Today.

THE BAD NEWS IS--

Scary, smoky, unrelenting.... Armageddon style fires...



THE GOOD NEWS IS--

.. Them Crooked Vultures ..(josh homme, john paul jones, dave grohl? yes please)

"you've got the eyes of a stranger"

Abran tus ojos, por favor....."what's behind them?" she wondered...

"Sundays dont suck like they used to"

.....and now i almost love them. today was a particularly good one. had a great nights sleep and woke up early to work the farmers market where i was slanging gourmet mac and cheese like a profesh. granted, it was hot as balls and i was wearing jeans...but the afternoon dip in a pool in the hollywood hills and a heineken did the trick.. talked to my mom for about an hour... she is such an amazing woman and i admire her more and more each day. miss the shit out of her. i cried for a second at the office on friday because i was so fucking busy had so much to do and didnt want to fuck up...plus im a baby sometimes..but friday NIGHT made me forget all my troubles..

i went with an old friend to santa barbara for the night to celebrate the birthday of mr heth. good times, great oldies. and also a grand reminder of why i dont drink red bull and vodkas. example: sometime during the 5am dance party someone bit my arm and now i have a huge teeth mark on my bicep. it's still up for debate what caused the urge to bite. (was it the meth in the red bull that was served or are my awesome muscles really that irresistible?) what do they put it that shit i mean REALLY? anyway, it was just a beautiful drive on the way home.. and i appreciated every SECOND of the coast and the breeze and the music that was playing and the light and flowing thoughts that were in my head. my driving partner (in crime) gave me a bunch of new music. ill share a song that i enjoy..you might too.









Saturday was way mellow..Sly and Robbie played the sunset junction and i went up there to watch them with T. i tell ya, nothing makes me happier than swaying out to some good ole dub reggae. today in fact when i was driving (and surprise! sitting in traffic) i watched this old couple walk past the "jah lions and lambs" shop by my house...and i mean old like they had white hair and hunched over bodies old....the smooth and chucking reggae that was pulsing from the open doors proved too tempting to this couple as they grabbed each others hands, free as can be, and danced right there on the sidewalk with lovely smiles on their faces. it made me smile too.

it just my personal opinion that if friday entails red bull, biting, and dance parties, its only just and right that sunday should somehow involve mac and cheese, talking to mom, and listening to reggae...xo

"changing my name to Roar effective immediately"

oh. I'm sorry. do you know this dude? because i would gladly go into the pride with mr. salmoni if you know what i mean.




um..big cat trainer? (mee-oww)

"a working class hero is something to be.."

my 6:45pm purchase...don't be jealous...



Today i was busy as fuck at work. but i liked it...and i think i did a pretty good job!! i'm pretty stoked to be able to have a job where i can work hard, learn new things, and feel like i'm actually making a contribution to a production that involves more than getting someones non-fat latte or fucking salad with dressing on the side no onion add cucumber.. ya know? anyway, i skipped the gym today. i think your'e supposed to take a day off from working out, right?!?!?! plus i'm really sore from lifting weights (don't laugh asshole) on Sunday morning and from swinging on a stripper pole while waiting for the bathroom at a party on Sunday afternoon. Shit is harder than it looks!!!!!!!!

All is well in my world today. Everything is as it should be.

This Coors Original beer, "the banquet beer" if you will, is delicious and i will sleep like a baby tonight. Big day tomorrow!!!!

XOXOXO

"i joined a gym. im not kidding."

fitness is important.

"I ate ribs. Does that make me a hypocrite?"

enjoying life



oh Sat-uh-day. how do i love thee?

i woke up in the guest room at B and T's around 11... (last night was pretty chill over here but i stayed the night nonetheless....) a few of us moved a giant mirror from T's old place to her new one.....had a soy latte.. ya know, saturday shit...then i made a quick jaunt to TJ's for some BBQ supplies and met the gang back in Silverlake for a pow wow. was it too early to drink a beer? no! it's sat-uh-day and i do what i want. 5 of us prepared a wonderful lunch of ribs, chicken, salad, vegetables, and berries!!! keeping with the theme of doing what i want: i ate some ribs....for the first time in over ten years! i unwillingly have to admit that they were delicious!! (i do wish the badger was in attendance but she traveled north today for some fun with an old friend)




I think this has been mentioned previously, but this week/month marks my one year anniversary of moving from detroit to la... not only am i very happy and grateful to be here, but i am SO grateful for the group of friends i have out here. we really are our own family and i don't doubt for a second that we will all know each other for a very long time and will see each other through many amazing changes and events. everyone is napping now, sans me, who is listening to music and thinking about my life. (what else is new?)
Being single (unwedded, unattached, free, a bachelorette, partnerless, husbandless, separated, divorced, widowed, et al) only enhances the newness to my experience out here... and i have to say with all honesty: i don't mind it!!! In fact, it's something I'm really growing to appreciate in many ways. [all of my friends happen to be in relationships and we often joke that i serve as the (best) substitute boyfriend "when the men are away."]
I don't mind this time of solitude in my life because I know there is a lot to learn from it..I've been really lucky to have had the experience, more than once, of being madly and piercingly in l-o-v-e.

I understand all too well what it's like to love someone so much, so deeply, that it makes you sick..... to cherish and adore, to admire, to laugh, to be the only people on the earth that matter..sharing whispers late into the night, while gazing into another face..inches away...a love you can barely see in the subtle moonlight that seeps through your window.... i have known, too, the colder side of that coin where you learn what it is to agonize, to hurt, to be weak from that love..to be betrayed by that happiness, to hate that love...to ask if it was really anything true or real at all? or just a faraway figment of the imagination that cannot even be proven to have existed at all...




being sad sucks

I have spent nights aching for those memories, crying, worrying (uselessly) that i will never find these things again.... thinking that perhaps I already used up my chances at love when i was young......I've felt the quick pangs of hurt upon hearing that those i have once loved, and who once loved me, have moved on...who now love others more than they once loved me..enough to wish to spend the rest of their lives with one another, have children with one another. It's made me wonder: well, what the shit? what do I lack? do they laugh with each other more? love more deeply? have better sex? are they more willing to change for one another? be better people for each other?

(bjork told me "since we broke up, i'm using lipstick again")

now, i am learning...willingly, earnestly, what it is to be a-l-o-n-e. to discover that there are mass differences between being alone and being lonely. for now, i am SO grateful for the unconditional love from my friends..and for observing and delighting in the love they have for one another...
I'm almost positive that i will experience unconditional love from another again..fuck..i am probably the biggest romantic I've ever known. But for now, i love myself wholly, completely, and unabashedly.



I really do think eating meat is kinda sick..especially ribs. i mean, i haven't eaten eaten pork in YEARS partly out of principle and partly out of the fact that i said i wouldn't.

I don't think that by eating ribs today I am a hypocrite per se.....
I do, however, think that if I lost my faith in love I would be one for sure. Remember these things: that which once existed will somehow always exist, and if you are going to eat BBQ ribs, do so while listening to music and enjoying the company of your friends.

Hi. This is Nan Goldin

In Nan's collection called The Ballad of Sexual Dependency she portrays the paradox of alienation and loneliness in close and intimate relationships, the existence of aggression in tender moments, the power of sensuality, and how what we may emotionally crave often defies what we crave sexually.



Couple in Bed, 1977



The Hug, 1980




Rise and Monty Kissing, 1988



Heart-Shaped Bruise, 1980

Hot Salsa Recipe from a Hot Dude: a spicy little treat.

I recently came into the possession of an amazing recipe from a sexy man. Here's how it went down......

First he tells me:
"I've been trying to make the perfect salsa for 6 weeks. Tonight I spent 4 hours preparing, loving, and making the best batch of salsa of my life. 4 jars to be exact! It has made me so tired that now I am off to bed. Night!"


And so, now to you, my two friends who are reading this.
If you care, if you dare--
(this is verbatim ladies and gents from the master himself)

Grilled Roma tomatoes (20) olive oil and salt and pepper. Grilled Serrano peppers (30) olive oil salt and pepper. Grill until charred (basically black). Then. In a separate bowl, chop one whole red onion - two garlic cloves and a cup of cilantro. Juice a whole lime in bowl and mix. Let sit for ten minutes while juices get sexy. Then. Once you take the grilled tomatoes and peppers off the grill, mix all of the ingredients together. Do not blend in a blender. Use a fork and knife and give love to the mixing process. Let it be chunky. Then love it.

(He had a post script:)

To make it a wee bit spicier, for the adventurous folk, put Habanero peppers in the mix to kick it up a notch!!


Good luck dudes! Oh yea and I joined a gym today. I need a better hobby than coming home from work, making a salad, and getting drunk while listening to reggae and writing a blog that nobody reads. Just saying. Time to get back into shape kids......but I know, and we all know, you can take the girl out of the D but you can't take the ghetto D bootie off of the girl. Or something.

"you gotta want it"

I had the privilege of spending this past weekend with someone who has been a friend of mine for nearly 14 years. With a one way ticket to New Zealand, and a mind to see about a new life, he made his last stop in LA. Our time together really made me think about what it means to be brave (a common theme of mine you may say), about what kind of adventures are possible for us, and the possibilities of having an unconventional life. If you had the option to go anywhere in the whole world and live your life the best way you know how, where would you go? It can be a fun question to ask but what is actually interesting about it is that it doesnt have to be rhetorical.

I mean, essentially, we can do whatever the fuck we want with our lives. go anywhere. do anything. be anyone. all too often we forget this. we try not to but many times fall into the where-do-you-work-what-do-you-do thing. we find ourselves in the well-ive-been-dating-them-for-blank-amount-of-years-maybe-i-should-get-married mindset. and then its when are you buying a house? when are you having kids? or when are you having more? im not necessarily knocking getting married and having kids (yes i am) but i just think that we forget what else is out there for us because we take the path of least resistance.

I discussed many of these ideas with my old friend during our time together. the best way he could explain his plans and ideas for what was ahead of him was that he just wanted POSITIVE things for himself and his life...... more that he didn't want to live that conventional life. he only wanted to be able to say and know that he lived the best way he could and did everything he wanted to BECAUSE HE COULD.

"but how???" i asked. "you just gotta want it" he said.

i have often felt that money held me back. family held me back. the unknown/incomplete plan held me back. so i stayed tight...tried to be brave when i could.. made this move out here...and now i have learned: the jobs will be there, the money comes, i have not gone hungry, my family hasnt fallen apart without me, and i am so happy that i made a move. a few months ago my brother started to teach me to play chess. often i found myself staring at the board, over thinking shit, not making a move for like 5 minutes. frustrated, he would say MOVE! but i wanted to make the best move, to strategize....tried to remember where the pawns go.. the kings and queens.. what are thier boundaries? thier restrictions? i think now that the best thing to do when youre learning is to just move ...the strategy is a thing that you can figure out as you go.

I am so proud of my friend. I admire him immensly...watching him this weekend on the phone, making plans, saying "goodbyes", tying up loose ends, making purchases (the macbook pro was CHOICE!), reminiscing with him, BOOZING, laughing, appreciating, explaining...then there was the non-verbal communication... my obervations of the leg bouncing, the smoking, the thinking... the zoning out..the conversations we didnt have...driving, listening to music.( shit takes BALLS!!!!!) It's been some time since i felt like could really be there for someone in that way. although there have only been a handful of times over the past eight years that we have spent much time together, i will miss him even more now after being with him this weekend. as if no time had passed at all...like we were 13 again..in art class.. but i was now a woman and he now a man......

i admire him in many ways... and i will not forget that anything ANYTHING is possible here...."you just gotta want it."


shit i almost forgot. i heard a song this weekend during the packing and phone calls and the wetsuits and the macbooks and the MANY cigs.. these lyrics went in one year and didnt come out the other, they got stuck in my head and made me think that it had something to do with what was going on right in front of me:

When a girl that you knew
And the bonds that we grew
Turned into a ball and chain,
I step into the great unknown,
with a ball and chain I call my own...

(now, perhaps sublime's bradley nowell meant his own ball and chain was heroin. but for the purposes of our one-way conversation.....it should mean whatever the fuck we want it to)
Perhaps my friend's ball and chain is his need to move, to change, to challenge....maybe it's his immense desire to live an authentic life rather than a safe one. and i wish him nothing but luck and love as he steps into that great unknown...

"W-E-E-K-E-N-D"

Ever wonder what's around the bend for you?



...and now, to quote a phrase:

"Maybe we mistakenly think we want "happiness," which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience."

"not everything is gold because of glittering, tell dem fe clean dem soul from all di littering"

explore gender roles

but judge not




love and forgive

free yourself from yourself




wear sunscreen

"I'm Back! And I need WORK!"

I've just returned home from my new job. Week two has flown by.....and I am so grateful for it. I'm learning a lot, meeting new people, I have my own office..I'm happy. It's gotten me to think lately about how I got here...how I've bounced from one PA job to another since moving to California.. and about the jobs I had when I was growing up in Michigan.

You see, the month I turned 14 and 9 months, the legal age to work, my mom presented me with a work permit and the order, "Get to work." So I applied at the Hollywood Market right next to my street, and became the cutest grocery bagger that place had seen in years. I rocked my long sleeved denim shirt and khakis, complete with name tag, and spent the next year collecting bi-weekly, luxurious, $150 paychecks by gathering carts in the parking lot rain or shine and bagging people's meats separately from thier shampoo. The pervy eyes of my manager only started to really get on my nerves during my last weeks at the joint, and to this day I prefer packing my own groceries so I can tell the cashier that "this was my first job" like they give a shit.

I moved on to the glamorous position of "barista" when I worked at a coffee shop in the mall, staring down a line that went out the door and around the corner for 8 hours every shift. It was here that I first discovered the endless joy of coming into work hungover, and that people DO NOT fuck around when it comes to their coffee.

Then there was It's the Ritz. The cool boutique where you could listen to whatever music you wanted, wear what you felt like, gossip with your friends, and tell people that thier ass looks SO amazing in those $200 jeans that they really should invest in two pairs.

After college, I began working at Pronto, a flamingly gay establishment, known for it's terrible service and bomb ass Reubens, where I would spend the next four years laughing hysterically and crying freely. Waiting tables was never something I thought I would be decent at doing. I was too scared of carrying a tray, of fucking up orders, of having to wait on people that I knew......and I did all of these things...... I also nearly perfected my craft. Sometimes I wouldn't even count my money at the end of a shift. I knew whatever I walked with was not


enough to compensate for the stupid assholes I had to deal with, the retarded cooks that forgot to make my shit, and the bright purple polo shirt I was expected to wear with pride. But, alas, many jokes, many friends, and many double shifts later, I have fond memories of that place. Plus, it was attached to a bar, where the after work drinks would fill the void in your heart that was left behind from those people who paid their tab in quarters.......
I look back on those jobs and smile, I look forward with wonder, and I look to the present with gratitude..........

"I'm special (special), so special"

Some of us have what I like to call theme songs.Your theme song may blare from your speakers while you're driving home late from work, momentarily distracting you from the traffic, or wonderfully and unexpectedly from the jukebox in your favorite pub after you've had a few beers....they may completely change your mood altogether or allow you to sink deeper into whichever ocean of revelry (or reverie) you've been dipping your toes into. Music is generous this way.
I'm chuckling as I admit that my theme song is and has been for years The Pretenders "Brass in Pocket." As soon as it comes on it always seems to inject me with a rush of courage and nerve, makes me a little more brave, and when I recognize that this song does that to me, I laugh, and thus the whole thing comes right 'round again..because I am laughing and feeling pretty good about myself. This brings to mind the notion of confidence. This month, I will be able to say that I have under my belt one whole year of living/surviving in Los Angeles, and that confidence has been something that I have thought a lot about. How to get it... how to keep it. I have learned many times this year that confidence is an elusive little shit that comes and goes. You never really have it, more like you experience it... One day you can be on top of your game, feeling great, while the next day, it may have just, well, abandoned you, leaving you empty. How can that be?

I want to know where confidence comes from........ Perhaps this will allow me to reconcile the fact that it comes and goes.... that it's not something we get to keep just because we feel it so strongly from time to time..... What makes us feel confident? Does it come from approval in our friendships? New clothes? The advances of men? Being promoted in your job? Creating something beautiful? Being funny? Being smart? Does it come from inside ourselves or does it come from somewhere else? I know these answers vary.......For you, it may come from all of these things or none of them at all.... it may even come from music...from hearing a song that seems like it was written just for you........

I think the trick to it is knowing and understanding the ebb and flow in which confidence resides...know that like the seasons and the stars it will always come back to you if you let it come and go without so much worry or fight. Someone once told me that stress happens when the mind resists what is. Perhaps if we let confidence come and go as it pleases without trying to define it or measure it, then it won't venture out too far....

I feel confident when I know I have been brave. The funny thing is, I find it most difficult to recognize these times of bravery until long after the fact.... the benefits of bravery don't catch up with me until a good while later.....maybe that's why I am so grateful for this song as it gives me an instantaneous boost of confidence that I don't have to wait for.

Pretenders - Brass in pocket
by manon42

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