Happy Anniversary!

I just got a little love from WordPress.

Happy Anniversary!

You registered on WordPress.com 4 years ago!

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!

Thanks guys!

I am pretty stoked that it’s been four years.

That’s a great big chunk of commitment to suit up and show up for.

Though, let me be honest, I started this blog four years ago, but it wasn’t until three years ago that I started posting once a day.

That post a day challenge that the site invited me to partake of really took off for me, changed who I am, how I think, what I do, and really, where I go.

I have been all over the map, East Oakland, Paris, San Francisco, Hudson and Madison, Wisconsin, Reno, Florida, LA for the first time, Burning Man, due in no small way to this blog and the work I have done here.

Some of those places I would have gotten to eventually, some of those places came about because I was writing things out, or working them out, letting myself see things I had not seen before.

I started the blog with a push from a friend who said, “you should start a blog.”

And I wanted to impress her, I thought she was cool, and I respected her opinion, so I started the blog.

I also started the blog with the intention that I was going to publish my book on it and then somehow or other get picked up or self publish elsewhere.

Obviously, if you follow this blog at all, which there are 232 of you who subscribe (thank you, by the by, I don’t know many of you, but I am thrilled that you find the writing worth sustaining, worth having sent to your inbox, worth the read) and a handful of you who read via Facebook or who follow via Twitter or Linkedin, you know, that I have not published that book.

I am not aggrieved by that.

When that book is supposed to be it will be and I forgive myself for it not happening yet.

It’s not on my time frame.

What is on my time frame, what I do have some “control” over is the showing up, the sitting down, opening up my laptop and going forth into the world with my words.

Words that I don’t think about much, except once in a while, something will strike me or I will hear something, see something, or be catapulted back into a memory.

I stopped worrying about what I was going to write about somewhere in between the second and third year of doing the blog.

I realized that I just had to sit down and the words would come.

I don’t get to be judgemental of those words either, they are not of me, they come from me, but they are not of me.

They have led me to relationships, sexual, intimate, relationships, they, these words, have led me to friendships unsuspecting, they have given me money when I did not even know I had friends who were reading and they sent me ducats when they were most needed.

The blog has allowed me to let out a voice I wasn’t even sure how to vocalize.

It has led me to see what I like and don’t like, it has allowed a forum for me to express all my idiocies and idiosyncracies.

I have explored sex, money, death, love, travel, friendships, jobs, emotions, bicycles, sleep, dreams, family.

So many things.

I have over and over again gotten to write about something that has bothered me to find a way out of it, whether it was through the constant repetition of a thematic or the things that just kept popping up finally be allowed the recognition of being let out.

I have been able to explore myself, to find out what lays beneath the layers of skin and tattoos, what thrums beneath the sinews and muscles, lies vibrant and live in the corpuscles of my heart.

I have been told things about myself that I did not even know I was doing.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve,” my friend said to me.

I do?

Hmm.

Yes, I do.

I wear it proudly now rather than shamefully.

I am a brave woman and I acknowledge that fact.

I have gotten to explore growing older, wiser, sexier for sure.

I have lost weight, gained weight, lost it again.

I have lost my mind, temporarily, and been honest about it.

I have tried Calling in the One.

Man, thanks for putting up with me while I was exploring that topic!

I have gotten to hear my words spoken back to me from the unlikeliest of mouths, received texts from people in other cities thanking me for what I wrote the night before.

I have had people text me late at night and ask me why my blog wasn’t up yet, they couldn’t go to bed without reading it.

Do you have any idea how amazing that is?

Thrilling to be read.

Stunning really.

I probably have a greater readership than writers years ago just simply from the gift of sitting here and pouring my heart out on the computer.

Sometimes it is a messy heart, a confused heart, a heart sloppy with emotion, often a stubborn heart.

Man, is it stubborn.

Sometimes a sad heart, a lonely heart, a laughing heart.

I laugh a lot.

Sometimes the heart sings and I throb with the meaning of my life and the unknowing that happens and the magic, the pure fucking magic of putting down, in and with as much honesty as I can, what I am feeling, and you tell me what I need to hear.

Even when there weren’t that many reading.

I somehow was given what I needed when I first put it out here, in this forum.

I have been gifted with so many things–physical gifts–tea and euros, lube, yes, lube (hahahaha, I still love that, my complaining blog about the crappy smell of the lube I found in a sex shop in the Marais when I was living in Paris led to someone sending me my favorite kind from Good Vibes), I have been told how I have been able to connect with people and literally to connect with them, in this physical plane; gifted too with the gifts of insight, so valuable, no price tag can I attach.

This blog has brought me tears.

I have cried.

I have cried.

I have fucking sobbed writing this blog sometimes, the pain it just burned.

But I got it out, here.

Here.

In this little square, this little white brick of space, that I then sent out into space.

Happy anniversary, Auntie Bubba’s blog, I have never had a relationship quite like this and I cannot imagine my life without you.

Here’s to four years.

Here’s to just the beginning.

Here’s to showing up for it.

Here’s to it just getting better and better.

And better.

 

Show Up

Be on time.

Do your best.

Done.

Done.

And done.

And you could eat off that floor, it was so clean.

In fact, the youngest boy did.

In no particular order things pulled out of his mouth:

Cat food.

Cat hair.

Carpet lint.

Human hair.

Grass.

Leaves.

Sand.

Random dirt.

Toilet paper.

I swear to god I was thinking I would just sprinkle his food down on the floor, he would eat it better that way.

He has recently developed a severe disdain for being strapped into anything, high chair, stroller, in the jumper, or in a sweatshirt.

If it’s binding, he ain’t  having it.

Which is so sad since he was such a sweet baby all swaddled up just a few weeks ago it seems.

Now he is a rough and tumble boy grabbing, climbing, pulling, trying to run before he can walk.

He may just be the most active baby I have ever had.

I told the mom yesterday to get him in sports right away, this kid has some energy to burn.

My other monkey was a total cuddle pie today and between the two I did not have much down time, but I did get to sneak in a cup of tea and a few minutes of sitting down at on a chair.

That felt good.

It also felt good to walk into work, yes, I was nervous, yes, I thought, especially and I am not certain why, at the end of the day, that  I was going to get fired.

But I did not.

In fact, I got a hug from my boss.

So sweet.

Totally unexpected.

I offered a peace token.

A box of tea and the promise to keep the house clean and the wheels turning smoothly.

As smooth as I can.

Although periodically throughout the day I did think, maybe this is it, maybe this is really the time to sit down, write, find out what I want to do and go for it.

On my way into work today on my bicycle I had random negative thoughts bop through my mind as I was contemplating one such road.

“You are already arguing for your own limitations,” I could hear John Ater suddenly pipe up in my head.

He was right.

I was.

I hate it when he’s right.

And I wasn’t even talking to him.

Jesus.

The man has some sort of staying power in my head.

Thank god, it helps balance out the rest of the random crazy ass thoughts I have flying around in there.

So, what I am hesistant to say, since I have said many times, many ways, all the different ideas I have had for career–elementary school teacher, accountant, makeup artist, massage therapist, veterinarian, pediatrician, ER nurse–and all the careers I have had: nanny–what I have been thinking about.

Screen writing.

Hey, come on.

I live in California.

Hollywood does beckon to me now and again.

Especially the idea of really learning how to write a script, being guided, learning how to craft an image.

“I can see this as a movie,” my classmate said to me after I had read a chapter of my work to the class, “in fact, it screams movie.”

I think I could write some good screen plays.

Yeah, I know, I could self teach, but I am lazy about stuff like that.

I work much better with some direct guidance.

Film school is what I am talking about.

It could very well be me just whistling away in the dark, the tuition for the schools I am interested in are pretty steep, but then I hear John’s voice again, and I think, so what?

So what if it’s expensive.

I am worth the investment.

I mean I just spent a fucking month talking myself through raising my rates to what the market can bear and I know that I am worth it.

I can apply for financial aid.

I can ask for help.

I can also investigate.

I have one school sending me information.

I can look it over.

I can e-mail another and wade through the applications and just apply.

Yeah, I know, I was thinking about pursuing a masters in English Literature or an MFA, just this time last year.

I am always thinking about going back to school but not doing it.

Nothing has ever seem to quite fall into place.

So, I honestly don’t know if this is just me running around in the same circles are if this might be something that I should actually go for.

I suppose there’s no harm in looking into it.

Until that point I seem to be sitting alright with the nanny work.

Full time for the month anyway.

Or close to it.

My Fridays I will only be working three to four hours, so just a half day, which is nice.

Three days of share, then two days of solo care.

At least through the New Year.

And I got my birthday off.

It’s on.

I sent out a little invite to a few folks.

I doubt that half will show.

That’s just how it is for the holiday season.

Plus, I am going to actually have the celebration on the day of my birthday.

Horse back riding in the afternoon at Mar Vista Stables.

Then some hang out at Trouble Coffee and some food at Thai Cottage.

Ending the day at my house with tea and a back yard fire in the fire pit.

Simple, small, relaxed, and easy.

My birthday was like that last year too.

Although it was in Paris.

I am pretty lucky.

Celebrating another year on this planet, getting to do so in San Francisco, the Paris of North America, and having gotten to really grow a lot this year.

Not much has changed and so much has that it rather amazes me.

“I am so glad to hear that you are really getting into living out by Ocean Beach,” a friend said to me tonight over at 7th and Irving as I was getting ready to hop on my bicycle.

“You’re needed here too, you know,” she finished.

Good to know that.

Just going to keep on showing up for it.

On time.

Doing the best job I can in the moment.

That’s really all I can ask of myself.

Or expect from myself.

There is no magic wand.

Just this.

Showing up.