.

In the end, though, I don’t mind, I don’t care, let them eat cake, or hand crafted artisan chocolates with crushed sea salt harvested on the Solstice by young women with owl tattoos and labia piercings under the new moon, in the end, ultimately, I love living here.

Getting to live here.

Getting to be here.

I parted with my sweet friend to get lunch and ride my bicycle down Folsom Street to Rainbow.

I stocked up on the rest of the things I will need as I continue to do my house sitting gig and I vowed to let myself be not quite so busy, not quite so isolated, to get out into the world and see it.

Even if it means I look like a tourist in my own town.

And, speaking of tourists, I returned home this evening to find the Air B-N-B guest had left, cleaned most of his mess, and I now have the house to me, myself, and I, plus one very cute orange tabby cat.

Getting again to get grateful for the fact that I still get to be in the Mission, if just for a few more days, before I return to the beach.

Either way you slice it, I am in San Francisco.

And though I may play a tourist on tv.

This is my home.