my own personal jesus

had dinner with steve last night. i really love him. he is so hilarious. at the end of the night guy struggled to get the last piece of my grandmother's sofa out of steve's garage and into the car, by himself. he said, "i think i can get it in" as he lifted the sofa with great strength. steve said, "isn't it great having a man around. someone who can get it in?!" and we laughed at the sauciness of that statement, slapping each other's arms at the same time. i was startled when he reminded me of his age. Age 73.

steve bought guy and i dinner at luna, a garden restaurant on castro street. i've always loved luna even though it is terribly overpriced. steve grabbed the check at the end of the night and said, I'm buying! i'm the oldest! and then, Are you going to get upset that i want to buy dinner? you know some people do.

before guy arrived we had been talking about society ladies and their fashion sense. we knew all the same names, Nan Kempner, Denise Hale, Dodie Rosenkranz...he went to school with Dodie's husband. he knew all the people in the book i'm reading now by san francisco's society-rejected rich kid, Sean Wilsey, about his upbringing by the hateful Dede Wilsey, formally Dede Traina. we talked about her work with the DeYoung museum and the pros and cons of the design, widely reviled but loved by me.

isn't it cool how a 36 year old and a 73 year old have so much to talk about?

steve is alone now, he has been for over a year since his partner of 43 years died of liver cancer. he told me some details about that experience...how he slept in a separate room for the first time in forever the same night that tim died. how the nurse hospice sent woke him up at 4am to tell him what had happened. how he's trying to have a special obelisk and finials added to tim's gravesite. how everyone loved tim, how accepting his bereavement group in monterey is of his gayness. how he doesn't really need to go anymore but he still does because he enjoys their company.

i wish i could go out to dinner with steve at least once a week. It might be a better option than therapy.

radical saturday

so excited about this tomorrow:

12:30pm Pot Bellied Pigs
1:00pm Pig Races - Barnyard
2:00pm The Sippy Cups - Play Fair Pavillion or Guinea Pig Showmanship
3:00pm Underwater Photography
3:15pm Name the Cheese Contest - Special Events Lawn
4:30pm Goat Milking
5:30pm Cow Milking

it's the marin county fair and we are there.
pat benatar is playing sunday night. we are considering going back for that.
"WE ARE YOUNG! HEARTACHE TO HEARTACHE!"

60 Frustuck

today is mine and guy's first day in our house (in 22 days) with no plans, no guests and no agenda whatsoever. it is bliss. i wake up at 8am, bummed that i'm awake so early. a quick bit of math tells me it's ok, that i've slept 8 hours exactly, and that's all ya need. i read for two hours, with guy next to me occasionally turning over and saying his favorite sleepytime word, No. his eyes are very small, i can tell this even though they are closed. i know what he is doing. he is enjoying the fact that he does not have to get up for anything. he is relishing his fatigue. he is sleepily thinking about how he is waking up in his lovely, quiet house and it's sunny outside and the birds are talking, and all is well right now. all is perfect right now.

i look at him and know what i must do. i want him awake but i have learned that poking and teasing is the wrong thing to do. i must start breakfast. cooking up delicious aromas, coffee and clanging pots. he can't stand the anticipation. he awakes gently to the sound of pots and the smell of bacon and coffee and maybe some pot if we're lucky. his curiosity is his achilles heel. he has no control over it. he doesn't really try to control it, which is how i know for certain that he cannot. my ruse works. 15 minutes of cooking later and he's up. he says, "What are you doing?" down from the loft. this is a routine i have grown to cherish, and as much, love that i figured out.

guy comes downstairs. i smile. i am so happy. he goes out the front door and i know what he's doing. he's going to get our new subscription for the sunday new york times. i am so stoked to be getting the good paper on the weekend. the paper that puts all others to shame, most notably the SF Chronicle. crap-icle. we sit down. we eat. even though in a total space cadet moment i cracked one of our only two eggs in the house, over the sink, and not in the bowl, we have enough food. our friend D. left us some hash browns in the freezer when she cleaned out her own. we have a delicacy we normally try to live without.

after breakfast, guy cleans all the dishes and i water my garden. i remind myself again how good i've got it. i think about how horrible existence was as a teenager. i can feel the confusion of hatred and love i had for my parents and the torture of not being allowed to do the social things my friends were doing. then, in my mind, i skip ahead to my early 20s when i made only $5 an hour, watched my coworkers lose their minds on crack and heroin withdrawal and lived on 6th street with a mindfucker for a boyfriend. i shutter. i remember the fallout from that mofo, and the nervous breakdown i had a year later, with aftershocks that prevented me from leaving my apartment. ever. i remember when i got married the first time and slowly realized over the next few years that the voice in my head telling me i shouldn't be married to the man i married was not the onset of paranoid schizophrenia, but my subconscious screaming the truth at me. i remember the heartbreak of being in love with guy, and guy not being ready for a serious relationship. i remember the moment that changed. i can feel the crunch of the dirt under my sneakers on the path in Pinnacles National Park at the end of our long silent hike, as he told me otherwise.

and now this. i will believe again that good fortune means i am making the right choices, even though in the past that appeared untrue. i know now that my ideas of the past demand a second look and a second judgement, that even though the outcome was something different than i thought i wanted, it was the right thing all the same. it was exactly what i needed.

Just for now

there is a new pervasive term in the household since guy and i moved in to our new house in a new, very small town. We find ourselves saying it all the time.

things that are "Just for now..."

-the odd-sized platters and mugs we don't use being stored in the cabinet over the fridge.
-the fact that i don't have my own keys for the front door or the car.
-the rug from the old bathroom placed in the kitchen.
-the shell-design shower curtain that came with the house, that sticks to us while we shower.
-the too-small lampshade we bought yesterday that sits atop guy's gargantuan groovy 60s table lamp.
-my broken-from-the-move genuine vintage mid-century floor lamp that is now partially attached to guy's camera tripod, with it's broken base lodged under the stairs.
-the boxes currently being stored underneath the staircase that haven't been opened yet.
-all the crap in the garage that's too heavy to bring up to the house.
-the dash of my car having no lights, so you can't read the speedometer at night.
-all the books stacked on the floor in the den and on every windowsill.
-the mismatched plastic outdoor chairs that currently reside on the patio.
-the fact that i'm a furious misanthropic bitch at least 4 hours a day, broken up into several 5-minute rages.
-cable only in the living room.

Privileged

I’m sitting here on this ferry after work on a Friday. I’m drinking red wine and working. I’ve got a printout contact sheet of new maternity styles for Fall for a major American retailer (of whose clothes I have worn since 1983.) I’m looking at pictures of outfits and writing about them. I am 36/almost 37, I have moved to a small town in marin county with my super rad fiancé (who is totally sexy and financially stable), I have a car and a computer of my own.

Ok, just reminding myself of the good things.

Thank you and sorry for this interruption.

Icky Thump on my iPod

jack white's voice is high, thin, smooth and substantial all the same.
he's so sexy.
i bet he feels solid in your hands.
unflinching.
fearless.

icky thump will breed a whole new generation of enthusiastic air guitarists with long hair and baseball caps. if they get to hear it.

too derivative? no way. like beck, there is too much newness added to the classic to feel uncomfortably familiar. the new Icky Thump is so exciting, i hear it and suck in my breath, sharp. so exciting somehow, the notes hit that spot. the really good one. and hit it over and over and over and over and over. my heart is pounding while i listen. i am unable to focus on anything afterwards. it is so exciting i get full-arm shivers three times in 7 songs.

jack white's sexiness comes from many places. the most surprising element is his lyrics. he's the most love-obsessed boy who's ever spoken so clearly. he's a boy pj harvey, unapologetic and passionate. i imagine he came up with the album name by virtue of the sound quality alone. every note is ripped from it's homebase before it lifts off. it's so genuine you not only see and feel, but live the sucking action. jack's voice is like a hot rail cutting effortlessly through the middle of the muck. the two together create a perfect world.

my favorite track, Little Cream Soda has two words in it that are repeated in such a way as to demand entry into the Museum for the Brilliantly Simple. jack sees the world acutely and microscopically.

it's
a
very
beautiful
thing.

ferry folk

so, today my encounter with another (becoming a trend) rude marinite man on the ferry:
Stand next to table with two inside seats available and motion towards man to let me slip in and say May i please slip in here? he's facing towards the front of the boat and i would prefer that spot. he ignores me, the woman looks up, says No problem, she thinks i've spoken to her, i say OH, ok, either one, Thank you! and slip in. DICK. sit down, take ride. at end of ride lady is gone, waiting upstairs at the exit and it's just man and me. we get up at the same time, i reach for my empty coffee cup and my hand hits it in such a way that it flips in the air a few times and flies over to his side of the table. i laugh spontaneously and say Whoops! sorry! god! and grab it. i'm all smiles and laughter and he doesn't even glance at me. he doesn't look up or acknowledge me in any way. unbelieveable. i know this behavior from Elitist Small Northern California Town. it's called snobby. it's called Afraid to Show Emotion, Reaction or Recognition Because that's not Cool.

crazy! glad i'm not 13 anymore. at 13, that behavior was something i took to mean there was something incredibly repulsive about me. now i feel sorry for these people. unfortunately they have been in environments that have forced this distancing behavior on them. sad, not intimidating. and you know what? LAME for not realizing it by the age of 35.

the marinite man no doubt doesn't get laid, go see live music or laugh. ever.

Half dome death

An "advanced biology" class i took my senior year in high school got me on top of half-dome in september of 1987. we studied john muir and naturalism and then travelled to yosemite where we stayed on-trail, out of the valley for three days. it was frightening climbing the dome, and in fact, we all burst into tears upon seeing it. we had studied for a month and worked so hard over three days to get to it, that the sight of a seemingly impossible climb after all that was too much to handle.

september is described as "off season" in the valley, meaning that the climbing cables attached to the granite mountain lie flush with the dome, instead of suspended upwards from vertical poles. we had to collectively hold them up and pull ourselves up at the same time, along with our 30lb. packs. my arms weren't strong enough. my legs were fine, but as it turns out, because of the angle of the mountain and heaving the extra weight...this hike is all about arms. i can't believe it didn't occur to my teacher to mention to us that arm strength was so imperative.

the climb got really frightening. the hiker in front of me instinctively and brilliantly started singing songs to me to get me out of a panic. i think it was jingle bells. yeah, it was. but this was dead serious. i was acutely aware that if i let go, which i wanted to so bad, that i'd be gone in seconds. that death was that close.

when we got to the top we set up camp. in 1987 people were still allowed to sleep up there. i slept in a tent. i was still sleepwalking, so i felt this was prudent. besides, i had just faced death. a lot of kids in the 25-person class threw up upon reaching the top. i remember walking around in a daze of natural morphine. super high. gone. zoned.

the next morning we climbed down. not only was this unbelievably scary, but we were all severely dehydrated to boot. i had let the last drop of water in my bottle slide across my tongue in the middle of the night the night before. it exploded in my mouth. the drop was totally, utterly heavenly. i hallucinated from the satisfaction. that year had been a drought year and there was no water in the upper reaches of yosemite. we were prepared with pumps, but they were useless. at one point i remember drinking totally stagnant mossy, dirty buggy water that i'd dropped a chlorine tablet into. the taste wasn't of consequence. we were on the way down anyway, so i figured if it made me sick, i'd be pretty close to help.

the feeling of accomplishment we all felt upon reaching the bottom of half-dome without losing our lives was so gigantic, the climb, the class and the students were quickly and easily romanticized to the point of disassociation with everything else. upon returning to normal school, i felt i had transcended English and History and especially stupid crap like Economics. those classes were clearly a waste of time. i had flirted with death. i had things to think about.

it took a while to readjust to the priorities of attending high school.

this guy never had that chance.



(picture above is of half-dome from our starting position at Glacier Point.)

Bad News Hughes

it's not!
it's not just me!

this dude, Hughes, has so many mishaps he has written a book called Diary of Indignities, and wrote this on his blog that led up to said book...

DIARY OF INDIGNITIES
Sept. 5, 2003: while taking off my tie after work, hit myself in the neck and shoulder with a fish taco.

joke

hilarious joke, not by me.

i was walking along with a friend the other day and i told him that it's Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender month at the gap headquarters. i told him how last month was Asian History Appreciation month and we got served chinese food in the cafeteria. i asked him, "What do gays eat?"

his answer:
BRUNCH.

Sayonara and bye-bye

today our good friends left.

they're moving to ithaca, new york and today they left.

they chose to spend their last night, here with us, and i felt honored.

i gave N, their 6 year old son, a photo album of pictures of all of our adventures: camping, renting vacation houses, going to the beach and on photo safaris...i told him i hid a note that i wrote to him behind one of the pictures and he had to find it. i told him he had to find it behind a picture of guy and i. he wanted to do this right away, although i had imagined he might only get into it while on the road. not so. he wanted it right away. we slowly went through every image looking...until we found it. he pulled it out and stared at it. N. can read and i know this, but he's staring so i told him he might have to get someone to read it for him, that my handwriting might not be so readable. he turned to me immediately and said, "will you please read it?"
oh my god. i took it, and said, Really? ME? uh, this won't be easy, i told him and our friends as my voice broke, But i will try.

i never focused so hard before on reading something intensely emotional so as not to bawl the entire time.

don't want to scare the boy.


(guy is depressed. these are his best friends since college. they are dear and now they are gone and so there is a sadness in the sunshiny house today.)

cabriOlet

that's how guy says it, "cabriOlet." it's my first car ever. we bought it last thursday night from a librarian named judy who lives on russian hill.

today i drove it for an hour and a half on curvy roads. it's the longest i've ever driven. i'm getting better at it already. i didn't clutch the steering wheel in a death grip and i didn't kill us on the one lane mountain road.

guy and i got sunburned today in the car. it's so breathtaking here. a drive to the ocean gave us eucalyptus, grasses and redwood smells all around.

sun-splashed dash.

Sandwiches and Layouts and Snorting and Peeing

our friend J. says we could both have our own shows here in this house because it's so big and beautiful and new and so like a tv cooking show set. the shows would be based on two things at which we are very very good at.
guy says mine would be, "Sandwiches and Layouts" and asks J. what his would be, J. says, "Snorting and Peeing."

where it's hippie day every day

hippie fest in fairfax last weekend made guy and i realize we have what may be years before we acclimate. ties dyes. those sticks boys throw around. hacky sacks....met our neighbors, the grateful dead ones last night. turns out the people we've been seeing walk around naked were housesitters, "housesitters from hell" to quote the GD people. the real neighbors seem very nice and fun. we were on our upper deck last night and it looks directly into their living room. the wife saw us and opened the windows in total Beverly hillbilly style saying, HEY!! and we chatted. she said "so, my husband (husband comes to the window. he's the dude who plays jerry's parts now), is a pro musician and sometimes his guitar playing gets loud. if it's ever too loud, just let us know. some people around here... (she points up the hill and sticks her tongue out) ...prefer to call the COPS (roll of eyes)."

we're like "SURE! sometimes we're loud too, so we'll just stay in touch!" and grateful dead guy is standing right behind her smiling, maybe waiting for us to ask what "pro musician" means, but we don't indulge him. we say nothing. even though i'm thinking "backstage passes, possible music connections for more music funtime (not the dead)," we stay silent about it. she says, "Cool, we'll have you over soon and we can swap numbers and stuff!" i like them immediately. i imagine us being greeted with deliciously aged scotch, eating sloppy food and smoking joints right after dinner. i imagine being able to arrive at their house barefoot, and being very comfortable.

Commuters

ah, the ferry, and the old ones who ride it.

so, i'm kind of a suburbanite now, i guess. it's not just that that would be very difficult to admit considering my lifelong hatred of all things determined mediocre or cookie-cutter, but it's that the place where i live just feels like a small town, not a suburb.

that said...

everyone who rides the ferry is over 35 and all the guys wear wedding bands. these ferry-riders are people who have done their time in the city getting the job that will make the money and then they escape straight north, to the most beautiful part of the bay area, and the naturally least accessible. if you weren't born there, i have a feeling doing the time is necessary, or at least should be. opposite of my parents, i would encourage my child to go live in a city, in the hopes that he/she will learn the hard but life-rounding lessons i did, see the art i saw, hear the music i heard...but i'm getting off topic.

i have become a part of a new demographic just in time to see my own disappearing rapidly off the landscape of "new" and being placed on the back burner of "retro", at best. when's the last time you saw "Gen X" anywhere? we're done, and it's ok, because i am done. done doing the hard time and now, living with these people in the "suburbs" with their wedding bands and pricey jobs. it's shocking, like a slap. but in a good way.

although our small town is filled with wiccan stevie nicks types, and actually, ponytailed john phillips types...

guy and i still can't believe it.


ps. it seems that we're not allowed to smoke cigarettes anywhere on the premises of our new house. certainly, an even bigger slap in the face, "wake up! you have definitely left the City! we can now tell you not to smoke outside!" even though i'm technically not allowed to complain while also being served such fortune...i really find that to be a huge bitch. and i rebel. shhh.

her name is louisiana and she's 120gigs

got a new mac, yessir.
takes pitchers and has a camera.
makes music and dance.
writes words more often online than in the last few months.

supra happy, yippity yay.

Flair

interview dressing
"journalism, publishing, multimedia, advertising, graphics, art galleries: your own style is more important here. you are being hired for your creative talents, so show them off in a subtle way, by dressing with personal flair."

Guy and I

can you find my eyeball in the picture?

final cleanup

in our old apartment tonight i had to yank fat thickets of the yeti's fur from an area of the carpet that had previously been under the bed.

So, we moved...

“I feel like we escaped,” I told him. we were sitting outside in the lovely marin county sun at the crepevine waiting for our first meal in 36 hours. I looked across the table at his blue eyes, looking straight at me. “Yep,” he said.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I told him, with a huge feeling of gratitude and luck. he looked at me for a while and said, “I couldn’t have done it without you either.”

his arm reached for my leg under the table to stroke my knee, but my legs were crossed in the opposite direction and he couldn’t find it.

“my leg’s over here,” I told him, and he moved his arm.

Remembered

today i got a card. a condolence card. there was a name...i didn't recognize at all. the note written inside was from a nurse at a hospital where bio-dad had a leg injury treated in 1983.

so, that's 24 years ago.

the nurse said he was a "staff favorite" that he was an entertaining conversationalist, "never telling the same story twice." she said she was saddened when she read the obituary in the baton rouge advocate.

i really don't know how to express what this means. to me and otherwise. i don't think i totally know everything it means yet.


(The image above depicts a close up view of the minute fingerlike processes on the surface of the mucous membrane of the small intestine that help in the absorption of nutriment.)