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
• Followed by closing-down-the-bar manhattans and martinis on the hill

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

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.

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.

so struggle

winduhs

I'm pretty sure my gramma Marguerite says "winduh." As in, look out the winduh. There's something so comforting about listening to her talk. A plain-spoken woman of the Plains. She's nearly my last close tie to my Mom, and she's been my confidant since I was little.
"Uh-leeze, let me tell you something" precedes a nugget of advice.
If she's tasted something delicious, she'll let out a "whoo-eeee was that ever good."
She insisted on calling the daffodils at my mom's house jonquils.
*
I took pictures along Fremont Avenue tonight of some windows. Some winduhs. A cold fall dusk-into-twilight yielded shots that caught my eye.

holy holy

In show news: I saw Holy Ghost! at Neumo's this week. I ran into them a couple of years ago when they opened for Chromeo, and happily danced myself into a sweaty mess once again. I'm a sucker for any band that can get sludgy Seattle blood flowing and hips shaking. The show was no slouch, with about six keyboards onstage and plenty of eye candy. I should also mention Midnight Magic, the sultry opener--it was a sweet electro disco treat of a night. And big ups to my pal thad wenatchee, who showcased some fresh beats at the Josephine a week ago, and has more shows coming up this fall.

the view

The rejections continue to roll in. It's vexing. I need--what? More time, more energy, more creativity?
More something.
*
Have I mentioned yoga before? I try to get to a class once a week, try to do some on my own, with videos that don't make me want to throw my laptop out the window. My fave right now is this delightful lady. She starts each practice with, "Namaste, beautiful yogis."
I dunno about the medical evidence for yoga but it feels good to stretch, to work within what I can do, to breathe deep and open up and lean into the pain.
That said--I'm not a fan of yoga people.
What--who--are yoga people?
I have this idea that they are ascetically snobbish, bending their knees behind their heads and looking down on the rest of us in our tight, constricted little lives.
*
A good friend recently returned from a trip overseas building houses. She told me about hating to return to her sterile life and I realized the smugness has set in with me again.
My view on life needs adjusting.
I need to adjust my view on life.