should I (did I)

Reflecting on the year that's almost completed.
I know who I am and that's mostly good.
I have an idea of who I could be.
Of what I could do. It will take a lot of work to get there.
Some loneliness. Some lone-time-ness.
I hope to accept the scariness of what I'm about to embark on and do it anyway.
More soon. Today, I'm reflecting.

elise navidad

My gift to you--a couple of snaps from the local Kidd Valley. Those vinyl seats are so pretty!

in other news

It's Saturday! Man do I love weekends. Sleeping in, some cuddles, hot java, a run through cool mist to do some writing. I stopped in at ETG for coffee and said good morning to my barista buddies. To their credit it was solidly past noon and yet they did not blink, they just said morning and hooked me up with the uzhe, drip coffee, boiled egg, cinnamon roll. Hell yeah.
Some funnies here.
And just when I despair over fb, cool friends share the headsup on a couple of new to me bands: Disclosure and GRiZ.

sie haben miteinander etwas zu tun oder...?

words from the ladies'

Words of wisdom from the ladies room at Rebar.

recipe

Don't think I've said much about my grampa Bill. He was a tough old guy, worked on oil rigs in western Kansas most of his life and gardened and cooked in his spare time. The man had a way with candy--the holidays were a glutten fest of fudge, divinity, peanut brittle, and his fruitcake. A little fruitcake goes a long way, but I dug up the recipe the other day and with some customization--candied citrus from DeLaurenti and a splash of rum--I think it'll be delicious. Also, the recipe card is spotted with batter and was handwritten by my Mom, which makes it extra special. Miss you Momash.

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.

seems like

Seems like this could apply to writing too:
http://chesireclam.tumblr.com/post/67316204630/stridersknowbest-geisttotend-no-but

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.

i am here for me

WHAT a tough week.
!!
I'm shouting, I know. It's been a shouty kind of week.
Each night I fell into bed feeling sore, like I had the flu and had also maybe fallen out the back of a speeding truck.
Each morning I woke before my alarm, only to drift off just before it jangled, fumbling for my phone and greeting the day with Noooooooo.

Life is hard for my fam right now, both sisters fighting ongoing aggressors.They are tough and I am tough and together we are tough but it's still a fight.
*
It's hard for me to confide in non-family people. If they don't listen, I feel bad. If they listen and forget, I feel bad. Easier just to feel bad and keep it all to myself.
(Note, I didn't say better--just, easier.)
*
In any case, there is much to feel optimistic about.
I'm writing. I made some good edits to a story I hope will finally get a yes somewhere.
I saw some good people this week. I made some new friends.
I did good work.
I hung out with my sisters and with my favorite 11-year-old.
My ink is healing.
Yes.

who can tell me what I really want

updates

So here's what's up:

• gettin new ink Sunday, by Ashley--Kansas and family themed, it's gonna be super cool.
• had some insanely fun nights out with friends the past couple of weeks--bocce and beer at a bro bar with a hard-drinking visitor from out of state, an ill-advised Dickel-and-a-pickle at Montana, a one-on-one downtown happy hour catch up sesh with a real pal. Summer's nearly over but the fun keep coming.
• whatshouldwecallme might be the funniest tumblr ever. EVER.
• reading some excellent writers is making me re-think some stories--I'm looking at you John Jeremiah Sullivan, DFW, George Saunders.
• also, peep this.

wear the white shirt

A guy once yelled at me to start living in the now. He wanted to date and I didn't, because he was kind of creepy and honestly, I had a thing for a guy who lived on the opposite coast. The yeller got deleted from my phone while Mr. G.U. (geographically undesirable) did not. But, the thought stuck with me.
*
I adore white shirts, and have at least a half dozen in my closet. A couple of crisp white t-shirts. A polo with silver buttons. A long-sleeved white tee, great for layering.
And yet I haven't worn any of them in close to a year.
It's weird: I think about it, I want to, I try to, and yet I can't.
I don't want to get them dirty. Don't want to dribble spaghetti sauce on one or accidentally draw a jagged blue line on one with a ballpoint pen (don't laugh, I did this to some pants just a couple of days ago).
It's just--I can't bear to soil a white shirt. Too many wears-and-washes and the pits begin to yellow, the white fades, the shirt gets dingy and tired. Instead of enjoying my white shirts, the pillowy white against my fading summer tan, instead of rocking one with fresh jeans or this super tailored khaki skirt--instead they ride around in my dresser drawer, folded Gap-neat, while the lesser shirts, the ones with forgiving stripes or a frayed hem get all the action.
*
I hold back, I know this. I wait too long, I linger, I give things--people--circumstances--just a bit longer, perhaps too long. I don't go out in case someone calls. I punt on making plans hoping this elusive person I really want to hang out with gets back to me. I save my best writing for the next story.
Wear the white shirt, I tell myself.
Put yourself out there. Try. Fall. Try again. Wear it.

jaunt

Seattle is not a big city, let's just get that out of the way.
620K of us live in the metro area; with about 2 million dwelling in King County.
I mean, Brooklyn alone has over 2 million people. We're a borough. A village. An outpost.
I heart Seattle, though. I had some errands to run on this misty Saturday morning, had to get to the U District by eleven for an appointment, so I laced up my New Balance, hoping an hour-long run through Queen Anne and Fremont would take my mind off my hangover-churning gut.
I walked up QA hill and dropped a coat off at Blue Sky--it's weird still to go into a green dry cleaners, you  brace yourself for that blast of hot chemical smell and there isn't any!--then started my run.
I ran past a diner, past the usual hungry brunch crowd standing around outside.
I passed a cafe, smelled coffee, heard the blast of an espresso machine and snippets of conversation.
I passed a car where an exasperated dad was trying to get his daughter buckled in, trying to explain that her drink wouldn't fit in the cup holder.
Crossing the Fremont bridge, the air over the water turned colder and wetter. I took some extra breaths, filling my lungs with oceany air. I took the 41st St footbridge over Aurora, looked at the Seattle skyline, half-shrouded in mist. Then through Wallingford--more coffee shops, a bleary-eyed mom texting outside the tae kwan do studio. On 45th, traffic was stopped for construction (it feels so good to run past stopped cars). I smelled corn tortillas at the Mexican place I still haven't tried. An older woman sat at a high table and dribbled hot sauce on a taco.
In the U District I avoided the Ave (it seems to always smell of puke and exhaust now), did my errand, joked around with a friendly salesguy, then got myself to Lucky's for veggie pho, hangover remedy extraordinaire--hot noodle soup with plenty of jalapenos, basil and sriracha makes everything right.
Then, finally, missions completed, I could stop in with my thermos at etg for java, friendly faces, and neighborhood gossip (Rebar, an errant barista). Now, at rest, with coffee, Wesley Holmes and a story that needs work.

me sometimes

KIDMOGR∆PH

not right

Man it's been Rejection City around here. I'm over it.
Seven in the past month. 7!
That is not right.
Not right. At all.
*
Funny how that phrase flexes to do a lot of work:
The way he treats her, it's not right.
That kid is not right in the head.
Sorry, not right now.
Thanks, but your piece is not right for us. 
*
Anyway all this rejection is incorrect. It dejects me. It makes me try harder. It gives me sleepless nights.
I awoke the other night for quite awhile, thought about this story I'm working on. What is it about? What are my characters trying to do? I had a realization: the thread of the story. I've been yawning all day but now I'm ready to write, to apply my insomniac insight and see what happens.

i walk i see i take

Pictures from Eastlake Avenue.

glama-vid

Video goofs with the glamazons last weekend checking out Georgetown--director's credit to Jilzilla.
(Best viewed in Chrome as Firefox is being a p00p.)

chloé

So my sis lent me the latest Vanity Fair and as I leafed through the ads--usually a source of enormous pleasure for me--instead, this time, I got angry. Page after page of supercilious looking models with perfect skin and posture, staring calculatedly yet blankly from the page. So posed, so lacking energy and motion and emotion. The opposite of style. Except--for Chloé. I snooped around online today and saw a pattern in the Chloé advertisements, two girls usually, thoroughbreds on the run, having improbably good times with their thousand dollar handbags. But, still, they made me believe.

brave heart

My aunt unearthed a treasure this summer: Dusty's World War II diary. He recorded his days in pen and ink over several years of fighting in north Africa and Italy, tiny cramped entries, sometimes terse--no change, no mail--sometimes a page-long eloquent consideration, about feeling sorry for a dead German lying on the side of an Italian road (American soldiers were forbidden to touch dead bodies for fear of booby traps) or his delight at seeing the magnificence of Rome. He was honest about his fears, wishing he wasn't quite so close to the front but at the same time proud to be a part of the war effort and history. I've been transcribing the journal and posting online for the family to read and what a gift it is. What a treasure! Dusty in his own words--scared, dirty, hard-working, protective, marveling, and pining for Marge back at home.
*
This by xTx, on anonymity and honesty. And this, about creativity and failure.

for the record

I've probably said this before: I don't believe in love.
Nope. I don't. Not for me, not the romantic kind.
I've tried, believe me, and each time it fails, I find myself a little less willing to try again.
Maybe my picker is bad. The ones I love never quite love me back. They hold back. They're too damaged or busy or whatever.
The ones who truly love me--those I keep strictly in the friend zone, and that's messed up, I know. But it ain't changing.
*
This isn't to say I don't believe in love from my family, my friends, the strivers and creators and the crazies. That's a fierce love, bred and earned and sometimes stretched to its limits. I guess maybe that'll have to be enough.

better left unsaid

Some texts are better left unsent. This one, from a bleary-eyed night at Seatac, my red-eye to JFK delayed by at least an hour, killing time at Africa Bar with a Serengeti Wheat (the big one) and a couple of crazy fellow travelers. You're welcome, sis.

bajaji

Traveling and thinking of friends on the road even farther from home, visiting Kisasa minus Oeuzy this time. This picture is from a bajaj in gridlocked traffic in Dar es Salaam.

from whence

I was reading George Saunders' GQ article about his visit to Dubai and realized with a start--this is where the Busysmartypants motto came from: "Just before I doze off, I counsel myself grandiosely: Fuck concepts. Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen."
*
CHBP was a blast: three days of friends, music, beer, sun, treats--could I ask for more? Probably. But tonight I'm feeling grateful: Purity Ring delighted, TacocaT rocked hard, and on the last night, I danced til I was sweaty and breathless to Latyrx.
*
Last week my pals at bIGTiME threw an album release party. It was a bumping night, I hugged them all and even managed to get down, a little. (Quote of the night, when Ms Kelly Castle Scott hit the stage in her zebra stripe jumpsuit: "now THAT is a onesie.") I'm so proud of these kids! And last week some of my besties up and got married, a low-key affair in their backyard, presided over by a neighbor-slash-judge, toasted with bubbly and a special pinot noir and a bubbly pot of cheesy ziti. 36 hours later I joined the newlyweds in Vancouver for fireworks and Pride, drinking margaritas and sleeping in on Sunday and enjoying a late breakast, loving another weekend of friends and le party.

affirmative

Loving this.
I owe you more words, maybe tomorrow.

drip tag

So it seems this is a tag, it's the 2nd set of carefully articulated drips I've noticed in LQA (see last week's post).

groovradio

Here's a super sweet summer jam from Port Angeles-based dj ShmeeJay:

drips

Post-Kansas and I'm still feeling a little lost. It's been a busy summer and yet a lonely one (and I guess there's no rule that says those two adjectives are mutually exclusive). This past week in particular started real-ly and metaphorically awful and continued down an implosive spiral. If ever I needed my friends, this was the week. And mostly they were absent--traveling, busy, gone.
There was a memorial service for a lady I knew once; a few minutes in, I remembered with a pang like a sucker punch the poisonously pitying stares of church people, the knowing, prying eyes, the behind-the-hand whispered updates from the choir. I popped a pill (thanks Sid) but I can still feel those eyes, like a thousand little stabs. A day later I was out for an early jog before work, dazedly putting one foot in front of the other; near Seattle Center I tripped and ate pavement, ripping big patches from my knee and elbow. I ran home, hot and shaken, blood streaming down my leg. The week passed in a hot, tired haze. I tried to socialize, I did try. I drank beer and ate nachos and attempted to sparkle. By Friday I was on the phone with my shrink. Hearing her say you are in a dark place was less of a relief than a relative assuaging of pressure, like unkinking a hose and then whipping it against the side of the house. 
It got better, slowly; I enjoyed a Friday night with an allied soul, drinking and confiding and ending our night at Pony with booze, beautiful boys, beats. Yesterday, backyard margaritas with dear friends, navigating their own hellish few weeks. We found solace in trading painful stories, finding laughs, and jointly supporting a fragile soul just out of Harborview and trying for a place of peace and health.

The photos are paint drips on the backside of a parking garage on Roy Street.

pnw jellifish

At Crescent Beach on a silvery foggy morning, watching a jellyfish make its way towards the sea. Video by busysmartypants, beats by Nutritious Intention.
(*note: we've been tinkering with things, updated!)

ugly on the inside

Twice this week I've had to deal with ugliness from strangers. A good friend had to also. A diabetic panhandler called me a "fucking prostitute" for not giving her any money. A creepy old guy stared at me on the bus and followed me around the Burien Transit Center until I told him to step off. He whined he hadn't done anything and then proceeded to sit in the front of the bus we both boarded and stare at me.
My friend was happily walking near GreenLake sporting a newly-shaven head and a cool dress when a db of a guy screamed bravely from his car, "nice haircut faggot." I want to believe in good, in humanity, in selam ana fikir, but sometimes I struggle. I know people are dealing with rage and miswired brains and plain old badness.
A friend studying criminology said she was taught there are 3 reasons for crime: bad, mad or sad.
*
This picture is from Crescent Beach, on a very not-bad day spent beachcombing with my man. He was only in town for a few days but we saw friends and family, drank and danced and had homemade tater tots and my pizza and grilled zucchini and sausages and beans over a roaring fire and later tried to crack each other up with the best rip.

the farm

After a week with the fam in the 785 I feel more connected and less sure of myself.
I hang out with my cousins and aunts and uncles and little cuz's and my nearly-92-year-old gramma and I recognize kinship, in their eyes--the dark ones especially--in the backs of their hands, their laughs, a particular way of pronouncing t's.
Then I see how much like my sister my little niece is, how that even though they aren't blood-kin they most certainly share chromosomal attitude.
*
This picture is from my gramma's farm, somewhere off Highway 40, near Fairport, nearly 100 acres of mostly wheat fields. On a 90+ degree day my sis and cousin and I wandered around, looking at bits of decayed limestone foundation and surveying the endless sky.

gift

A friend-artist-actor-drinking buddy-poet-provocateur made a delivery today.

Art, for me, 5x4 and so hefty we needed a Zipcar to haul it, so weighty I can't tear my eyes away from it.

The gift is the idea, the dream, the paint and splinters and varnish, the work.

no no no nooooo

nein

yes please

Listen up, gents.
I've been noticing a lot of y'all sporting jeans shorts similar to whats on the left. Long, loose, dark denim shorts, drifting past the knee in some cases, shirt tucked in (sometimes a polo, and sometimes belted), along with flip-flops circa 1997.
This is what I have to say about all of this.
NO.
No no no no no no.
Make it stop. Please.
And take a hint from the guy on the right. Those are some pants I'd like to get into.

finally

I bought a new thermos for my writing space. On weekend days, when I'm settling in for a few hours, when I have the time to out-wait every single one of my stalling techniques--checking e-mail and fb, scanning a few favorite blogs, making lists, drawing pictures, staring at the ceiling or phrases from last year's Super Bowl Mad-Libs script pinned up on my corkboard ("chapped nipples")--finally I can settle down, pour a cup of coffee and write.
Today I got word of honorable mention in a writing contest. I want more--I want print--but it's a nice pat on the back. Yay me.
*
This amazing graffiti is an alley at University and 47th.

photobooth

A seductive shot from Chop Suey the other night.

whats not

I'm dragging a bit today, went for a long sunny walk after work Friday, ran into my pal Thad and we walked and talked all the way to Capitol Hill, catching up on life, rhymes, shows. What a nice way to end a workday and begin the weekend. I met some besties at a new-ish diner for tots and cocktails, then took the pre-game over to Lobby for drinks overlooking busy Pike Street, then finally to Chop Suey where Glitterbang opened (solid portland duo) followed by one of my fave bands Dont Talk to the Cops. They still got it, we danced and goofed around in a photo booth and called it a night mid-way through the main act.
This video makes me happy: DTTTC + b-boys! what's not to love.

phraseology

Scenes from a weekend: I rented a car after work Thursday and caught a ferry to the coast. Friday morning picked up an electric lawnmower at Sears and drove through a sudden downpour out to Ram Hill. I had big plans to work outside all day but using an electric mower in the rain didn't seem like a great idea. The sun returned and by then I had assembled the mower--a super easy snap-n-tighten task thanks to Remington--plugged it in and I was mowing.
Call me melodramatic but it hurts me to cut grass, especially this grass, knee-high and lush and billowy and deeply green, dotted with daisies and some dandelions and wildflowers. But, in the interest of crowd control I flipped the lever to the highest setting and mowed away. I pulled weeds, swept the patio, used the push mower on the driveway, cleared branches, and when I was done, the air smelled rich and sweet, and didn't have that heavy petroleum tinge a gas mower leaves behind, fart-like.
I built a fire Friday evening, sat on the patio with beer and snacks and read and looked up at the sky, listened to the wind in the trees and birds chattering and wet wood crackling.
*
Yesterday was a friend's birthday and a bunch of us gathered at her place to celebrate with tacos and a pinata stuffed with candy and lil nippers. Later I had long island iced teas at sunset on the deck at Pony with a charming friend. When I mentioned how sexy his confidence was, he lowered his sunglasses and said, well thank you but is anyone confident? we're all faking it, right? I had to agree. The night ended with whiskey at another friend's, and a belligerent guy ranting at a Ballard bus stop at 1 a.m., screaming about Africa and injustice until a vet, just back from Afghanistan, regulated.

hbd Sid

Birthday happies to my little sis today.
She has a lot of nicknames--Yula, Sid, Binky Bear--and wears a lot of hats: mom, wife, Senior HR Vice Directorial Professional, co-conspirator, sister, friend.
The past year was an ass of a year, and saying this for a family on close terms with all the baddies (death, abandonment, betrayal, you get me right?)--well, that's saying a lot.
Kind of like saying the ocean is deep or Johnny Depp is hot (hott--hawttt!).
Anyway.
My sis has come through the year with grace, endurance, tenacity, and her signature dry wit. The forecast for the upcoming year still ain't so great but I'm holding out hope and wishing her peace, love and happies.

doomed

How many times have I danced to this song and never peeped the video before today?


Reading this GQ article, however, makes me hate this dj kid a little.
Not as much as reading *this* GQ article made me hate *this* guy.
A snowboarder friend and I were e-mailing about Dubai today, and when I sent him the link to Ski Dubai (d00d wtf?!), he said he thought we were doomed as a civilization.
Word.

j'arrive

All this travel finally caught up with me. I didn't make it out of bed until noon today, and 2 hours (and 2 cups of coffee) later I'm still dragging.
Even though it was relatively easy travel, good flights, a comfy bus, excellent company, sufficient sleep--maybe the miles add up, physically, psychologically?
Over the past 20 days: Seattle-->New York-->Dubai-->Addis Ababa-->Debre Birhan-->Addis Ababa-->Dubai-->New York-->Seattle-->Vancouver-->Seattle
Today: Seattle
But, I'm already thinking about the next trip (look out Hays America).
And the one after that.

flying the coop

Its my last day in the USA for about 10 days. Today I'm hanging out in one of the most expensive cities in America (holla NYC) where some people spend more in a month on pet food than others make in a year. I'll arrive a day later in one of the poorest places in the world (wassup Addis Ababa).

Its gonna be a fun trip. I get to meet/work with 11 new friends, build houses and hang out with east Africans. Also, I'm ready to fly the coop for a few days. Between work, readings, family, and love-life drama, its been a pressure cooker of a year.

*

So whatsup with nyc flakesters? I got blown off 3x in the past 2 days, a record even for me. Eff-why-eye, the ol' "dude I'm sick" is getting tired. If you don't wanna hang out, say you don't wanna hang out. Kay? Kk.

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See y'all on the flip!

c gulls

Last week I was walking across the University Bridge and saw a pair of seagulls. Fat-breasted with crisp white and gray feathers, they perched on the bridge railing and watched me approach in that sideways, flat-eyed bird way. When I got too close they flapped off. I watched them swoop low and land on a dock below. They watched me continue across the bridge; one flew off, then the other, circling and diving, as though sending me a message: I'm keeping an eye on you. One landed in the water. The other continued to circle, arcing away from his pal and then hurtling back to stick a landing not far away, barely rippling the surface of the cut. The pair swam together, paused, swam some more. Another pair of gulls flapped in, landed, swam close. For a minute I thought the four would swim on together, a convention of waterfowl, but they didn't, they remained two distinct pairs. My gulls--my birds--swam on in front, together, under the bridge, keeping a watchful eye for on-comers. I was swiftly forgotten.

ratburger...aka I heart chobopop

These kids are the cool:
flickr
Fb
etc

sweetbeets

Peep these laid-back beats: Bru Sky, a lazy, sun-glazed afternoon on a reggae beach:

pirate train

Snaps from the R train last week.