New painting #1

stage one


stage two




stage three

home invasion

almost nothing scares guy and me more than a home invasion. we're even considering getting a handgun, although i believe that no one gets shot if there's no gun and i don't want guy or i to get shot.

i am also afraid of teenagers. man, they are pissed and don't know how to handle the drugs and alcohol. they have little to no conscience and should be considered dangerous until proven innocent. or at least nice.

about 12 minutes ago my two fears just came together and met and freaked me right out of my skull. i hallucinated afterward. heard things. heart pound.

what happened. 3 teenagers came to the door. i thought it was my friend BB stopping by to say hi. he's been granted that access. although he usually calls first. i opened the door like an idiot and was faced with a curly-haired 16 year old. behind him i see two other guys. they may have been even younger.

curly hair says, "um, this may sound weird, but can i use your bathroom?"
i'm silent. thinking. heart racing. "just go in the street," i tell him.
"well, it's not number one."
me, heart attack coming on, shaking, looking at the other guys watching for movement. "go in a bag." i tell him.
"um, that's kind of gross."
i say, "i'll give you toilet paper."
"ok." curly tells me, with reluctance.

i close the door and lock it. i go to the kitchen to get a bag. i go to the bathroom and pull off a substantial amount of paper. when i get back to the door, one of the other kids is next to curly hair, right on the front step, right up against the door. the third kid is one step behind them. 2nd guy on step one has straight blonde hair cut over the ears, but long-ish. he's got zits under his nose. he smiles weird. what's extra weird is i never see the face or body of the third kid. but i felt a third. i know there was one. weird.

i hand the guy the bag and paper and say, "Throw the bag in one of the garbage cans down there." i close the door and lock it immediately and walk away to the den.

i'm freaking out. i check ichat for my friend J. he's not on. i call KN. she doesn't answer. i go through my iphone looking for someone i can call who doesn't freak out. i don't want to ruin guy's family evening of fun and gaity and i don't want to call my mom because she will not sleep all night.

i call A. she can handle it and calm me down.

she doesn't answer.

i start to see movement in the massive windows that surround every room in this house. downstairs is mostly glass. no curtains on the biggest brightest windows that are directly in front of me.

i don't like that our door has a window in it. i wonder how long they were standing there watching me. the music was super loud, i had no idea of anything until i heard a slight thump. it looked like it could be BB, but i couldn't really see.

now i'm drinking a glass of wine and smoking. in the house.

why would this happen when guy is on the other side of the country?

i'm thinking about the gun again. i hate guns.

Can I Run? by L7
Are these sensible shoes on my feet
I wear my shades so our eyes don't meet
I'm scared every fuckin' day
I wear my headphones so i
can't hear what you say

Can i run

Switch to paranoid from having fun
Will he use his hands, knife, or a gun
Knuckles are white, wrapped around my mace
Comes from living in a terrorist state

Can i run

When he's following me
He's not my brother, he's my enemy
Is he behind the door or in back of the tree
Is he under the bed, is he in the back seat

Can i run


(that's it. i'm gonna take a klonopin. i just heard things in a tipsy song that gave me a slight panic attack.)

Patches

Syd was the cat of the house when i lived on Howard Street between 1996-1998. my friend JP lived upstairs and we hung out a lot. syd was your classic black mainecoon, very long fur on his back, and silky, like hair.

syd was also fat. i didn't know about measuring food yet. which was bad because mainecoons are notoriously neurotic, which means they tend to over-eat and over-masturbate.

on howard street, syd got so fat that he couldn't lick his back and big huge mats formed. i took him to the groomer and they shaved gigantic patches in two places on his lower back, leaving the spinal area alone. no mats there.

syd was also an aggressive male, known for occasional biting. i went to the SPCA to find syd and as always with adoptees, their past is a mystery.

JP came up with a great nickname for the formidable syd at this time.

Patches.

"Hey, what's up PATCHES!" we'd laugh and laugh. i can still hear JP's voice and high-pitched giggle. poor syd. PATCHES! he knew we were laughing at him. he'd swish his tail abruptly. swish. swish swish. swish. and turn his patchwork back on us.


(now that i think on it more...JP named syd in the first place. after sid vicious. he always thinks of great cat names. one he has now is named Chopper. coolest cat name ever!)

"Just call me Flo"

Guy's step-grandma just died. she chose to. she has been sick for years, on oxygen for five...and then she got worse this past Christmas Eve. She went to the hospital and the family followed. They called, they waited for something to happen, they left. She was told she was dying and if she so desired she could go home and have hospice help.

an ambulance took her home.

her name was Flo.

On the East Coast grandmothers are called "Mom Mom." On the West they are called "Grandmother", "Grandma" or "Grammy." In the Deep South, where i began, it is "Grandmama." When i first met guy's Mom Mom Flo, and she gave me my first christmas card (we weren't married yet, so i got my own), she wrote, "Just call me Flo." i took that to heart and called her Flo for the next 4 visits. guy told me she meant what she said so i did it.

Flo chose to have her oxygen mask removed by her son two days ago. forgive me if it was three, i'm not thinking straight.

Her son, my step-father-in-law (by name only, i feel he is fully my father-in-law and that i have two), removed her mask and then he and guy's mom sat with her until she stopped breathing. the very thought puts a huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. can you imagine? can you imagine the love he had for her that he put aside for her sake? so selfless. what i would do in the same position, passed through my mind as i talked to my mom about it. we said, "would we have done that for grandmama?" i said, "yes, mom. we would." and she agreed.

guy is home with his lovely family. they have had their troubles like any family, but they all pulled through and came out the other end together. love and effort does this. faith does this. guy is there now and they are just spanning time together, enjoying each other as always, joking and laughing and going through her stuff. packing stuff up...they're together. all of them on this.

i wish i had that. a family that pulled through tough times and came out the other end stronger, and more closely knit than ever, fully together. they support each other.

so, guy is in baltimore and with his family and they are dealing with a loss together. he said one morning they woke up and went to her house which is on the same property as his parents' and sister and brother-in-law's. they started going through stuff. it was morning. they started drinking beer. that's a funny thing for this family to do. guy said, "it was for mom mom flo." that lady liked beer. she offered us a beer every time we visited. so they drank beer together as they went through every thing and they enjoyed those moments, even though it was morning and it's "inappropriate" to drink beer in the morning.

last week, guy had the sudden idea to send her flowers. i was all over it. picking out flowers for someone is so fun! we sat together and picked out stargazer lillies. they smell so good when open. we sent them to her. when she received them she said (something like), "What lovely flowers. Your gift will come to you next week." we wondered, what gift? didn't she send us a Christmas gift already? we didn't know what she meant.

then tuesday night she asked for her oxygen mask to be removed.

today i thought back to the flowers conversation we heard about through guy's mom. i suddenly remembered her saying we would "get our gift next week." that's this week, i thought. then realized. she knew when she wanted to go. how did she know when it would be? and what did she mean by "your present?"

i asked guy this through texting and he wrote, "family." i wrote, "what? that you'd be there and that's your present?" and he wrote, "yes."

this thought tears me up inside. tears me right up the center. her final gift? family being together.

i am so sad that i can't be there too. i wish so badly i could be. guy has the family that my mom expected to have, was her only goal. family together. spanning lives. making memories. going on adventures. being close. all of them. close. i don't have that. my mom works hard to be with my sisters, her grandson and me. she drives 5 hours each way over Donner Pass from Carson City to Napa every other month and stays with my sister in her tiny house that doesn't really accommodate a family beyond three. my "step"-dad has other priorities. he has work and business to take care of. not to mention his battle with the government. that is what is important to him and always has been. our family vacations throughout childhood were about my mom, me, my two sisters, and our grandparents. i don't know how many times we took road trips across the country together. too many to count. we didn't have the money to go out of country on vacations, we just used this one up to the max and it was wonderful. WONDERFUL. i am very lucky that my mom is adventurous or i would have never seen anything beyond my bedroom walls and magazine dreams.

guy has a family. a real one. a full one. all members participate in life together. they go through death together.

when grandmama was dying in extreme pain in the hospital in the NoCal town where i grew up, my mom, my sisters and i slept on the floor of a waiting room for two nights. waiting...waiting...knowing. feeling, but not for-sure knowing that grandmama did not have the strength to make it through heart surgery at 87. turns out her heart had a defect that did not come up on scans of all kinds. she was missing a crucial valve. when the surgeon was in there with her heart on ice, fixing what was wrong and he went to use the valve he needed to use to keep her alive, it wasn't there. it simply wasn't there. he came out of the OR in tears. he told my mother. when the hallway went CODE BLUE, mom says she closed her eyes and spoke to her mother, her dearest companion of her whole life, "It's ok, mama, go home. go home to daddy." and she did.

i had left by then. i couldn't take it. i couldn't take her face twisted up in pain, her teeth grinding together and distorted with tubes everywhere. i couldn't take it that the only thing i could think of to say to her while in the OR was "your hair looks good, grandmama," while knowing how ridiculous the statement was. i left before everyone. i told her, "grandmama, i will be in the next room." a direct lie. an obvious lie. i walked out then and my sister drove me to the ferry that took me home to the city. the next day at 11am on December 6 of 2000, my little sister called me in tears, "she's gone lou. she's gone." and we hung up and i screamed. i yelled. i screamed and yelled over and over because it hurt so much and i hated everything for taking her from me.

no one supported me more throughout my entire 30 years of life than her. it was devastating.

after she died, my mom and i went to my grandparents' house and packed everything up and moved many things to california. we're emotional people. everything means something to us. i got her sofa. the very sofa that my bio-dad had sat on with my bio-grandma and my mom before i was born. i kept it for 6 years. guy moved in then and pointed out that we could be more comfortable. my mom came to our house and got the sofa and it lays in storage to this day. it will never be sold. it will live in my future studio.

we hold on so tight to the material because the real thing is gone and we need it. we miss it so much. them. we need and miss them.

our family pretty much fell apart after that. my mom's brother stopped talking to her for some unknown reason. i stopped talking to my cousins because they breached a pledge of trust to not remove anything from my grandparents' house without my mom's approval.

i hold a grudge. i won't lie.

back to guy's grandma. and his family coming together over this death that impacts their lives tremendously. and how they came together and bonded and span time. and how grateful i am to be considered a part of their family. and how i can't be there with them and they are still thinking of me and tell me they love me and wish i was there.

i leave with this: peace be with you Flo.

xo



(photos above taken by me in the St. Louis Cemetary #1, New Orleans.)

Injury Log #11

Left brain headache for a week. What does that mean again? That my right side is overly functional? But I’m wrong all the time. I don’t get this thing. Where’s that knob? Somebody turn it down.

Do French fries still cause cancer?

Burn on pointer finger from letting cigarette burn too low. Or is that eczema? When I press on the bubble, it hurts. If it was eczema, it would be itchy. Ok. A burn.

My shrink said all my cylinders are turned up to 11. He said I need to turn them down (been trying to turn them down since day one*). I said, no shit. That’s why I’ve taken approximately 8004 pills, smoked 70 pounds of pot and nearly caught up with my wino dad who died of alcoholism at 65 before the age of 40. He drank Night Train though. I’ve got La Crema Pinot.

*the planet of the apes are coming over that hill right now to get us. I don’t see them, but they’re gonna come over the hill. (wait. Watch. Look harder. Wait. Watch. Look harder). The roof is going to blow off of our house like it did on that guy's house down the street. Better check the security of the ceiling every night before sleep. My parents leave a fire burning in the fireplace. It’s almost out. I can’t sleep. I have dreams of fires starting in the sink in the bathroom. I beg my mom, PLEASE throw water on the embers, PLEASE. She does. I call for my mom from my bedroom down the hall. MOMMY! (wait) MOMMY! “I’ll be right there” she yells. (low voice of my dad, “she’s just trying to stay up. Don’t go back there.” (wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.) more whispering. My mom. Higher pitched. “I’ll be right there sweetheart.” She comes to me because she’s my mom and she really loves me a lot. I tell her I can’t sleep. She rubs my legs with lotion. It calms me. My legs hurt all the time. The doctor says it’s growing pains. I’m four years old.

I cut a cyclist off on my way to work. It’s an accident. Before I can give him the hand motions for, “I’m so sorry!!!” he starts screaming at me. I can hear every word through the soft top of my car. “FIRST OF ALL, THAT WAS ILLEGAL! SECOND OF ALL YOU’RE A FUCKING BITCH!” I heard him start the "F" word and the acid anger that flew through me like a red-hot asteroid paused for a split second. what to do, how to hurt him back…and then I leaned on my horn. Both hands. Both horns. HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK. I was in residential Ross. I think I scared him. I know I couldn’t hear his slanderous and cruel words anymore! I was so mad, I slowed my car way way down and watched him. He slowed way way down behind me. I made his bike ride as painful as possible the rest of the way. You know like when you “PSYCH!” someone out and they jump? I did something similar with my car. What a DICK. And how a little bit psycho of me. I liked that he was afraid of me. After a lifetime of being physically threatened by men, I think I found a way to physically threaten them! This has never occurred before. I felt exhilarated afterward.

Otherwise health is good. Did take a leave of absence from my marriage. I was a vagabond for 6 days. It helped us both find out exactly what we want. Fortunately it’s each other still. I barely cried at all. I had clarity of mind. I am looking forward to 40. It may make me more aggressive, but I was a softie my whole life who never stood up for herself. It may give me dry skin, but I welcome it after years of oily, pus-y cystic acne.

40 for me will be the opposite of me in my entire previous life.

Bring it on. I just hope I don’t kill anyone. Or snap my back.

ADDENDUM: the death of guy's grandma.

DeLorean Love

there was a DeLorean in the parking lot* of Corte Madera macy's the other day. i followed it into the parking lot. it had to go all the way back so its doors had room to open.

i want a DeLorean. really bad. they're not that expensive ($13k?). just hard to maintain. so rare. so so unbelievably cool-looking.

guy says he dreams of delivering one to me with the requisite bow on its roof.

*here it is. i only know it by its license plate. one good reason not to go vanity.

Guerilla Signage

friend BB's got friends who posted these signs all over eureka...others said "Rainbow next left. 3.4 miles ahead..."

if only i could figure out how to put one in the clouds, so while your airplane flies by you see "Heavenly State Line. Open exit to enter."

What a mug

Who but David Bowie could look so good in his mug shot?

peace tune

the peace that comes from listening to music comes from it's form: somehow tones meet and become one thing, and i think more than anything, we as a species want to feel one thing, maybe become one thing, i don't know. but feeling "all" come together...brings peace.

all: life in all aspects.

this i also think is what death will feel like. or afterlife, rather.

Ear Fear

she was little, the teenager was long, seated on a bicycle. she was standing on the sidewalk, when the teenager came up to her.
she said something to her, she can't remember, all she could do was stare at the things in the long, tall girl's earlobes. like something stuck to her ears. "what is that?" she asked. the long girl on the tall bike laughed and said, "oh they're earrings. i have pierced ears. holes in my ears for earrings. so does your mom."

she remembers staring at long-girl kind of stunned with all the new information. like, what? my mom has holes in her ears?? what? horrified.

she promptly went inside the house and asked her mom. "yes," mom said, "see?" and she looked and there were tiny holes in her mom's ears.

she asked for earrings right away. it was 1973, she was 3. her mom said she had to wait until she was 13. (there was a lot of discussion over this for years.)

she knew this was long somehow. she knew she was in for a wait.*









*the only thing that mattered to her when she turned thirteen was getting an Esprit bag from the boutique downtown, and her ears pierced.

she chose the simple sterling balls. it hurt.

and she liked it.

Forgotten Lennon song

Love
Love is real, real is love,
Love is feeling, feeling love,
Love is wanting to be loved.
Love is touch, touch is love,
Love is reaching, reaching love,
Love is asking to be loved.
Love is you,
You and me,
Love is knowing,
We can be.
Love is free, free is love,
Love is living, living love,
Love is needing to be loved.


i suggest buying this song off itunes now.

Cross Country

on my little vacation away alone...
i wonder.
how many days can one sit and stare at windows, light during the day, dark at night. and stare and wonder what to look at and what to think about certain things and not know which side was up and basically smoked and had momentary panic attacks mixed with optimal moments of independent bliss? how many?

i'm on day 2 and the feeling has never changed. up and down. left and write. right and look.

maybe i should just eat.

(she said, "it's so great, it's like...central air!")



On the way
i'm lost. i stop car in middle of desolate road at night on the way here. sit and try to make iphone gps load a map with only two bars of power. don't realize i have done this until another car passes around me. "oh my god, i'm not on the freaking side of the road, i'm in the lane oh my god, what the fuck, you crazy lunatic what the fuck calm down you're fine, this is ridiculous..."


later today
i am on a bike and i see a big truck blocking my view of what's going on at the intersection. i slow down, about to stop and check the intersection when a red truck quickly swerves past me so close i could hear the guy yell about watching where i'm going and dirt sprays in my eyes and i braked and saw no more traffic and went. later, i turned around and went back home the same way. i saw that the guys had run a stop sign. we would have seen each other then. they almost killed me and it's because they didn't stop at a stop sign. i think i had some intuition happening on this one. i was already slowing when they came within inches of me. faster and they would have slammed me.

no helmet. don't wear those.

no helmet. brain splatter.

criminy.

Take the Charity Bowling

painted a bowling ball to be auctioned off at an art show to benefit the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization. a lot of people at work participated. i was sad mine wasn't the best, but felt great joy over the one that was. that guy has a sense of humor and the ability to weld.

i polled my friends for rock lyrics about being hit to write on it. i got this:

1. death valley 69
2. take the skinheads bowling (x2)
3. hit me with your best shot (x3)
4. she hit me - the birthday party
5. that chumbawumba song: "i get knocked down, i get up again"
6. white lightnin'
7. hits from the bong
8. Hit Me Baby One More Time, Britney Spears
9. It's a Hit, Rilo Kiley
10. Hit the Road, Jack, Ray Charles
11. Bastard Wants To Hit Me, They Might Be Giants
12. he hit me and it felt like a kiss
13. Hit to Death in the Future Head

not all were used but those that were i wrote with love. it was a really fun project.

(sorry, couldn't use britney or they might be giants.)

Wish

"You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else, and we are all apart of the same compost heap."

I WISH. but it just isn't true. unfortunately there is a song being played out there in the cosmos. no one who anyone can hear knows the tune. can tell us the tune. can show us where to find the tune. and this drives us crazy because we can feel it all the time.

i do love how chuck arranged the words, however.

Flight

or fight? i chose flight.

where i am right now. not much to fight with here.

When I first heard the band name "The Pixies," I thought, oh, well how cute can you get. EW.

had the house to myself the other night. drank ouzo, played the Pixies live DVD, danced around and then took pictures of the TV.

a few highlights...


an example of the energy that was absent from the last Breeders show.


i love when black francis just swings his guitar around rhythmically during "In Heaven."


and she said she was only a back-up singer in "that band."


almost nothing brighter than kim deal's smile. well, except like the sun.

BHBBWL

Bong Hits Before Bed With Lou.

it was something my room-roommate in my 3rd year of college and I used to say every night when it happened. later it became BHBBWL.

i've just driven 2.5 hours to guerneville for some needed time off and alone. how lucky am i to have a friend with a house on the river, dudes? seriously lucky. i went through all kinds of complicated maneuvers - besides getting lost and doing two potentially lethal driving moves - to find the key for the house, but I DID IT. i drove for an entire hour on back country roads between hwy 101 and the ocean because of a shortcut she told me about. one tiny detail was omitted but here i am. and i'm happy.

i've got wifi, who knew!! right here in her kitchen. strong signal too. got friend E.'s speakers set up with my ipod to play music, got D's bong and she doesn't even mind if i smoke bali shag in the house.

heaven. i am telling you. (oh, and how that song made me bawl when i heard byrne do it a few months ago, 'nother story).

i feel happy.

i've never done this. gone off for a weekend alone. i've unpacked. i turned on the water heater off of "vacation mode" into "warm to hot mode" - never done that before.

BHBBWL.

maybe i just want to be young again. i don't want to go through my 20s again, but i did really enjoy 1990. i was 20.

haven't lived alone in 11 years. another staggering fact. i loved living alone. i did have my (new) best friend living upstairs, so i'm not sure how much "alone" i was. we watched tv at least 5 nights a week together. 90210 and Melrose Place were our favorites. that was when we still lived in the lofts and painted all over everything and made big spray glue messes in our homes and just went apeshit with artwork. i smoked and painted and realized i had just realized my ultimate teenage dream: to smoke and paint in my own loft by myself (a la Andy). as a teen i told myself that when i accomplished that, i would then quit smoking. 15 years later, i still haven't. who's surprised.

then i met my first husband and then my second, bam bam just like that. "Boom! Just like that.*"

it all changed.



*great scene in Basquiat. The director does a stunning job, but is also a painter of whose work i cannot stand! Haven't seen the second one. something about a quadrapalegic.

"Hole"

...one letter less than "whole."

Patti makes an appearance

well, whaddya know? it's the patti smith painting i never took a picture of after completing it years ago on commission. i like it. i think it's not that bad. maybe i'm not a bad painter. sometimes i'm not so sure.

thanks to my friend for reminding me that i have painted at least one good painting in my life.
xo

The Grandmother

guy and i went and visited my step-grandmother the other day. She made quite a bit of money off Napa Valley poperty by investing in the mid-70s before everything went yuppie.

My step-grandfather just died. no tears there. really. i actually couldn't remember at one point if he had died or was just about to.

none of that matters to her. She's 89 now. She doesn't even have a car anymore. they separated in their 70s.

we took her smelly cheeses and crackers and red wine and she was delighted, "Well, at least you know your grandmother still loves to drink." I really was missing someting all those years when i didn't talk to this side of the family. I judged them all of my dad, while it turns out, they're all pretty interesting EXCEPT for my dad. Step-grandmother is still racist though, i have to note. i'm surprised. she went to Cal Berkeley.

She gave us one of her many pieces of collections that she has gathered over the years. She has three linen, silk-printed England, England Underground and Irish County prints. We got the Irish one. She was quick to note, "Not that we're blood-related." to which i said, "Well, my paternal family is Scottish and Black Irish." She smiled at me in an uncertain way and went on...

I'm afraid she'll die soon. she is 89. My own grandparents, who were the most aangelic, kind-hearted people you could ever know, died at 87 and 90. I know she wonders why she's still around, and I know she's preparing for her departure.

She also gave us an Ivory Tusk of some kind of Norwegian animal, a cork screw. It's beautiful. Thick, yellow-white and stamped "NORWAY" inside. Sure, we say, sure!

i am suspicious of my own motives. Do i really feel a need to re-connect with family or am i just buttering up the dividends?

i know myself, or maybe just my bio-dad to know it's possible that my motives could be false.

Hustler.

But I really do just feel like she's my last grandparent and maybe i need to appreciate this time more.

true.

Notes on a Meeting #1

meeting entertainment: what to do during a meeting.
1. write, don't draw. draw looks like you're not paying attention. writing looks like notes.
2. plan your future with said writing.


(this is the beginning of a new monthly feature, provided i remain employed and forced to waste my time in meetings.)

John Waters' Note to President Obama

i love you john waters! if you told me ducks were born out of cow shit, i'd believe you!

Elephant in the room

animals are amazing creatures and it's time we take better care of them in whatever way you can think of.

there are many secrets and wonders about the world - are we the only ones, why are we here, do animals have emotions, what happens when we die etc. - and i see something like this and i am reminded to take these unknown ideas more seriousy, or rather keep an open mind to everything.


(thanks to aldahl for sending me this curious performance)

For my mom

the love i feel for my mom is "intense." she has a sense of adventure: i got that from her. she feels that people should love people no matter what: i got that. she teaches me to pray. we do it in different ways, but with an intention that is the same.

hope.

my mom is always on my mind when i travel. she is starting to travel out of the country, but had no experience as a young woman the way i do and have.

i guess what i'm trying to say is i wrote her name in the sand because that is a love we share "intensely."

the beach.

Flask It

flasks are so very vital in these f-ed up money times, lack of job times, stress times...(not that there isn't hope with obama...)

friend W. gave us both flasks last year for our birthdays. they have never come more in handy as they do now.

the flask. pour the liquor in, put in your purse or pocket and you're ready to go with at least $20 worth of shots.

in mexico, on cozumel and in playa del carmen, we realized quickly that our desire for alcohol far exceeded our bank accounts. we went to a store and bought a bottle of tequila and just kept filling up the flasks and it saved us many times.

thank you W. for the flasks. since their full potential has been realized, we will be taking them with us to the bars we go to and for the socializing we do, that we will now not be able to afford for another year.

awesometown!

Happy post

the other day my friend K. asked me perhaps one of the most profound questions i can remember ever being asked.

she said, "Lou. Last night as i was falling asleep i found myself wondering something about you.

i thought about how intensely you feel anger.
about how intensely you feel empathy.
about how intensely you feel sadness.
but, do you ever feel happiness intensely?"

her question threw me. i was frozen. i could think of nothing that matches my rage or sadness or empathy. then i remembered. YES. YES.

i am intensely happy when i am at a concert hearing live music that i love. that is the most INTENSELY happy that i get. and it is HUGE.

is that a sad thing? should i feel it more?

my shrink said there are other layers like joy and love...and i told him, yeah, well, but that's not INTENSELY.

oh wait...i loved my grandparents intensely. i love my mom intensely. when i look at my nephew i love him intensely. when guy and i are in our groove i love him intensely. i think of our wedding day and how intensely i loved him that day and it's almost too much. just like the others...

"Intensely."

to me it's when atoms smash together and create an explosion that is so huge nothing else exists in that moment. so huge that it's not even a thought, because it's bigger than your brain.

this is how i feel empathy
and anger
and sadness most of the time.

and happiness sometimes.

you?


(picture above is taken by my friend KD at the butthole surfers show i missed while in mexico. it is a picture of how my brain feels when i'm intensely happy, of a band that while playing live makes me intensely happy.)

Keep your Blah Blah to yourself and others who can take it

School is my enemy. Don’t ever ask me to attend a class or a lecture or a meeting or a seminar.

A few years ago I actually got in trouble because I was forced to attend a “seminar” for my work and I made a stink. I took a drawing pad. I drew pictures. Even my “friends” at work were mad at me and said I behaved unprofessionally.

I disagree. School is just not for me.

Even on ADD pills which I have needed my entire life but only just started, I still can’t pay attention. I don’t care what they have to say at the seminars, the classes and the lectures. It’s simply not how I learn. I need visuals. And, contrary to my being a word-person, I also can’t read anything in order to learn. I need someone to just give me the gist and then sit with me while I learn whatever it is I’m needing to learn in real life, in real time. i learn by DOING.

I had to attend a meeting yesterday. I got six pages of vacation writing done, so it wasn’t a total loss. The thing is, is it’s not just that I can’t pay attention, I actually get mad at it. At meetings. At seminars. At lectures. At school. I feel indignant when my attendance is required and I will get downright pissed off because of it.

Leave me alone school. Leave me alone lectures. Leave me alone seminars. Just tell me what I need to know, show me how it works and we can be done with it. All this blah blah blah blah blah is such a waste of my time. And I shouldn’t be forced to “learn” in the way that works for others but not for me.

For instance: I want to learn to play the piano. I won’t take a class, no way. What I will do however, is sit down with my friend and listen to her instructions while at the piano and I will be happy to learn that way.

There is no other way.

I can’t believe I ever graduated from high school (and it was by the skin of my chinny chin chin).

"Wrong, Guess again!
Wrong, Guess again!
If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddie!"
-roger waters

Getting High in Mexico

Stoned: Abroad!
guy and i are addicted to the TV shows, LOCKED UP! and especially LOCKED UP: ABROAD! even before watching the show, we would never ever ever ever try to take marijuana with us on vacation. even when our friends say the US doesn't care if you take it out, only if you bring it in! STILL. we will NEVER do it.

getting high on vacation is simply a non-thing. it doesn't happen. and it's ok. but it would be nice sometimes we have felt.

scoring pot in mexico made us giddy. guy protested the seller, "it's wrapped weird. what's going on here." i shut him up and give the guy whatever cash he asks for ($100 for a 1/4 oz. of crappy grass-weed). we leave. we go back to the hotel. i am so excited about getting high i am rolling joint after joint when guy says, "we should do that in the car." really? i ask him. but i thought the room was the safest! "ok," he says, "but you must put something, a sheet at the bottom of the door." i do this and he goes outside. he says the whole hallway and elevators smell like MJ. i'm not worried still. i feel there are too many people around to blame. no policia is coming into our little stupid hallway. he asks me then to smoke under the covers. i do so. i make a little fort with my knees and pull all the covers over my head and smoke my joint until my eyes burn. guy says to me about this, "thank you for doing this for us."

later that night after guy has done some cocaine, he has a whole new idea. "we'll build a better fort on top of the bed under the covers that won't hurt our eyes!" he says excitedly. i watch amused as he takes a desk chair, puts it on the bare bed and then pulls the covers over it. it is ridiculous and hilarious. i laugh and laugh and light one up.

it takes a whole joint to get a tiny high but the escapade is where the fun is.

the adventure.

2nd Honeymoon, Hola Cozumel! (part one)

(this vacation is like a honeymoon at the exact time we took our real honeymoon last year, so we call it #2 (ha ha). i did not hand write anything while gone. all you read is from memory. no laptops were allowed to be taken. so, in this manner, what you read will be out of order. i'd call it "catches of thought" or "moments of memory." either way, i feel robert altman would approve.)

i guess the most shocking things, the things i wake up in the morning thinking about, the things that won't leave my cranium, are overall just disturbing.

where's the beauty you might say. where's the sense of appreciation to have traveled farther than anyone in my family since they came over from scotland and england and ireland?!

believe me, i'm trying to find it.

timeshare
the timehsare guy wore a purple shirt just this side of not too shiny. he wore rimless designer glasses and had the voice of a salesman. "Only 90 minutes of your time," he told us, "no pressure at all. You know why? Because this is such a good deal I don't have to worry."

i scratched my ear, uncrossed and recrossed my legs, took another soma.

the "compound," the "resort" that we are unwittingly visiting is 25,000 acres in size. that's right. they cut the jungle right up. where did all those animals go? why didn't i ask purple-shirt guy what happened to all those animals? why didn't we tell him this kind of construction digusts us? instead we wasted five whole sunny hours on him and his spiel like morons. he asks us, "Want to take a picture?" we say, NO. at the end he shamed us for not being able to afford "such a tiny amount." i walked out saying, "I've been here too long. I'm leaving now. I'll be out front, guy." and i did not say goodbye to the man we had been fake socializing with for the last five hours. i did not look. i just left.

30 minutes later, guy comes out and says, we need you in here. i go inside to sign some bullshit papers like i'm being released from the prison it feels to be. i am asked by a fat, ugly un-smiling woman if i was told certain things about the resort. at the end, without changing her expression, she asks us two more times if we want to buy. we had been saying no for more than an hour. it was too much to take. i didn't care when we left and very audibly told guy, "THIS IS FUCKING UNREAL! FUCKING BULLSHIT!"

they didn't even pay for our very long cab ride back to the ferry or directions out of the compound to find a cab. we footed the taxi bill and got the hell out. we asked the driver to take us to a good beach as now it was too late to swim in caves, the main thing i wanted to do on the whole trip. the main thing. couldn't do it. cabbie takes us to a beach that rivals anything i've ever seen on TV. people are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. we find a nice spot to people watch since there's no way in hell we can leave our stuff to go swimming. we drink more don julios and sol beer. i have the best plate of shrimp ceviche i have ever even come close to. we laugh and forget the hideousness that was the previous five hours.





on the way back to the island a young couple, maybe 13 years old, dance together in the aisle to the live mariachi band playing on the second floor. she is giggly and adorable. they are too cute for words. i swallow more somas and a couple percodans i picked up on the way to the boat. later i find out that instead of throwing trash away as i exit the boat, i throw away 10 $7 pills that are unavailable in the united states.

the horror. the horror.




arrival
we get to our hotel and eat immediately. the food is beyond description. incredibly delicious, like what's the secret ingredient in fajitas? how are these soooo good? we are so tired though from traveling overnight from sfo to miami on the aisle and middle seats, then five hours in miami in which i actually slept on the floor after describing the idea as completely disgusting. on that flight, we leaned against each other, pillow in between, which made for 5 hours of 10 minute naps; every time someone moved we were both awake.



after getting dinner at the hotel restaurant, we go straight to bed. what time is it? we don't even wonder. we are so tired, it seems impossible to be anything other than midnight. at some point in the night, guy says, "LOU." i awake. what? what? LOU, let's watch tv. let's go out. What? i wondered. isn't it like 3am? no, it's 10pm. this is beyond comprehension. i feel a sudden need to move. go out. get out. get out of the sleeping and sitting positions i've been in for the last 17 hours. guy says no. i'm staying. i'm watching tv. i am so mad, i go out by myself. it is midnight. i walk the streets looking for a bar. i'm terrified but too mad to stop. the streets are empty. there is one fancy hotel across the street. an all-inclusive. i get kicked out of the all inclusive. they make me feel like a criminal, calling the policia and staring at me as i walk out. but i'm a nice girl in a skirt. i am directed to the nearest dive. i approach it. the front door opens to a metal spiral staircase. there is no clue as to what is at the top. i go anyway. there are three men. one is the proprietor. he is very nice. his name is daniel and he gives me a free shot of tequila, "Welcome to Mexico!" i leave and say i'll be right back with my husband who is sleeping his vacation away. i go get guy. he's into it. he follows me there. we have a wonderful time drinking Sol beer and Don Julio shots. "Very nice to meet you my friend," guy says to Daniel, "We will be regulars. we'll see you again."



first day
we go to the town square for breakfast/lunch and to see what san miguel is all about. we immediately fight due to parking problems. guy lets me out. i get a table at a restaurant and wait. i am angry and i don't know why. after breakfast we walk the town square. we seperate at one point and i tell guy that i'm going over here, to this pharmacy (and i point) to see if they have somas. he's going next door to the bank. he doesn't see where i point, where i'm going to go. when i come out i can't find him. i panic. it's panic like when you can't find your car keys or the other shoe, but it's me, a woman, alone in a foreign city i know nothing about and i can't find my husband. i turn and turn in circles, each second building into an unnamable force. finally i see him. i yell at him, not caring about making a scene, "Never leave me alone!" he calls me ridiculous and fucked up for being scared. especially the part about being a woman. he says gender has nothing to do with danger in foreign cities. i tell him maybe because i've been assaulted i'm afraid. he says he's been assaulted. i say if i was you when i was assaulted there would have been no assualt. he says nothing. we get more beer and don julio. pissed off on vacation again.

i start to panic again when i realize it's already three o'clock and i have yet to feel the sun on my skin. i feel an urgency to experience everything as soon as possible before it goes away. this drives guy batty. he gets really uptight calling me stressed out. i explain maybe it's because i grew up in a town where everyone i knew got vacations like this, but not me, not ever. i have a lot to catch up on. he says, maybe. i'm afraid i won't ever get it again. he says, maybe.


that afternoon something extraordinary had happened. we find a way to purchase somas, marijuana and cocaine all at once. we spend $195, buy some chilean wine and go back to our room to party. i make guacamole with onions using the dish our handtowels came in, guy's leatherman and the backside of a hardcover book we find in the room. this is fun. this is a fun night. we are laughing and talking for hours. then guy loses the cocaine. can't find it. there was more. where is it. he has hidden it from himself. he says he's going for more. before i can protest, the door is slammed and he is gone.

and i am alone again in a foreign country with my husband out trying to score drugs. i feel we are stupid beyond belief. i take messed up pictures of the room while he's out.



snorkeling
these reefs were once called the most beautiful in the world by jacques cousteau. not anymore they're not. hurricane wilma ate them for lunch a few years back. we see two, three fish. it's cold. it's overcast. we don't snorkel for long at the hotel. we just end up drinking more tequila and eating more fajitas.



there are several "eco-parks" on cozumel. this is like for people who are not staying at a hotel and have accommodations at hand. more like for people who are camping or there for the day. the price again strikes me down. i have a heart attack. it's $30 each for us to snorkel in yet another wrecked reef and sit in yet the same lounge chairs and drink yet the same drinks. a total dud. what a waste. at least guy gets some good underwater shots of my crotch. funny how that's all he got besides a coupla stripey fish.





that night on our way back we decide to stop at the first place we see to get dinner. turns out to be Albertos. very low-fi feel to the place, very loud '70s rock playing. the restaurant is plastic chairs and table on sand and then water and that's it. guy checks with me, "can you take the rock music?" he knows how sensitive i am to music. i say i can because it's from my childhood KFRC days when i used to stay up until midnight when casey kasem announced the number one song (the only one i can remember is Bette Davis Eyes. not sure of year). we are seated and sated.

i go to use the toilet (don't throw toilet paper into toilet please! a sign reads)...
...and when i come out guy has already picked out dinner. "a whole crab and a whole lobster for $45!!" hmmm, i think. i hate messy eating. that sounds so messy. we call over the waiter. he shows us exactly what is being offered: three sizes of lobster tail. the first, the small one is what we see here in the stores for $30 a pound, being sold grilled here for $45. the second is really big and is marked at $90. the third, just like in the Three Little Pigs fairytale, is so massively gigantic, eating it would make your stomach explode. this one, he says, this one is for two. it's is $113 grilled. i tell guy, we can't buy this stuff. i can eat more fajitas. seriously. this is insane. he shuts me up. shh shh shh, don't worry. "we'll take the middle one" he tells the waiter and off he goes. i say, how can we afford a $90 piece of fish?? that freaks me out! we can't do that! he tells me he thought it was only $45. and not to worry. who cares? he says. relax. i know he's right, but i'm having a very hard time with the cost of everything. life is not about money. like my friend D. says, "You can always make more." i try to be zen. i accomplish this when the food hits my mouth. when food makes you close your eyes, it's something more than food. it's a trip to heaven. our eyes were closed again and again with every bite. the water washed up soft on the sand. no wind.