The Great Wide Open

well, here i am on the eve of my first transcontinental trip. i'm 12 hours from check-in and i'm starting to get excited. to feel the freedom that awaits me. the wild abandon. the cluelessness. ahh, to be clueless. living in a pocket of life. suspended time. on the other side of the Date Line.

it's not even real over there is it? more like a drawing i'm about to step into. mary poppins.

No Fear

i want No Fear surgery.

Going, going, gone

the honeymoon to bangkok and bali is back on. sympathetic loved ones are loaning us the money to go, and so we're goin'.

all day today i shopped for the very best place to stay in bangkok's banglamphoo district for $20 a night. it took hours and hours. but i found a reasonable, hopefully, place to stay for $24 a night right off khao san road, which is a major shopping/nightlife district.

things are feeling better around here. we're both starting to reach critical excitement level. i started to pack. i'll be retrieving some tranquilizers for the 20 hour flight to BKK. there's a reservation for a place to stay our first night in bangkok. we've figured out our budget per day. this fluctuates depending on where we are and all that we'll need on that day depending on where we are. having an answer to these questions is very calming. having a 2-week escape from the here and now is priceless.

time for celebrating.


(the above photo is where you can stay for $60/night near seminyak, bali, a major shopping and nightlife neighborhood.)

every christmas, the great artist yoko ono publishes an ad to rolling stone asking for people to pray for peace, work for peace, think about peace. i love her words and believe in her and her message completely.

some argue that peace doesn't "fit" in our world, that it's human nature to fight. i can see this point, but i can also see what john lennon says about how the world has always been in turmoil and never given peace a chance, so how could we possibly know what we're talking about.

last night i saw an episode of the amazing series "Iconoclasts" on the sundance channel. unfortunately it seems (don't know for a fact) that one can only catch this show on cable, and may not be able to rent it. anyway, the show puts two thinkers/movers/shakers/creative people together to see what they may say in the presence of each other. this particular episode featured Mike Myers (the comedian/writer/director etc etc) and Deepak Chopra (the first person to ever combine "old world" beliefs with modern science).

(I'd like to go off here on deepak and how he has blown my mind a few times, but not as much as i'm about to let him)

On the show, there is a segment showing deepak in a radio studio where he goes to do a radio show called "healing something something", and an 11-year-old boy calls in and asks deepak what he should tell people when they ask what his religion is. the boy explains that his religion is catholic by birth, but that he has muslim friends, and likes aspects of judaism and has just discovered buddha and likes buddhism now. "What do i tell people what my religion is?"

deepak says, "You tell them it's 'LOVE.' Love is what Buddha and Christ were all about. Love is what ties us all together."



once again, it's the christmas season, and i LOVE yoko for putting out her message of love and peace as a way to get through the day in a fucked up world with fucked up values. as well as just an idea to spread around.

for those of you who are technologically inclined, i encourage you to break the law and find a copy of this to download. mike myers contributes many great thoughts to the episode as well.

when i was "getting known" at my job that fired me for no good reason, it became known that i'm a huge yoko ono fan, and it was said to me that i'm the only yoko ono fan any of them have ever known. to that i say, shame on you for believing the propaganda on this amazing woman artist, and rebel, and revolutionary.

ps. i've had the "war is over" magnet on my fridge for years, but i think this year i'll take the tiny effort up a notch and stick it in my car window like she suggests. i'm thinking of my friend E. and his car window messages as i write this. yay E. for your car window messages.

Love thy neighbor

i love my neighbor. this is good, because our houses are very close and her and her husband's living room backs up very close to our bedroom and looks down into our yard. we talk over the fence whenever we hear each other's voice. i feel like i'm in mr. rogers' neighborhood or something. or sesame street. it's so not the City, which is so what we wanted when we moved here.

my neighbor checks on me and gives me encouragement over this unemployed thing (as she did over the wedding thing too). i ask her regularly how her husband is doing. he is a great musician who's battling cancer. when we get to hear him play from over the fence, it feels like a privilege. he is beating his throat cancer, and bravely, with chemo of course, but also some kind of voodoo hippie shit where "doctors" come over and shake their hands over him. why not the whole gamut? she says some of the techniques are pretty weird but, "oh whatever. we'll keep doing it all because it's working."

she's forward and generous and sincere and i think i have a new friend. she just called me on my video phone to say she's checking all her sources for work for me.

the world is feeling warm again.

Remembering Dr. Bolivar

just thinking about Dr. Bolivar, my cats' city vet, today. maybe because it's raining, and i'm broke, much like most of those city years. (or because it's almost a year since syd died).

dr. bolivar was an angel. not sure of his exact latino heritage. he was a small, but solid man with huge brown eyes that spilled compassion with every blink. we never even really had to speak. i have never believed in shots for my cats, so i've almost never had to call the vet on them. i think dr. bolivar might have fixed some problem of syd's but his stand-out visits were those when i had to call him for euthanasia. twice. each time it was, "my cat is very ill, i think he needs to be put down" and doctor bolivar would say, "i'll be right there." then he'd show up and look at my cat, and feel his heart and say, "you are right. this cat is dying." and then, while my cat laid in my lap, he'd give the valium shot and then the death shot without saying a word. he would look at me with sad eyes and gently take my cat from me and put him or her in a towel, give me a hug and take them away. i would write a check and then we'd nod at each other as i wailed out tears and closed the door.

i marvel at the strength that must take on his part.

i give thanks for dr. bolivar today.

will i ever write on the Jones again?

maybe not.

oops. i just did.

there's been showing guy's parents around our county.
there's been thanksgiving in our house with 19 people.
there's been the meeting of the two families, and mine misbehaving.
there's been a rehearsal dinner.
there's been a wedding.

there's been a firing of a job (me).

there have been so many experiences, that i've gotten all shut up and can't write.
being fired for not being able to write has been sadly humbling.
maddeningly stupid.
frustratingly scary.

a sudden shut-off of the faucet of money has caused...
the cancellation of a honeymoon to bali.
the return of every gift from our registry that we received.
a shut-off of the lights (the light in our eyes, not our house).

there's been incredible highs (saying vows to guy) (seeing old friends).
there's been stomach-churning lows (see above).

what i really didn't think would happen again was a Jones post...

What we got

guy and i are finally starting to get excited about our wedding.

it's 15 days away. OH MY GOD.

it's 10 days away before guy's mom and stepdad arrive.

HUGE!

it means this weekend is our last weekend together as single people (weekend after this one is guy's bachelor party).

NO WAY!

it means we have all the last minute things in our possession. all the things. every little tiny itty bitty thing. even the things that come in beautiful metals. like the rings.

got 'em.

and got words.

got clothes.
got shoes.
got special underwear.
got food.
got liquor.

got a playlist.

got family.
got friends.
got friends that are family.

got vows.

got butterflies.

got hope.

A christian college whacking

there's a new guy at my work, and i've been assigned to write his bio for our website. for this, i've done a little research, including reading nearly his entire blog (fortunately, not as extensive as this one).

he has this in his links.

i can't stop thinking about it.

it's a christian school, of which i've never really looked into so deeply...of which i find deeply offensive.

weapons are allowed in the dorms, but not movies on computer laptops. and no one can watch a movie, even off-campus that is above a "G" rating. but they can have guns. they cannot listen to any music, not even christian rock music. they cannot have posters of supermodels or rock stars on the walls. guns are welcome though. and other weapons.

so i guess the point of this school, and others like it, is to raise ignorant, fearful people who are encouraged to brandish deathly weapons.

sounds like a terrorist training camp to me.

guy would say, "i'm not surprised."

i would say, "i guess i'm easily surprised."

BJU: WHACKED.

LIVE - it's a beautiful day in Botswana

while i truly don't feel like writing about anything, i feel compelled to post this:

yeah. it's totally a webcam set up in some tree in Botswana, recording what happens at a watering hole. all day. all night.

my friend A. pointed this out to me, while also apologizing for being an "animal nerd." no apologies necessary. this is fucking-a cool. it's live. it's africa. it's a watering hole. it's just nuts, this technology. she saw elephants the other day. with babies too!! pictured above, is what is happening in Botswana, RIGHT NOW. fascinating.

there are also other choices, like the cam in Canada, or Australia.

ASSessed

recently i filled out a health assessment on a health and wellness website. i've had to build a site map for the media kit. i'll also write for it. i did it solely as research, to know what the tool might offer advertisers (gross).

one of the questions was "Do you wish for (or think about) death?"

what kind of question is that? i'd like to know. i mean, why are those questions combined? everyone thinks about death, but wishing for it...isn't that something separate?

not for me.

looking at death as a relief or a freedom is the only way to deal with it as the ridiculously cruel thing we were born to do. and that is something i wish for (sometimes) and think about (at least once a day).

Songs I won't play for my friend who's grandmother just died

1. Sleepy California by Her Space Holiday

goddamit, this song kills me EVERY TIME.

sleepy california

I used to think that I knew
My way around this town
But I'm always getting lost
Since you're not around
I never thought that I would say this
But I miss my mom
Even though for all those years
We didn't get along
And when I stop to think about it
I guess we were the same
Too stubborn to apologize
Too filled up on rage

I wish she felt young again
When everything was new
When her father held her hand
And said, "There's nothing you can't do"

And then I woke up to a phone call
Right On Christmas day
It said, "Your grandmother is dying
In a painful way
Her lungs are filling up with fluid
Even as we speak
The doctor said that if she's lucky
She'll make it 'til next week"
I had one last chance to see her
Right before I moved
But I didn't end up going
I used some lame excuse

I hope that she's not scared
Lying there alone
I hope she hears her husbands voice
Telling her she's coming home

It's just Sleepy California
But I just hope they know
It's just Sleepy California
How much I really care
It's just Sleepy California
How I want the best for them
It's just Sleepy California
Even though I'm hardly there

"Fling on an Addidas Hoodie and Boogie Woogie With Me"

tomorrow my friend w. is throwing me a bachelorette party. i was dancing while driving all the way home from work today because of this. my ipod was shuffling the best possible songs for a friday after work. i even got caught air drumming and singing to lady sovereign's big crazy-fun dance hit "Hoodie." "dance hit" reminds me of ABBA, and lady sov is...well...the opposite of ABBA. but it's infectious as hell and made me shake my booty so hard in the car that i felt "caught" at a red light by my neighboring driver. i looked over mid-tempo with my mouth wide open, and there he was. watching. i just turned away back towards the road in front of me and picked up my phone, nervously pretending to do something with it.

happy happy happy from the music. happy.

along the way, it seemed every song i heard would be perfect for the party i'll have with my oldest and closest friends + one kickass new soulsister. jesus, did i just say that? Under normal conditions using that term would be reason enough to be shot by...me. but it really fits her.

the playlist i made when i got home is here:




if i sound terrifically boring it could be because i took three muscle relaxants tonight. if mentioning that makes me sound paranoid, it's because i also smoked some pot resin, the poor man's hash. in my case it's the lazy, midlife, bordering-on-loser lady's hash.


carry on.

Patti Smith and Jim Carroll

wow, look at this cool picture i found of patti smith and jim carroll circa 1969. i should have known they hung out together at some point.

cool factor overload!

Thanks

at work, for a company-wide thanksgiving greeting, i have to turn in some words, some quote, of what i'm thankful for.

huh. what am i thankful for.

how about well-made sandwiches, tall black boots, funny songs, medium-hair cats, paintings with typography, coffee, aspirin, when things pay off, brand-new magazines...guy.

to begin with.

been a while

asshole
work has been stretching my brain. i found the asshole at my new job, and good news! it's the other writer. didn't expect that. she's mean. i will deal with it, but how disappointing.

last week i began work on a website that will be huge. the founder is an AOL co-founder. i had to learn about information architecture in a day and get this project moving. after i figure out the site map, i get to write for it. so strange. i'm really workin' hard for the money, no kidding.

airplane
guy has been on the phone for days trying to get us some airline tickets to bali. it's unbelievable how much time he's spent on the phone negotiating days and times and layovers and launching points to get the best possible price and hopefully, cross fingers, get us some business class seats. it may not happen and that will be fine. i wish i had never thought i could fly like fancy people in the first place though. it's a 23 hour flight. i'll just get a lot of pills if i have to travel as a pretzel. i have a feeling that as soon as the damn things are bought, we're going to be very excited, and it really doesn't matter how we get there.

saturday drive
today was nice. we got up and went to target to get a towel rack and then just went driving. ended up on a country road north of novato and kept going. stopped off at a cheese factory and ate brie and bread. rolled on out of there and headed south. what do you want to do? guy asked me. i thought for a second and said the first thing that came into my mind: I've never been to Bolinas.

turns out Bolinas is an unbelievably cool and heartfelt little town. i'd heard about how people who live there remove the exit sign off Highway 1 that would lead tourists into town, so not many non-locals have even seen it, and it shows. we wouldn't have found it easily without the GPS machine. off highway 1, curvy roads reach a beach that has a view of the City. like mounds of white rubble cascading over hills. we were very surprised to see that. all the houses are funky/shingled/artsy. my favorite kind. it feels like a hidden paradise pretty much. "so, is this the town that we should start visualizing living in?" i asked guy. "maybe." There is one sign as you begin to reach town that reads:

You are now entering a socially conscious
and nature-loving town.

sounds pretty hippie, but the vibe is more Relaxed Surfer.

we love it there. i wonder if we'd make new friends there. i imagine they'd be avant-garde and named Isaiah or Alice.

i hate learning new things

most people "love learning new things" just like they "love walking on the beach at sunset" or whatever else people say to make themselves seem interesting.

i hate learning new things.

first, there is the introduction period, say like, in a new job. i'm excited, i'm happy, i just got this bitchen new job that i'm pretty sure i can do. in fact, getting it has made me feel like some kind of superwoman. i'm on a high for days. i get all hyped up thinking, "i've fooled them again!"

and then "training" sets in.

for someone like me, who is either a)self-taught, especially in academics or b)painfully stressed out by the knee-jerk reaction against a nasty instruction style formed at an early age...and/or both, "training" is a horrible, painful nightmare to go through.

fortunately by now, i've gone through enough "training" from my myriad of jobs, that i can kind of recognize the headache as it takes hold, rather than go through a freakin' breakdown before understanding what is happening, the way i did in my 20s.

it sucks, nevertheless.

and somehow i don't think the training nightmare is going to hit me again! maybe that detail will become apparent by the time i retire.

guy asked me, "why do you hate learning so much?"

my immediate answer is most likely the most honest, and that is, "The Pressure."

when i was a kid and i had to ask for help with homework, i had to ask my dad. why not mom, who was so much kinder, and empathetic? she "doesn't remember," as i was told at the time. SO, it was dad, for any problem at school, which quickly produced five thousand extra personal problems for every word problem he screamed at me.

if i didn't figure out whatever academic issue i was having immediately after asking for help, then the instruction was yelled. with extra words thrown in along the lines of "WHY CAN'T YOU DO THIS?!"

"thanks, dad!" because even though it feels pathetic to blame adult problems on one's parents, it is irrevocably, usually, their faults. until we fix it ourselves as adults, that is. how long does that take?

i'm still trying to fix it. today, i did not cry when my creative director asked me in a confrontational way why i'd "say that", over and over like a round of bullets. but i still got so stunned and put on the spot, that i could only give her a satisfactory answer 2 times out of 3. it really doesn't help that i don't actually know the correct grammatical terms to defend why i write or don't write something, or that she was on percocet for toe surgery, this plays against me again, when i can't perfectly answer the "why" question, right away.

learning. it's a stick in the nose.

black francis rises again

it's true. he has finally tapped back into something very closely resembling the magic that sprang from his bloodstream. like a hard fall down the stairs, during the reign of the Pixies. sudden. tragic. fast. hard.

his new record, Bloodfinger, gave me the same heart palpitations in the first two songs that the white stripes' Icky Thump did a few months ago.

bass-driven, with lyrics reminiscent of the pixies ("I stood on the dock and you got on your knees / Grand Marnier and a pocket full of speed / We did it all day till we started to bleed”), the memory of which he is obviously pursuing, this is the first frank black black francis record i have given the time of day in over a decade. maybe that's my problem, being close-minded. i saw him under the moniker, Frank Black and the Catholics once, and it was really, truly boring. i didn't even try after that...until now.

maybe charles' insistence on changing his name back to the old and recording anew, has as much to do with the audience's memory and reaction to his brilliance as his own. perhaps this was made really apparent with the pixies movie he panned. unfortunately, and i'm sure this is flat-out offensive to him...but unfortunately, kim deal is necessary to his perfectly unbelievably stirring sound. like two kids who want their parents to get back together, there is no fan who doesn't know these two need each other.

too bad kim's so busy perfecting her perl stitch on her mom's front porch to get back to destroying the music world in the pixies' signature, earth-shattering way.

The toilet and Polly Jean

just dropped my phone into the toilet.
it's been disinfected.

i was talking to guy, and had the phone cradled in my neck while measuring the wall behind the toilet for a towel rack. i guess he was at the store.

it's shocking when you see your phone in the toilet. went right down. hard to get out. seems to be stuck on vibrate. is out of commission.

after disinfecting, turned on the newly purchased new record by pj harvey.

more on that later. (it's beautiful) (white chalk)

The heart is deceitful...

got done with chores early on thursday and turned on one of HBO's On Demand free movies, surprised to find something so alternative as Asia Argento's The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.

gripping. couldn't turn away! awful things happening in the movie, can't turn it off!

never have seen asia in anything other than Marie Antoinette and Gus van Sandt's Last Days. knew about her from reading Bizarre years ago, she is the daughter of a horror legend, Dario Argento, and a fascinating kook. the movie is based on the book by JT Leroy, a true story by a young man raised by an insane drug addicted mother, later determined a total lie, a story fabricated within a story by a san francisco woman. don't remember how it all went down. a lot of people came out in support of "JT" only to realize they were duped along with everyone else into believing the gory story.

doesn't matter, it's an incredible film. difficult, abrupt, beautiful. impressive.

it's too bad asia was so perfect for the role. if she wasn't an actress, no doubt courtney love woud have been offered the part, for more reason than one.

"The neverending world of fantasy sky"

guy and i are considering splurging on first class seats on our honeymoon. while this notion is totally crazy to me, it's fun researching.

the above is from china air. i like their selling point of "smoothing" my "mood transition." isn't that what antidepressants are supposed to do too? i hope china air seats work better.

Art Department, part do

so, it's finally here. the job that could be as fun as art department was, well, or close.

i was interviewed over a ping-pong table in what looked like someone's house by 9 people at once. i felt like i was on Inside the Actor's Studio. like i was a star and they all wanted to know what i had to say about art, writing, and life experience. funny thing, i have an endless endless spew of things to say on those three topics.

they sat across the ping-pong table from me, some standing, some sitting, so it was like double-row people, almost like they were watching a game, maybe a ping-pong game. the first question was, "So, why writing?" easy. so easy for me to talk with a start like that. and talk i did. i told them, "It started in fifth grade..." and we were on. they laughed. i laughed. it was a date.

turns out i passed the acid test and they want to hire me. the pay is astronomical, the hours, scant. this is troubling, but i'm going for it. i can't turn down such a cool, relaxed, super fucking awesome work vibe like i felt there. it's in a raw warehouse space in a part of town that used to just house trash and midnight shoot-outs. now, some artists have moved in. a nice bar was set up. a coffeehouse. before you know it, the place is starting to feel like home.

they hired me because i told good stories (and maybe a few well-written lines). obviously, i don't have real advertising experience, but they don't care. anyone who hires me because of good stories, is my friend. i asked them, "do you all own part of this company? it seems like you all really care about it a lot." the answer to that was, "oh no, we're orphaned artists. the owner lives in vancouver. we just run the ship." nice. they are the lost boys with an irish-lesbian tinkerbell.

have to say, this feels like a very positive turn of events. like a precipice, like an ice cream cone on a hot day when you're 9 years old, like a fresh bottle of pills, like a juicy steak right off the grill, like arriving at the airport on time, like being heard.

In stereo

guy and i have two sets of wireless speakers to accompany our little itunes setups on our laptops. it's all very future. the speakers had to be named so we could choose which ones to use from the computer. we named them after two of my cats.

the upstairs are named for syd, who is dead. the downstairs are named for clementine, who is not.

Extinct

i saw my step-grandfather this past weekend. he made me sad, and kind of grossed out. he used to be a real asshole to his grandkids when we were little. i am the oldest and only one who really picked up on it. he was the kind of asshole you might hear talking badly, berating some kid, who'd you want to jerk the kid away from and save. now, he's 94 and totally about to bite it. i stopped talking to him about 20 years ago. maybe i've said 10 words since then. he has dementia now and is going to have surgery on his prostate soon. basically we all got together because no one thinks he's going to make it. i didn't plan on being there, but i was surprisingly in town and decided to pay a pre-wedding PR visit to my equally distant aunt and uncle.

(wind blowing through a tunnel)

he didn't recognize me. well, at first when i walked in, his nose was bleeding. my aunt stood over him holding a bloody cloth to his nose and his head was bent over backwards at a right angle. when the bleeding stopped he straightened his head and looked straight at me. i could see he didn't recognize me. guy started to introduce himself when i stepped in to do it. "this is my fiance, grandpa." he shook guy's hand and kept staring at me. his head had disappeared into his neck and his skin was stark white and flaky. his lips were pressed together and he was breathing really heavily, but only out his nose, so it was loud. his blue eyes had a white, ghostly apparition just covering the pupils. he stared at me, and i squirmed. i got sort of a sexual feeling from him that made me fidgety and unbearably self-conscious.

he sat there with a barber's "cloak" (what are those called?) on, and tiny whisps of silver hair on his shoulders. i thought to myself, "it looks like he's getting a haircut." but with a colostomy bag hanging next to him and dried blood on his face, something weirder seemed more likely.

once my aunt returned from picking up pizzas for the small gathering of 9, she stepped up behind grandpa with scissors and resumed cutting tiny gray whisps. i watched her hands lovingly stroke the top of his bald white head and wondered about how she had loved him her whole life. there was a favorite story that went around the family forever. once, when she was a little girl, and she did something bad, her mother ordered her father to take her into the bedroom and give her a spanking, just like he did for my dad and his brother. what really happened though, was my grandfather spanking the bed while telling my aunt to pretend to cry and scream out, thereby effectively tricking the family into thinking she was getting spanked.

(dead hair)

the worst part of the evening was when my mom suggested a photo be taken of the two of us. i smiled and nodded and sat next to him, his eyes never leaving me. by this time, my mom had caught him up on who i was, asking him, "Do you remember Lou, my daughter? this is her." he said as enthusiastically as possible..."ohh, yes." and i guess he did. after the picture was taken, i nervously kissed him on the cheek because that's what i would have done to my beloved grandaddy in his day. afterwards, this grandpa proclaimed loudly, in a flat, deaf voice, "NOW I LIKE THAT."

i couldn't stop looking at his pasty, one-dimensional white skin. eye contact was not an option. it reminded me of the space that hangs undefined between painful bursts of gas going through the large intestine.

i felt a little bit like i was being secretly molested because no one seem to notice the staring. but maybe it was something else freaking me out, and making me think it was a sexual vibe he was sending me, when he said post-photograph, "YOU SURE LOOK SWEET."

(climb the walls)

most of the evening he sat alone, in the shadows off the kitchen, with his barber's cloak still on, forgotten, left out of conversation. what was going through his mind then? all these alive people around him, my mom telling some story and wildly gesticulating with her back to him, everyone laughing. his head down.

as i spoke to my aunt, and she assured me that she would be at our wedding, i felt like i loved her, and felt good about being at the wince-worthy dinner. how weird. i mean, i've barely spoken to her for over a decade. she'd given me some hassles in my early years. now, her face has wrinkled considerably, and she seemed more human to me. her face-lift from 20 years ago...is like it never happened. my uncle acted like he was seeing a ghost when i put my arm around him and greeted him. he was always the only good one in the family. sticking up for us when the grandfather was mean, or my dad was over-disciplinary.

after a couple more bloody noses that no one ever explained, like it's part of having a prostate problem, guy and i left. guy said he felt privileged to bear witness to the family all together. like they will cease to exist in a few days, never to rise again.

in a way, he nailed it.

(extinct)

No One Can Hear You Screaming Behind an HP Computer

this is what i wrote today, from scratch, for real, based on a 5-minute explanation of a new kind of ink, for HP. it's a two-week trip into brainiac hell. all i keep saying to myself is "10 days. ten days. only 1-0 days."

Product description
(short)
Competitively superior with unmatched versatility, reliability and print quality, this mid-priced, fire-retardant media also provides eco-minded cross-printing platform capabilities.

(medium)
Get superior versatility and worry-free reliability in this mid-priced, fire-retardant media. For effective production of above average print quality with true-to-life color, and optimal flexibility across HP non-aqueous printing platforms.

(extended medium)
Get superior versatility and worry-free reliability with the fire-retardant PVC Outdoor Front-Lit Scrim Banner. With an above average print quality and enhanced true-to-life color, this high-performance, mid-priced media is optimally compatible with non-aqueous printing platforms, therefore offering a competitive duality of flexibility and minimal eco-footprinting.

(words)
Versatile
Affordable/Quality
Reliable
Eco-minded

(phrases)
Achieve optimal versatility across print platforms
Lower costs on high-quality prints and still achieve true-to-life color
Benefit from the halo created by our differentiated system solution
Avoid solvents, yet maintain flexibility

Terry Gilliam's Beautified Post-Modern Blade Runner Wedding

pictured here is the main floral arrangement that will be used on the dining tables in our wedding. guy and i are really excited about them.

we are showcasing our friend's avant-garde found-metal lamps that he designs, on tables and in the corners, along with this floral arrangement style.

if the design theme of our wedding had a name, it would be:
Terry Gilliam's Beautified Post-Modern Blade Runner Wedding

Sports Bra

it's been a very long time since i had a reason to put on my sports bra. when i pulled it out of it's death grave and over my head last tuesday, it made creaking sounds.

The good, the bad (and the embarrassing)

this is the good part of my new diet.


this is the bad part:

Jesus Saves

guy stops car to help broken down bicyclist in hillsides of marin
i'm behind him in my car we decide to take bicyclist to the city
guy injures hand in process of putting seats down to make way for bike
it's swelling and turning speckly
he's yelling
it's getting serious
sweet south dakota dude feels terrible
you hurt yourself helping me! he says over and over
i am yelling Are You Ok? Are You Ok?
guy swarms in heat bending over and sideways
face scrunched, primordial roar comes out
AHHHFghhhEaoWWWAgahhHHH!
FUCK FUCK FUCK
i yell are you ok oh my god voice getting shrill
south dakota dude says i'm so sorry i'm so sorry
we figure out what to do
it's getting serious
south dakota dude drives guy's car to parking place
i drive guy in my car 80mph to hospital
guy writhes please don't crash he says
we arrive guy runs in
doctor says, yep, it's broken.

good samaritan gone bad?

(such a strange sequence of events does give me pause. i go back to my mom's religious thinking, the thinking that this happened for a reason, to keep us safe from something much worse down the road. i heard this kind of thinking my whole childhood. i think it's dangerously unrealistic, but i can't stop thinking that way sometimes. this is one of those times.)

"If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding"

guy's nephews are very well-behaved. they say "Thank You" "Please," and to trump all, upon my arrival both 9-year-old twins showed up in the living room and asked me if they could help carry my bags in.

i want a kid like this.

the please and thank you part isn't so hard. i was raised that way, and it's a matter of setting a standard and being consistent with it. i have no beef with the way my parents taught my sisters and me manners. i am so thankful for the manners i was taught. what i have issue with was how my parents dealt with discipline at the dinner table.

in this way we were raised in what might be typical for kids raised in the '70s: eat everything on your plate before you leave the table. we were even taught about the "clean plate club," which i thought was a real club all of my childhood, until i found out that it was a total farce, a total LIE not too many years later. but it wasn't just that, but we were forced to eat things that made us sick to our stomachs. for me, it was peas. i forced them down with a gag reflex that is unmatched to this day. it also made me develop a deep sense of hate, over what i now recognize is loss of self-esteem through feeling powerless. this technique taught my sister to be deceitful. she didn't get angry, she just lied. she put the food in her mouth and excused herself to the bathroom ("may i be excused?" - good manners), where she promptly deposited the food into the toilet. when my parents caught on to this, she started hiding the food in houseplants that happened to be nearby. this one no one at the table knew about somehow, until years later, when a load of rotting food was discovered in the hanging plant above her chair at the kitchen table.

as guy and i plan to have a kid, discipline is on my mind often, and how to do it differently from my parents, who i believe, were overly strict and whose discipline grew in me a tremendous amount of anger totally devoid of respect or understanding.

while on the east coast at the home of guy's sister and her two children, i noticed something interesting: a different way of teaching kids to eat what they may not like, but to eat what is good for them. every parent's goal, but these kids were somehow not angry, resentful or deceitful.

it was wednesday night and the whole family was over to celebrate mine and guy's birthdays. one of the twins reached for birthday cake when i heard, "No, J. you cannot have any cake because you did not eat your peas last night." J. looked sad, really disappointed, but said, "Ok." and that was it. there was no argument, no begging, no usual obnoxious kid reaction.

"how are these kids so well-behaved?" i thought. which i've actually thought on many occasions because they're just so damn good, and they're certainly not brainless twits. they are very smart, and very interested in the world.

a week later i'm still thinking about it.

i've thought that it's bad that kids should have to eat vegetables they don't like, and that maybe they can be taught that eating just the vegetables they like is fine. why make them eat things they hate? but i've kept going back to what guy's sister said about the cake and i realized something. they are being taught about actions and consequences in an important, yet benign way.

i want to ask her exactly what she said when they didn't want to eat their peas. it seems to me she is doing this right, but i have yet to find out exactly how she's doing it.

i just don't want to raise a demon kid. and i probably won't, but i also don't want to raise a kid the way i was raised in regards to food. god knows gen x didn't have it easy, based on our general eating disorder epidemic.

i'm not pregnant, and guy and i are years from this situation, but i am thinking everything through. i don't want to be caught off guard, and i want kids like guy's (and soon, my) nephews: polite, but not downtrodden, smart but not smart-ass, grounded, and not filled with a sense of powerlessness (me).

it's got to be crazy-difficult to raise a good human and i don't want to fuck it up.

A+A Get Married

hectic maryland countryside family running around car exchanges dropping off picking up snacking snacking talking laughing. this family is full of go-getters and get-'er-dones.

it takes a village to make a wedding happen.

last night i had apocalyptic dreams.

"Hey, wanna come stay in the Chanel Villa in Puerto Rico with us?"

ok, ok, i have to say, the above is really the best sentence of the day. it was spoken by guy's cousin who works for chanel. she's not a countergirl...she does something fancy and she asked us this question today on the beach.

we couldn't believe our ears.

aunt weezie started crying. aunt weezie adores guy.

the chanel villa? i can't find any pictures of it. except some taken by a family, seen above. this is happening mother's day weekend. guy and i already decided we'll have to find a way to get our moms there too.

do i deserve this? what the fuck is going on with all this good fortune?

i just nod and say "yes."

"Aunt Weezie With the 411 on Crab Cakes"

favorite sentence of the day. on my birthday.

pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty great day.

went down like this: beach for quick visit with the cousins. next, crazy beach bar for crazy strong ice slushie tropical drinks. further south, the best crab cake of my life, recommended by aunt w. unbelievable. love tasting the ocean. almost felt like i was tasting the entire life of the little crab i was eating. cold corona with lime. don't even like beer anymore and it was delicious. back to other recommended crazy beach bar for another super strong ice slushie tropical drink. fielded birthday calls. my dad sang happy birthday. a first. he sure is getting nicer in his old age.

back to guy's dad's house, inland. out to dinner for more crab cakes. these not so good. make me sick. only slightly barfy though. stay up way late with guy and guy's dad and guy's stepmom. funny guy, is guy's dad. guy's dad and stepmom are giving us a week for our honeymoon in one of their timeshare condos. looked up Fiji, Belize, Costa Rica, Thailand, Curacao, Tunisia. the timeshare thing is tricky. you "put in" a request and take whatever comes through. it's like the lottery. "where oh where might we have a honeymoon." can't even believe this is going to happen. can't even believe i have so much love with guy. guy's sister said this about getting married a second time: "There's a lot more love in the world than i ever gave it credit for."

like i said, explosive good times.
(i said explosive)

in the craw

guy and are on the atlantic ocean again, in ocean city, maryland. very similar to last year...sun, sand, cellulite. beer, friends, family. guy not wearing sunscreen, me getting slammed into the beach by ferocious waves when i turn my back.

guy's aunt w. has made a turkey and black forest ham, and just set it out on the counter for anyone to eat at any time. it's delicious, juicy, greasy, running down face yummy.

this morning we took a bike ride all the way from 78th street to Fenwick, which is just passed 149th. that's kind of a lot of blocks, comparative to nothing, but in second place would be walking 30+ blocks in manhattan with D. in 2001. the bike ride was truly fun, something i haven't done in god knows how many years. i felt wobbly at first. we had no idea we were riding with the wind all the blocks on the way, until we turned around and fought wind all the way home. fantastic.

tan. guy is super blonde. soon we take showers, wash the sand out of our craws, get in the car - me driving the rental V6, yay - and head to guy's dads house where we will overdrink, and crash out early for certain.

cheers.

ps. happy birthday to guy yesterday, happy birthday to me tomorrow. we are now 37. hmmm.

"I pray every day that God will watch over you"

grandaddy died in 2000. before that he was my constant inspiration for creativity, and care for fellow humans.

tonight, while looking for something as mundane as new checks in one of my many "supplies" drawers, i came across a card that he wrote me sometime in the 80s. he told me of his selling 175 leather belts, plus some watch bands, purses, and stone jewelry that he had made. he told me, "Lou, hobbies can be profitable. Keep making jewelry. If you keep working hard, you can have anything you want, and do anything you want."

then he wrote me, "I pray every day for God to watch over you."

i lost it. tears poured out of my eyes and i kissed the card, and i said out loud to him, "I am being watched over. Every day." and i listened for his voice, the way i do for him, my grandmama and now bio-dad. and i heard his voice, the way it used to sound, not like the way it did towards the end. and i told him again, "I am being watched over."

then i went downstairs, poured a glass of two buck chuck and went on the deck for a smoke. that's when guy called. he said, "i'm coming up the hill, are you home?" and then he arrived and yelled to me up at the deck, "i have great news!"

and then he sat down and told me that his boss just gave us our wedding present of $2000 to spend on airline tickets so we can go anywhere we want on our honeymoon. guy's eyes were red. i said, Are you crying? Were you crying? he said, Yes, because I am so happy.

and then, as we sat on our beautiful deck overlooking the beautiful marin hills, in front of our beautiful house, i said again to my grandaddy, I Am Being Watched Over. I Am.

and i told guy, See? I knew when we joined forces it would be explosive.

Teen Spirit

the interview today pretty much sucked. i went to see about a copywriting job at a marketing firm in marin county, not far from home. i was extremely hopeful since getting it would mean no more commuting to the city. as it turned out, getting this job would also mean hating myself to the core.

i interviewed with two people. the first was a young woman who works on the eBay account as the only writer, and needs help. she was nice, although a little awkward, kind of nerdy and shy. she liked me enough to give me a test, so that's positive. the writing would be fairly creative. i'm hardly excited about it though. maybe it was the atmosphere. all cubicles and not much of a creative-feeling environment. the building is like what you see in an office park, but stands on its own by the bay. there's nowhere to go for lunch or anything to see there if you need to get away except some rotting seaweed and mucky muck. this is the kind of place you end up ONLY working at. you don't do anything there but work. you don't run to walgreens to get advil, you don't take a break and go peruse fresh cut flowers at the high-end florist down the street and you certainly do not have extraneous fun while on the job.

after the ebay lady, a guy came in to interview me for a horrible horrible project about teen leadership in the form of a conference for high schoolers. it made me cringe. i didn't know what to say about it, or what the interview man wanted me to say. he seemed to be waiting for some kind of reaction. i asked a couple of questions and he told me how enthusiastic the kids are about "leading." i couldn't think of anything to say about that, since it's the complete opposite of me or the pot-smoking, rock music-listening teenager i was. i told him i like teenagers and bond well with them and i have a strong understanding of youth culture, which really has nothing to do with a project of this nature. it was so weird. the guy was strange, very business-like with a strained way of talking. i left feeling gross. i knew, as i exited the building, that i would be rolling a cigarette upon entering the car, and driving while smoking for the first time.

As soon as i pulled away, Smells Like Teen Spirit came on the radio. i felt sick to my stomach at the thought of having to work on something like teen leadership, when i'm way more into Teen Spirit. As i rolled through marin county hills behind mercedes' and beemers, i heard kurt scream, A Denial A Denial A Denial!! i thought,

My God, What Have I Become? WHAT WOULD KURT THINK?!

Lesley Arfin

Dear Diary is one of my favorite books in recent memory. author lesley arfin is associated with the craziest of outsider magazines Vice (not entirely work safe usually). She had a column in it and was good friends with the founders, 3 really smart and smart-ass guys.

besides the fact that i had a very similar book idea a couple of years ago, ran it by my friends, who loved it, and then filed it in my "never gonna happen" file and forgot about it...i can't help but love this book. it's really well done. funny and honest are the two writing traits i most aspire to, and are perhaps the most important ones.

here are some of the best lines in the book:

"Coming down from meth is like a bad acid trip meets chemo meets watching your parents die in a car crash."

"Heroin was never like 'ten thousand orgasms' to me. It's more like the very few seconds after an orgasm. The gentle tide that drifts you out to sea and carries you off to sleep. It hits you hard and lasts for hours. It's the tide that hits you in the ocean of Sunday-morning back scratches. Try to imagine how it'd feel to be a melting candle or a poured drink. Imagine if you were a sweater and the boy you liked wore you all day long..."

"Love doesn't always 'save the day' or whatever. But I do think it might make the world go 'round."



more diary entries from her here.

i think lesley's writing is kind of one of my new obsessions.

the whisper

...is revealed.

(one of my favorite movies of all time)
(with one of the best endings ever with the best ending song ever, and maybe the best script ever this side of woody allen and quentin tarantino.) (and that is fact.)



*thanks to j. for forwarding this life-shattering info.

Wonder Woman

it all started with what to wear. the night before an interview i get really heartburn-y and frantic about outfit and personal presentation. fortunately with writing, unlike with design, i don't have to remake my portfolio everytime. maybe that's because what's in there is all i got. ha ha.

so, what to wear to an interview with a creative agency that can place me in some cool companies that can totally make my life easier with lots of good pay? hmmm. it's pretty great that agencies exist. they work their butts off to find artists' jobs. for this, they take almost half the pay, but it's worth it when you're scared of meeting bill deadlines and rent.

for some unknown reason, my instinct told me i needed to look sort of fashionista-like and pretty hip. the black t-shirt dress, long necklace W. made me, and short black boots felt right. only problem is, i wore that, like a week ago. i can't wear that to work again. it's too memorable, people commented etc. so i hatch a plan to wear the black t-shirt dress, but in two ways. for this, i drove today. also, fyi, this interview was at 10am, is a 10-minute walk away from my jobbie, and i didn't arrive at work until 9:20.

it went like this: drive into garage, park. get out in black t-shirt dress with belt around waist, short black socks, red plaid high-top sneakers, long red neckace and red leather cuff bracelet. it's a little rock-n-roll, it's definitely casual and looks significantly different than the styling of fashionista t-shirt dress w/ boots. get in elevator, make appearance at work, check an email or two, leave cell phone and sunglasses on desk to indicate i am around, run back down to garage (also where portfolio is stashed). get in car, take off belt, change plaid sneaks into short black leather boots, take off red leather cuff bracelet and red necklace, put on long W. necklace, grab portfolio and purse and walk very quickly to interview.

have great interview. agent has purple hair and a long metal spike through her nose. she's intelligent and no-bullshit. she laughs uproariously at my rock-n-roll journalism stories of meeting rock stars and getting in fights with them. she likes me. this spurs me on and turns on my inner "animated" button. my stories get funnier and funnier. fantastic. she's gonna find me a great job and i won't go penniless at all. probably.

leave interview, walk quickly back to car in garage, noticing that it's been 50 minutes since i left. get in car, change out of leather boots, into plaid sneaks, take off long W. necklace, put on long red necklace, grab red leather cuff bracelet, belt the t-shirt dress, jump out, get in elevator, get to desk. no one notices me walk in, and probably didn't notice my absence. i am flush with a feeling of exhilaration over what i pulled off (and on) in one hour.

mission, made even more impossible than it needed to be, accomplished.
phew.

Time wounds all heels

john lennon being interviewed after he won his immigration case:

reporter: "so do you hold a grudge against the strom thurmonds?"
JL: "no, i believe time wounds all heels."

-from the US vs. John Lennon

In cars

Some Things I Love About Driving (having a car, in my case).

singing loudly.
i've always been afraid of the sound of my voice singing. it's not bad, it's just untrained and lacks confidence. i think i could be taught how to sing. i was in choir from 4th grade until 9th, but it was a huge choir and i wasn't afraid to sing out. i also might not have sounded so great. who could tell one voice among a 100. driving down the freeway, i have discovered to great delight, that i can crank the stereo and sing very very very loudly and no one can hear me, and it's insanely fun.

no one can tell me what i'm doing on any given day.
getting rides and depending on mass transit for 36 years wasn't easy. especially for someone like me who likes to have a lot going on, a lot of places to go, a lot of things to do. i also happen to hate being told what to do, so depending on others to get to where i wanted to go unleashed torrents of frustration that is BAM! out of my life. suddenly, that part of my personality is totally gone. thank god. it was the 15-year-old still inside me and boy, was she an angry kid.

control of the stereo.
even if guy is in the car with me, i get to listen to boss hog yell or perry farrell scream, until he says he's had enough, just like i had to listen to news of people dying in baghdad morning after morning after morning when i was riding with him. before guy, i was still at the mercy of whoever was driving. and this is especially tough for someone as picky, and as emotionally and physically affected by sound as i am.

being alone.
it's funny how hard it is to be alone in the City. if you're not at home, you have no chance of being alone. even in a bathroom stall, you're so not alone. and if you happen to catch an empty bathroom, guess what, it won't last long. having a car gives me a place where i can cry if i need to. i've never had this before. and i cry a lot. when i return to the car after work, where i have been bombarded by people all day, i get in, close the door and feel the still silence all the way to my bones. it's so peaceful. i sit still for a second and let it sink in. i sigh. i turn the key. i have entered my world and no one can touch me or affect me or bug me there. it's miraculous! it's a mini-home that moves around. genius!

*picture at top is me in my new car with a mexican wrestler mask on.

Radiohead, but back!

record is being mastered. should be out soon. can barely wait.
been 4 years!!

my ex-boss told me about when she met thom yorke at an after-party. she's a fan, she's smart and cool, she went up to him and said, "Hey!!! Want to go upstairs and get some cookies?!"

she said this for two reasons:
1) she loves thom yorke and was nervous
2) she's been sober for like three years and looks for good substitutes all the time

she did tell the story from the point of view of, "how embarrassing. this is what i said to thom yorke."

supposedly, he just looked at her and went somewhere else.

We're in the Top 10!

uh-oh, spoon is in the top ten (and have a new record out). this could be a bad sign. the butthole surfers reached the top ten once. didn't do much for 'em, but then again their name is The Butthole Surfers. they are so awesome for not being shy.

paul leary is now a worm farmer. i love this fact. i also love listening to gibby haynes on 101X in Austin on the butthole radio.

Marin Hot Tub Spa Hourly

my sister and i went for a hot tub once. we paid $20 for an hour and got a little room and a hot tub by ourselves, in noe valley in the City.

this is what i found when i tried to find a hot tub place (the clean kind) in marin:

NOTHING. at all. no hot tub rentals in marin county. and now why would that be.

Don't say "Hand-feel"

i really can't stand fashion language. "look at this sweater. it's just so easy, it has a great hand-feel."

"You obviously don't understand life"

from an interview with Thurston Moore in the online Rolling Stone:

When people come up to you and say, “Hey, I don’t understand noise rock,” what is your response?

"That’s not the way to approach any kind of music, to say you don’t understand it. There’s nothing to understand. Any kind of music, it already kind of transcends understanding. It’s a sensual art form. You obviously don’t understand life because noise music, for me, is the noise of life, in a way. It’s so much more akin to the human condition. The human condition is not a song, it’s not an organized composition, this is more the natural music of our lives."

(yeah, that's what i was talking about)