this · side · of · a · miracle

went up to predawn with menyui. it was the first time we've road-tripped together and it went pretty well. she gets more than her fill of driving for work so i was the captain there and back, which was fantastic. it's so much easier to do an extended trip when i'm driving, i think because the passenger role just leaves me with less to do and we all know how fidgety i am. (oh, you didn't know? i'm queen fidget, nice to meet you.) i even got to hear menyui talk a little smack for maybe the first time ever.

though small by design, the turnout for the party ended up being less than half-capacity, which was fantastic. it was a feeling similar to some campouts i attended back in ye day. super-intimate and mellow but with some thoughtful touches (sanitation stations outside of the restrooms, a dancefloor altar, scads of tapestries hung from the trees) that really made the whole thing sweet on a level that i don't often see at campouts any more. spent most of saturday chilling on the river, being entertained by how funny my friends are. saw some folks that i haven't seen in a while like melody and sati who are just back from two months in canada and jesse who is as warm and heart-open as ever. i also got to bro down with some kids i don't see that often like paul, donner and brad.

drank some keg beer, played some scrabble ("juniper" for 45 points, what-what!) enjoyed a luscious communal meal, passed some bourbon, hatched some schemes (Testosterone Fest august 21st, stay tuned) read a scrappy but lovable skate mag, slept in a huge tent (on loan from the g's) and just generally had a wonderful time. lots of sexualized unicorns cropped up, i'm not going to ruminate too deeply on that point, but i felt it was worth mentioning. thought i'd do some star-gazing but i wound up not being awake that much after dark. big props to everyone who put that party together, it was a beautiful experience i'll cherish.

since i'm listening to it right now, i want to take a second to recommend the Straight From The Crate podcast. while most of my serial downloads are of the talking variety (lots of comedy and a little bit of journalism) this one's primarily good tunes with some peripheral comedy thrown in. SFTC is hosted by my buddy Rex and another dude (who's name escapes me.) every show has a different theme on which their track selection is based. their episodes are numbered backwards from five hundred, so i don't know if that means we can expect that many but it's a really fun presentation in the classic college radio style.

what else is going on? hmm . . .

i came home to find that i do in fact have a phone interview with edd, so i suppose the unemployment isn't a done deal just yet but i'm choosing to believe that it's only going to amount to a formality. the questions mostly focus on whether or not i was warned that i might be dismissed and of course the answer is "not even a little."

i'm more than halfway through "The Botany of Desire." not very into Pollan's writing style, but he can get a point across effectively. still pondering a new career, but it's all just sort of to serve as a stop-gap until someone starts paying me to write. i'm about to embark on the bizarre task of shopping for a human being (for counseling.) my neighbor totally bricked on watering the seeds while i was gone, so i'm crossing my fingers for the little plant embryos and hoping some of the little guys pull through. i retained some of the seeds in each packet, so even in the event that none of the ones on the back deck sprout, i've got a second go locked and loaded.

this will probably be the last post i put up here for a while because i'm going to be squirreling away content for my website which is set to premiere As Soon As I'm Finished With It! isn't that exciting? i think so too. make sure you tell all of your friends about it, especially the rich ones who like to laugh. i'll never forget you guys, though. i love each and every one of your little eyeballs and comments and wisecracks and advice and support during my many emotional breakdowns. you guys are absolutely the best. give yourself a hug for me. go ahead, i'll wait . . .

i had a little caffeine fling which led to me spending over eight hours decorating the emiliabode. i've got a stop-gap desk and a charming little seventies-style swivel chair so i can actually do some work in the room that is looking more like a studio all the time.

regained admittance into my flickr account and was finally able to post photos from my new camera. i've also cut my work hours dramatically and now only have one job. the plan was to use the free time to do more writing but i spent more time smoking weed instead. in fact, a large part of the reason i'm writing this now is because today i finally ran out. i don't understand it. if i have one bowl's worth of pot i can make it last for a week but if i have any more than that on hand? within a few days i'm stoned pretty much all the time.

the time wasn't misspent though, i would say. i mean, it was an effective way of putting off going to the gym or writing, it fueled a lot of creative brainstorming and processing some emotional issues that have been coming up in my shuffling through old memories.

wait, i didn't even tell you about that, did i? well, i'm finally at an age where i can review the fucked up events of my life from age - i don't know - ten? to sixteen without reliving them. it's fascinating to sort of pick at those scabs and take a closer look at how some of those events shaped me. oh, so much shame and humiliation! i cringe for the younger me.

back to the present, though. i'm digging on my new workspace where i'm spending most of my day. i've also started waiting impatiently for the sun to come out every day so i can bring a book out to the backyard. getting at least 30 minutes of sun every day has helped bring out the color in my arms shoulders and legs. i put up a 30-days-out goal list and got to everything on it. definitely going to do that again.

i've read the lesley arfin book, the novel "snuff" by chuck palahniuk, carrie fisher's memoir and "b is for beer" by tom robbins. i'm also working through "botany of desire" and several periodicals. have you seen the rolling stone commemorative michael jackson issue? it's spectacular. no ads and page after page of breath-taking photographs.

i love how this has become the summer of michael jackson. chances are if you live in an urban area like i do, you've experienced the outpouring of love for his entire body of work. every car in the 'hood with a system has been bumping mj all the time, every day, for weeks now - gorgeous. it's a befitting tribute for such an amazing body of work and it hasn't stopped yet.

some of the latest flickr photos:

self portrait from 7.12.09

from the Academy of Sciences photo safari.

dom, dan and goolie at jetkat's 40th birthday party

In many ways I have been waiting for this e-mail since I met you, because the dual nature of your personality makes this conflict inevitable. Yes, you are someone that values her own time and wants freedom to follow her own passions, but you are also someone who loves people and is genuinely fascinated by the human experience. You are not you without your desire to get involved with the people you meet. Really invovled. But that coupled with a fear of being hurt, betrayed, means that the soft underbelly is the last to be seen.

i grew up in a horrorshow, okay? it was really, really bad and no matter what i tried to do to get away from it, things just got worse. there was a period of about a year after i moved in with my dad and stepmother where everything was looking up but then my kid brother moved in and life got about as dark and mean as life can get. i mention this to illustrate the fact that i've been building up my defense for a long time. there's really only one and it's what most people call "the wall." if i don't know you or if you've shown me you're a person that can't be taken at your word, you're on the outside looking in. i can demonstrate love and compassion for you, but you'll never get into what really makes me tick, my secrets or my dreams. i've been this way for so long i don't know how to be any different.

Smart people that get hurt young get tough in a hurry. But that doesn't mean we don't have that same desire for closeness....we were just never taught how to express it.

anyway, i got another email from a friend today that described me as "vile" and "verbally abusive," but didn't really give me any more to go on. while many of my friendships have grown tighter in the last year, these were the reasons given for this one falling apart. i felt unsteady and wondered if this has been a common perception or if it's just this isolated catastrophy our relationship has become. i left an open invitation to talk about it and at this point that's the extent of what i'm willing to do. i don't think i can afford to put my own process on hold to try and mine the wreckage that was only brought to light after i flipped all my cards and asked "what's really going on here?"

this post has no ending.

well, apparently just that fleeting memory was enough to dredge it all up again. last night i had a dream about getting seated with three tables at the same time. some restaurant that doesn't really exist. rocky and leah were at one table and chaya and randy were at another. everyone had orders that involved meat temps and other little details and it was as if my character in the dream was trying to play fifty-two pickup. no bueno. fortunately i floated up towards consciousness before i had to go back and eat crow tableside. um, i'm really sorry but all that time we spent going over the details of what you'd like and how you'd like it prepared? yeah, we're gonna have to do that all again . . .