ze flip

Whoa doggies whatta week.
Whiskey, good friends and Gaga Monday night and into Tuesday.
A day later, somber coffee with friend going through medical tests and fearing the outcome.
The next day, and the next, discovery of a deep malevolence at work.
Deep and enduring malevolence.
At my workplace.
I'm scared, for my job, my reputation.
Yesterday, I took steps, talked to the right people, did--so I was told--the right things. So now I talk, and wait, and try not to think too much.
Yesterday, I came home to a gift, a thank you letter for the essay I wrote last year, accompanied by a check.
It's been awhile since I could equate words with money.
It feels good!
It feels really good.

focus

Two weeks into the new year and I'm questioning what-the-hell it is I'm doing.
Or not doing.
I've done a lot of traveling, drinking, dancing, smoking, loving, laughing, and some crying.
(Hey, I'm a girl, I'm allowed.)
What I haven't done is a lot of writing.
This is where it gets dangerous, where I wake up and all of a sudden I'm seventy and saggy and frustrated and alone and asking myself how I fucked up life so bad.

 

belated

Happy new year errybody.
I welcomed 2013 with bubbly, a rowdy funk band and some late-nite drunk dialing.
And needless to say, a hangover.
But also with ideas, optimism, curiosity.
*
In yoga there are poses called heart-openers.
At first I was skeptical--so corny!
But it seems to me that there are worse things than an open heart, and sometimes the body can be the gateway to the mind.
So I guess here's to stretches and all that comes with.

zomg!

zomg! zomg! zomg!
I posted yesterday about being sick, what is up with THAT?
Pretty soon BusySmartyPants'll be all backaches and sniffles and bitching about meds.
Sorry y'all. I had a weak moment.
It shan't happen again.
*-*
So, what to talk about?
Erryday is a battle, can I just acknowledge that.
If it's a work day, it's a battle just to roll out of bed, put on running shoes, make the bus on time.
I don't start feeling human til 11am, aided by copious amounts of coffee and sullen staring at my computer monitor.
It's always a question of time. Enough time to write. Take a long walk. To talk to my man. Get something to eat. Work on my blog, send out stories, file rejections, edit, write, brainstorm, check Facebook and Gmail, think, cry maybe, maybe yell, listen to music, watch an old Southpark or a new Game of Thrones.
Enough time to see friends and the fam. To read a little. To warm a stool at the bar by my house.
To plan the next east African jaunt.
To dream a little, to think about my mom and Dusty and Dugie.
And then to not think.
Somehow in there, you have to live.

Two pix from my walk today, I'm loving the stencils.

can't shake it

I came down with the flu last week and still can't seem to shake it.
I lost whole days in a fog of Benadryl and Advil and cough syrup, achey and cold one minute, clammy with sweat the next. My drugstore thermometer registered 100.8, then 101.2. Seinfeld episodes played comfortingly on my laptop and I dreamed without remembering and when I was hungry, I closed the refrigerator door on beer and condiments and a nugget of dried-out cheese and bundled up to walk the five blocks to the market, tearfully wishing someone would bring me hot soup and hold me tight enough for the aches to go away.
Now I'm better, although a cold seems to be hanging on like that last drunk party guest that won't leave, talking too loudly and smelling of Jameson's and cigarettes.
*-*-*-*-*
Also, this, from the amazing Kelly just one year ago:

rhymes

Lucky me I got to see Blackalicious last week, a Sunday night show at Neumo's, not even close to sold out but plenty of happy hip hop fans. The openers were 1 for 2--I only caught a bit of Gran Rapids' set but they felt solid. Theoretics though--what the hell? Nerds in collared shirts and one semi-okay MC, the other white guy MC not even half as good as he thought he was, the bass cranked up so high our hair vibrated. "Office Space--the band," my friend texted me, equally bemused. "They remind me of Limp Bizkit," another friend said. It was like hip hop for people who don't like hip hop. In any case, soon Gift of Gab took the stage and we had no more complaints.

photograph the night sky

The challenge: take a picture of the African night sky, on a muggy, gin-fueled, mosquito-heavy night.
With tiny white crabs skittering across the pale sands.
With the moon an eclipsing sliver in the sky.
It was night two at the Beach Crab, a beach-front tent hotel near Pangani, Tanzania, where the surf was a constant crashing background, the beach and the sea mere steps from where we slept and ate.
You can't take a picture of the moon, someone said.