Saturday, November 23, 2013

my friends

Today I can't say enough about my friends.
Growing up homeschooled and super religious, I didn't really have friends. There were people around all the time but church people mostly. Super religious adults, many of them oddballs--anti-government nuts, Bible thumpers, misogynists, creeps. Some okay ones, but not many. My sisters were around. My parents. Our house was not the kind of place where people hung out. There were too many rules, too much judgment. One minute teen-age you was cooking dinner and the next your father was freaking out because the food you were cooking him burned and he had asthma and you ruined his dinner and he almost died from smoke inhalation. My sisters and I had each others' backs and we hung out a lot and probably saved each others lives--we truly did--but I didn't have friends in my life really, people who chose to like me and accepted my weirdness and teased me but loved me anyway.
Flash forward to now and I'm lucky enough to have friends, good friends, and lots of them.
I don't take that lightly. It's a treasure.
There's the couple who I've traveled the world with, gotten drunk and stony and giggly with, laughed through Manhattan and Miami and London and Seattle and Vancouver, who give me kisses and hugs and manhattans and lots of love.
There are quirky ones, the drunk poet who thrashes through life with an abandon that I envy; the intellectual artist who texts me the occasional sonnet; the dark-eyed bartender-painter-poet; the bohemian MC making a living in kitchens and onstage; the hunky charmer, making art and music in a basement studio on the hill.
There's my football friends, the short-short writer usually shaking off a hangover to talk writing and sports in a dark, noisy sports bar; the super fit pal with a colorful fashion sense and wry shoot-from-the-hip sense of humor and million dollar smile.
The traveler, a lovely bright-eye always down to drink whisky out on the town or split a bottle of wine over a quiet night in, pragmatic and prepared and a frequent angel.
There's my hipster cool friend, a photographer who knows the right drink and the coolest technology and loves nothing more than packing a house with all of us and her lovely partner for friendcation.
There's the fun-loving single mom, my girl, a tequila aficionado with a smile and a laugh that warms my heart as much as her cooking.
There's my bearded bear buddy, one of my favorite partners for a night of barhopping and heart to hearts over LIIT's and vintage pornos on a firelit deck.
There's the single dad pal who I went through the divorce wars with, who keeps me honest and chauffeurs me to trivia nights and the movies and sometimes just to the liquor store.
There's the wild-haired musician I met at a gay club with magical cooking skills and eyes like melted chocolate.
And so many more--I could go on for pages and --
I feel so lucky.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

strength in tumblrs

Good things of the week:
  • Live music! my homeskillets thad and kelly kicked off their west coast tour with a free weeknight show at Narwhal--with some fresh young MCs and some seasoned ones as well
  • And cool merch from Depandable Services (sweatshirts gimme!)
  • Catch up time with a fellow traveler and adventurer and more live music, this time free jazz courtesy of the Cornish jazz band
  • Me + laptop + stories = writing time
  • Drinks and smokes and laughs (laughs-->nonstop giggling) at Priscilla Queen of the Desert with dance music and sparkles and beautiful men and my lovely lovely J&J
Good things today:
  • Morning cuddles and hot coffee
  • A long run
  • Catch up time with a gorgeous and enigmatic barista friend
  • Me + laptop + stories = writing time
    • Including a trip down the internet wormhole. It's the equivalent of hanging out with your besties--feeling comforted and warm and hilarious and understood

Monday, November 11, 2013

sage

Dusty called his wife (and my gramma) Marge but she mostly goes by her official moniker, Marguerite.
This is a family for nicknames, so I have a soft spot for Marge.
They called me Lisi. My middle sis was Lynnie. (There's a trend here.) Our uncle Phil was Dugie.
My little sis I call Yula, a leftover from a long-ago Russian class.
We have nicknames for the younger members of our tribe, now: Jaymers and Baffank, Miss Thang, aka Hammy Smackbooty.
*
You remember the way the previous generation talks about you, and to you. Not much fazed Dusty. He'd survived being shot at on two continents during the Second World War, outlived two of his four kids and many of his siblings. That's the way she bounces, he'd say--not making light, I don't think, but cracking a window into his mindset: a faithful Catholic, but resigned to fate.
Over the weekend Marge told me she was living one day at a time. You just forget about yesterday and look forward to tomorrow, she said.
*
Yula and I carved pumpkins with Hammy and my man the week before halloween. A few days later, the hollowed-out squash had already started to list and sag, kind of like humans as life takes its toll. It's a ripening. A kind of progression.


Saturday, November 2, 2013

boy i didn't

Boy I didn't know last week's post so struggle would be so prescient.
Not the cat part. The struggle part.
So many people I love are hurting so much. Which means I hurt too.
I feel stretched past the limit, I feel empty, I feel drained.
There's little I can do. I just have to be.
*
I'll post some bathroom graffiti pix from the ladies room at the Streamline.
Words of semi-wisdom from girls on the pot.
*
And there is happy on the horizon. My man is in the 206 for what looks like awhile. It's scary and exciting and mystifying all at once. I want it to be good. I want to not fuck it up. I just want to live.