Not quite a brokeass hoe

I don't have much more to say in the closing hours of 2010.
I'm too tired for profundity, too relaxed for resolutions, too cautious to rejoice, too lucky to wish for much more.
Kwaheri to the old.
Mal sehen (but optimistically), to the new.

Frownie

Welp, I gave myself a pep talk today.
Don't worry, it wasn't of the "turn that frown upside down" variety.
I'm a contrarian. If someone says, Smile! I have to resist the urge to slap.
Anyway.
I found myself all mopey, fretting, worrying a certain line of thought like a loose button, and then out of nowhere I thought, You greedy beatch. Sure, Situation X is not working out as hoped, but.
But.
95% of life is pretty damn good.
So I reminded myself--audibly, yes, I talked to myself out loud, slogging along Madison in the rain--I said, You got to spend time yesterday with some of your favorite people in the world. Brunch with the fam. A drink and bartender therapy and ex-boyfriend gossip with a good pal. Collaboration time with two most-favored-nation-status people. And later, drinks and Rebar with a handsome, charming friend.
Now, how to keep that 5% in molehill status.

What do you believe

Someone said to me, I don't know who you are anymore.
Which is funny, because I feel more like myself than I have in awhile.
What's the difference between trying new things and knowing yourself well enough not to?
Am I who I say I am?
I am not sure.
Sometimes the narrative I tell myself is false, or fanciful. Or manipulative, skirting facts, omitting the ugly and true.
The lie detector might be a friend's change of expression. An underlying feeling of dis-ease.
Friday night, at a friend's house, a man demanded: where's your significant other?
I said, unoffended: I am my significant other.

Wack

This time of year people get a little wacky.
Bunches of my friends are busy buying stuff, sending cards, baking and cooking, sitting on santa's lap and making perfect moments.
Others are ignoring the holidays and simply going about their business, having Festivus parties and trying to wait the whole thing out at the local watering hole.
I don't know what makes sense, honestly, other than to keep on with I've been trying to do: doing the things I love, having fun, and letting the extra stuff sort itself out. I took this picture on a good night recently, roaming around Belltown on a frigid night with a friend, taking photos, drinking beer and having the time of our lives.

The scrum

This story online says that 3 of every 5 Seattle residents live alone. Which means there's a lotta single people in this town.
At The Lobby the other night, we sipped cocktails on the balcony and watched the scrum below. Beautiful people working the bar, talking and flirting. Two guys ostentatiously making out near the dj. A tall black girl cold-shouldering all comers in favor of a ginger-haired drag queen.
Living alone, and yet not. Crystal Castles called it, I think. For me, for now.

Sobering

Fear met me here a couple of days ago.

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I don't want to say too much more. Only that I'm okay.
I was scared. Am scared. But I proceed regardless.

Through a window, opaquely

It's just a ride.
I have to remind myself about a thousand times a day.
2010 has been intense.
By that I mean I have had amazement waltz into my life, cool happenstances that I couldn't have imagined a year ago--stories published, good times with new pals and old (feverish and creative, perking up at two a.m., launching art into the world like sure shots with paper airplanes), a month of travels too, boys who taste deliciously of smoke and whisky, giggly nieces, stalwart sisters, loud hot nights at Neumo's and Rebar, drizzly cocktail afternoons--all I can say is sometimes I can't believe it myself.
Then though, I soberly remember the lows, sad days strung together like withered garlands, aloneness, loneliness, wishing I meant more in the world to someone than anyone else in the world, knowing though that this is futile, a fool's quixotic longing.
It's just a ride, and we are all ultimately alone.
Magnificent and humbling truths.

Art Walk All Stars

Boy did I geek out last night at the Greenwood Art Walk.
There was a ridiculous number of cool young artists out and about and I got to meet a bunch of them:

• Solace (and here) -- rocked the coolest hair of the night; his painting "I Know You Are But What Am I?" is up on the wall at my place
• Narboo sweetly handed me a Priority Mail sticker with a bird on it
  
• Starheadboy gave me a fistful of stickers after I confessed like a blushing fanboy that I'd been taking pictures of them all year
• Xavier Lopez, Jr set up shop in the basement of a house on Phinney, mistook my friend for a dealer and filled us in on his obsession with teeth
  
• Henry!
• Mantisart paints on photographs
• And Matt Spinney, busy wrangling a very nice but drunk lady, whose glass buddhas and balinese masks are lovely
  

There's a follow-up shindig with more art, artists, music and TBD I guess, tonight on Phinney, peep this for details.

Ya don't stop

You know you've been in your head too much when even the sound of your own thoughts feels like knuckles on a cheese grater.
So, instead of my usual pseudo-intellectual musings and agonies, here are 2 pictures snapped at a bus stop on First Avenue South the other night, and, links to some of my favorite places on the internets:
* Dinosaur Comics
* Girl Talk (on MySpace, and his new dl on illegal-art)
* My girl Natalie's travel blog: Nat Nat Bo Bat
* Augie Pagan's art blog
* If you don't have an iPhone and therefore lack access to Angry Birds, play this game, it's almost as addictive
* Mmm yum
* Black Weirdo...these girls got it
* Last but not least -- pour yourself a martini, find a Forgotten Man, and watch this movie in totes

Fall down 7

I've resisted taking a photo of this chalked-up graffito near where I work. It's so corny!
But I couldn't stop thinking about it and the other day I finally snapped a picture.
*
Fall Down 7 Times Stand Up 8
*
Last night a friend--at 80 a sprightly, joyous raconteur--declared his motto for 2011: have more fun.
It seems like a worthy goal.

A rare treat

One of the things that attracted me to Zambia in October was the conditions. No electricity. No running water. Sleeping on concrete floors. Pit latrines.
I was curious how I'd do, because I'm kind of a wuss.

As it turns out, I was fine. Once you decide you're going to be okay, you are.
What I hadn't anticipated was the loveliness out there, the sense of being a part of something, of both remoteness and closeness.
Of the innate wildness of our planet.
Of the fraternity it's possible to find with near-strangers.

Kids from the village hung out with us by the campfire some nights. After most everyone had drifted off to bed, three in particular stuck around, singing in Losi and Bemba and English, drumming, dancing. It is a privilege to know such beautiful, open young spirits.

These are the three. Click here to listen.