hmmm... huuummmmm.....
Pistachios are a great thing to have in a large bowl.
When you want music you can't go rummaging in more than one place... unless you separate them by genre into different rooms... hmmmm....
Make soups. Everything fits into soup, there are no exclusions. Just add spices.
If you keep giving gifts to the neighborhood squirrels, they will give you gifts back. Peanuts beget moss & twigs.
Heart shaped rocks are meant to be found and kept.
Large bowls are essential to a house. Make them or find them, just have them. Something unexpected will make its way into them.
It's early in the morning and both my cats just starting preening and cleaning themselves (one because of the other I'm sure) because 2 minutes ago they were sound asleep, and now the silence has been thickened by a slurping slapping sound of dry hairballs being made... and now four minutes later they are both back to sleeping... it's like a Las Vegas show, of the circus-sideshow-variety.
I'm giving up trying to update people in writing the way I used to update my journals for myself, backlogging my brain with events till they clogged up my synapses and I had to sit down for hours or days and write them all down. In the end I felt "caught up", or forgiven, yet more relieved, like the great trip to the bathroom after the 12 hour Greyhound bus ride. Chasing that feeling only brings more relief, but it doesn't really get the point across - that all which has transpired my 33 years can't be written in a sitting today or tomorrow or the next day. Neither can these last months or few years or even from the great perspective-point of Y2K. So I pass on the update.
Right now, Santa Claus has escaped torture in the Middle East on the TV and is driving the South Park kids in his sleigh, dropping Napalm-loads of Christmas tidings to the Muslims below. The Christmas tree is glowing with ornaments and lights, a few presents bubbling their possibilities beneath. A GRE study guide sits atop some German tax return forms, and the house still smelling from the cooking festival we had today... ratatouille, salmon with vinaigrette and endive, and a corn, bean tabouli salad for later. Guitar in the corner, decorations and Christmas settling in all over the place... how did we get here? It's a long story, it's a story in the making for 11 months this Saturday, December 22, the winter solstice. It's a damn good story for the holidays.
Life is fine.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
All My Children
Yes, I still love the 5 felines from my previous post Cats Under the Stars. But I have room in my heart for more, including the 5-string banjo, and here's the story of two of them. What follows is something perhaps only cat lovers have patience for.
When we first picked them up from their old home on the night we returned from camping at the Northwest String Summit in Oregon, they were as feral as ever. They set up their own camp in a tent-like furry little cat cave for two resting between their stylish poop box and their food dishes in our newly finished office. And they never left, for two days, while we unpacked and made the rest of the apartment our own home. Ruby (tortoise-shell bespeckled face with tabby legs and dappled underbelly) was the first to venture out, the independence in her surging so much that she actually turned the corner of the hallway and moved into the kitchen, slowly. But as soon as we made a move, even a foot coming down off the couch, she would dart her black body in reverse and tuck back into the office and the cave next to her bro. Meanwhile, Leo (flame-point Siamese tabby with baby blue eyes) seemingly never moved. Then around day 4, Ruby made her nightly venture out of the office, and Leo actually followed his sister, taking the (literally) guided tour of what she had discovered from her previous ventures. He had this stealthy cheetah gait about him while his head bounced up and down like a pigeon, following Ruby's path while she turned periodically to see if he was still there. All it took for him to retreat to the cave was a wave from us, while Ruby had graduated to a little more trust and only retreated when we actually rose from the couch or walked an inch.
So, it was an odd first few days as we moved into an apartment together and thought we had cats but never really saw them except as streaks of color moving quickly through space while we scuttled our stuff around and new furniture arrived. We loved on 'em in their cave and they loved on us back from inside the cave. The office was ground zero and their radar gradually expanded concentrically to find more cave-like hiding places in our settling house, places which now have been sealed off - behind the stove (Leo), behind the desk drawer (Leo), behind the toilet (Ruby). Then came the cat tree.
It came free off Craigslist, a five foot blue thing with bad carpeting, two levels of platforms beneath a plush box with a pair of holes in it teetering on top. A must have. A peace offering. Ruby had by now been more open to walking around the living room and only looking like a deer in headlights when we made moves, generally saving her retreats for when we walked up to her. Leo still had no desire to leave the cave. But when Kelli lifted him out of his tent and showed him the lofty plush heights of the Blue Treehouse in our living room, he reached for its carpet like it was candy and crawled in and didn't leave, for days. And after that he knew that having both his food and his cat tree oasis meant a trek across the tremulous savanna between office and living room. He's been a grateful, purring, mobile and social boy ever since. Ruby perfected her high jump skills into the hole first, while Leo used the arm of the couch for a higher degree of difficulty. Both hit the hole every time, except when they find the other sibling in the hole waiting for them. Then we get out the digital camera and the popcorn and watch the ensuing clawless fighting. And from that perch they are safe and we can float around the house and sing and speak foreign languages and cook and move more stuff and play our instruments really loud and they can just tuck their heads into their paws, squint their eyes and wish they were in Kansas. They tolerate us in their home.
The cat tree made all the difference, because now we can consistently see Leo's face up-close and notice his crossed eye which twitters ever so slightly. We think it helps him see things that others don't see, It also makes his head tilt inquisitively to the side when he stands and looks at you. Ruby's underbelly is exposed more and more to reveal a panoply of symmetric color patterns to go with her Jackson Pollack nose. We thought we had inherited two shy but selectively lovely kitties, but every day in September marks another move toward Toby/Griffin sweetness or Gretl/Max craziness, and only this week has the lap or the leg become a possible landing pad, ala Squeak.
Leo likes to keep his head and face on your hand when you pet him, so don't move or he'll paw your hand back to his chin, lick it, and rub some more on it. He sleeps with a smile on his face, and his head usually nuzzles against something, anything, including his own paw. He likes it that way. Ruby's sleek blackness can be found on the window sill and she must come over and step onto my desk to do a drive-by every time I sit down. Her dainty demeanor belies a deft ability to attack rubber bands and fake mice with somersaults that usually end in her crashing gracefully into the wall or floor heater with a thud. Then she shakes it off, walks away, and looks behind her like she meant to do that. She also has some magic in her feet that make her tap along the floor with every step, but she has yet to throw some kitty litter on the ground and practice her soft shoe shuffle. Our sliding glass door remains a mystery to them, and we don't think they'll really love the leash idea, so until they prove their skills in working the BBQ or cleaning the deck they remain indoors, but they never fail to sit nattily at the closed door and watch us until the door opens and they quickly dash in different directions. And while Ruby might love heading out for a night on the town, Leo most likely would miss his Treehouse too much and just leave the real trees to the squirrels.
The best thing about Leo and Ruby is no matter how much they run from us, they are learning to come back. When we call them to dinner they run to the feast in the office, but if we spend too much time there they look at us like What are you still doing here? and run away, but they do return. And if we enter the bedroom and they are on the window perch they'll jump down and run out cuz really What the heck are we doing in our own room anyway? but a few minutes later they'll lope and tap their way back in to hang out. We move too fast = they run quickly away. No matter how many treats of tuna we give them, how many nights we spend with them finally purring on our laps, how often we love on them and they beg for more, they always retain that sense of protectiveness, wildness and flight. And that's cool as long as they come back, and they always do. I hope they never just let us jump around next to them or throw them between us or let us run into a room without them going Holy crap who are they? Let them always remain feral to the bone, because it reminds us of our own human tendencies to be individual and somewhat protective but at the same time to learn to trust in love and being loved. To me that's a huge part of making a new home.
All in all, we have two cats born wild, tamed by others, now going through a wild rebirth with their bear owners in a small apartment in Seattle. Fish are next, and oh what fun that'll be. :)
When we first picked them up from their old home on the night we returned from camping at the Northwest String Summit in Oregon, they were as feral as ever. They set up their own camp in a tent-like furry little cat cave for two resting between their stylish poop box and their food dishes in our newly finished office. And they never left, for two days, while we unpacked and made the rest of the apartment our own home. Ruby (tortoise-shell bespeckled face with tabby legs and dappled underbelly) was the first to venture out, the independence in her surging so much that she actually turned the corner of the hallway and moved into the kitchen, slowly. But as soon as we made a move, even a foot coming down off the couch, she would dart her black body in reverse and tuck back into the office and the cave next to her bro. Meanwhile, Leo (flame-point Siamese tabby with baby blue eyes) seemingly never moved. Then around day 4, Ruby made her nightly venture out of the office, and Leo actually followed his sister, taking the (literally) guided tour of what she had discovered from her previous ventures. He had this stealthy cheetah gait about him while his head bounced up and down like a pigeon, following Ruby's path while she turned periodically to see if he was still there. All it took for him to retreat to the cave was a wave from us, while Ruby had graduated to a little more trust and only retreated when we actually rose from the couch or walked an inch. So, it was an odd first few days as we moved into an apartment together and thought we had cats but never really saw them except as streaks of color moving quickly through space while we scuttled our stuff around and new furniture arrived. We loved on 'em in their cave and they loved on us back from inside the cave. The office was ground zero and their radar gradually expanded concentrically to find more cave-like hiding places in our settling house, places which now have been sealed off - behind the stove (Leo), behind the desk drawer (Leo), behind the toilet (Ruby). Then came the cat tree.
It came free off Craigslist, a five foot blue thing with bad carpeting, two levels of platforms beneath a plush box with a pair of holes in it teetering on top. A must have. A peace offering. Ruby had by now been more open to walking around the living room and only looking like a deer in headlights when we made moves, generally saving her retreats for when we walked up to her. Leo still had no desire to leave the cave. But when Kelli lifted him out of his tent and showed him the lofty plush heights of the Blue Treehouse in our living room, he reached for its carpet like it was candy and crawled in and didn't leave, for days. And after that he knew that having both his food and his cat tree oasis meant a trek across the tremulous savanna between office and living room. He's been a grateful, purring, mobile and social boy ever since. Ruby perfected her high jump skills into the hole first, while Leo used the arm of the couch for a higher degree of difficulty. Both hit the hole every time, except when they find the other sibling in the hole waiting for them. Then we get out the digital camera and the popcorn and watch the ensuing clawless fighting. And from that perch they are safe and we can float around the house and sing and speak foreign languages and cook and move more stuff and play our instruments really loud and they can just tuck their heads into their paws, squint their eyes and wish they were in Kansas. They tolerate us in their home.
The cat tree made all the difference, because now we can consistently see Leo's face up-close and notice his crossed eye which twitters ever so slightly. We think it helps him see things that others don't see, It also makes his head tilt inquisitively to the side when he stands and looks at you. Ruby's underbelly is exposed more and more to reveal a panoply of symmetric color patterns to go with her Jackson Pollack nose. We thought we had inherited two shy but selectively lovely kitties, but every day in September marks another move toward Toby/Griffin sweetness or Gretl/Max craziness, and only this week has the lap or the leg become a possible landing pad, ala Squeak.
Leo likes to keep his head and face on your hand when you pet him, so don't move or he'll paw your hand back to his chin, lick it, and rub some more on it. He sleeps with a smile on his face, and his head usually nuzzles against something, anything, including his own paw. He likes it that way. Ruby's sleek blackness can be found on the window sill and she must come over and step onto my desk to do a drive-by every time I sit down. Her dainty demeanor belies a deft ability to attack rubber bands and fake mice with somersaults that usually end in her crashing gracefully into the wall or floor heater with a thud. Then she shakes it off, walks away, and looks behind her like she meant to do that. She also has some magic in her feet that make her tap along the floor with every step, but she has yet to throw some kitty litter on the ground and practice her soft shoe shuffle. Our sliding glass door remains a mystery to them, and we don't think they'll really love the leash idea, so until they prove their skills in working the BBQ or cleaning the deck they remain indoors, but they never fail to sit nattily at the closed door and watch us until the door opens and they quickly dash in different directions. And while Ruby might love heading out for a night on the town, Leo most likely would miss his Treehouse too much and just leave the real trees to the squirrels. The best thing about Leo and Ruby is no matter how much they run from us, they are learning to come back. When we call them to dinner they run to the feast in the office, but if we spend too much time there they look at us like What are you still doing here? and run away, but they do return. And if we enter the bedroom and they are on the window perch they'll jump down and run out cuz really What the heck are we doing in our own room anyway? but a few minutes later they'll lope and tap their way back in to hang out. We move too fast = they run quickly away. No matter how many treats of tuna we give them, how many nights we spend with them finally purring on our laps, how often we love on them and they beg for more, they always retain that sense of protectiveness, wildness and flight. And that's cool as long as they come back, and they always do. I hope they never just let us jump around next to them or throw them between us or let us run into a room without them going Holy crap who are they? Let them always remain feral to the bone, because it reminds us of our own human tendencies to be individual and somewhat protective but at the same time to learn to trust in love and being loved. To me that's a huge part of making a new home.
All in all, we have two cats born wild, tamed by others, now going through a wild rebirth with their bear owners in a small apartment in Seattle. Fish are next, and oh what fun that'll be. :)
Sunday, September 09, 2007
My Life as a Donkey
"Hi there! How are ya? Nice, that's awesome...oh man, I'm excellent, really. Well, my name's Matt and I work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, and we're out in your neighborhood tonight to build support to win back that White House and EXPAND our congressional majorities, cuz I don't have to tell you - after six years of Bush's failed leadership we need a totally new direction in 2008.
So, here's how we'll do it: In February of 2006 the DNC launched a groundbreaking Fifty State Strategy, which placed campaign staff and organizers on the ground in every single state. We know how much this helped us to win the Senate and the House in Oh Six, but it also helped us to win key races around the country in places we didn't even know we had support in before. So now, with 15 months before the 2008 election, we're out here early to build that infrastructure and just imagine what we can do in that time.
The stakes are just huge for who we elect as our next president, and that's really why we are out in your neighborhood tonight. Here's our statement of support... the best way YOU can help us is with a contribution of $350 to the DNC. We know that this kind of grassroots energy is absolutely essential to a successful national campaign and it's YOUR support that gives US the resources it takes to win. And the best way you can do that is with a credit card or a check made payable to the Democratic National Committee."
That was me. For two months in Seattle, the summer of 2007. I'd knock on 100 doors a night in my blue t-shirt sporting DNC in American flagging letters. 50 people would open the door. 30 of them would cut me off at some point, leaving only 20 people who hear the whole rap, and of those 20, maybe 5 would turn around and give me cash, their credit card information, or hand me a check. Some gave $200. Some gave $5. One gave me $3, "For beer," he said, "not for the Democrats."
It's more complicated than just giving "the spiel." I had an answer for every reason someone would say NO to me, taking the conversation back to them, eventually improvising my words with their ideas and concerns into a conversation, and funneling everything back into the idea that this was the time and place to give a lot or a little to keep the GOP at bay. There are countless ways to get anyone to at least listen to you longer then they are willing, and each way opens another avenue of trust and interest or rage and passion which all eventually leads to a rather unique experience at someone's front door, and the longer you extend the interest in that experience the more likely the avenue will lead back to the point where they might actually consider giving you money, even when they were convinced that they weren't going to give any. Why? Because politics matters and it enters everyone's lives at some level and we all need to be involved if we care. Period. Also, I used to sell raffle tickets on Union Street in San Francisco and would sing for you if you bought 12 for $20.
In the entire two months, one couple offered me wine and dinner. Three offered me water, a pair of sisters offered me a beer, and one guy gave me licorice, ice water and a $200 credit card donation. Many Republicans offered me advice on how to grow up/stop being a communist and a socialist/what to tell my bosses, but more of them were genuinely sorry to be of absolutely no interest to me as they closed the door. A few snarled as steam rose from their ears and venom swelled in their mouth, but only a few. Children hid from me behind open doors, smiling. Small dogs of the high-pitched variety snarled and jumped and chased me out of long open front yards. Large dogs just licked my sweaty face. Countless cats let me walk over them among the lavender bushes. A few people per day invited me into their homes to give me money or to just sit and talk, including a total of three teachers who offered sagacious advice on my upcoming career choices. One guy offered me comic books he had published about WW2 from the Japanese perspective. Another man said he didn't have time because his wife was in labor, and I kept myself from asking, Why are you answering the doorbell, buddy?
The Good: I walked at least 7 miles a day up down and around all of Seattle and the Puget Sound area, along waterfront property and hilltop mansions, back alleys and concrete jungle side streets. I lost another 25 pounds in the process to drop me below The Mendoza Line for the first time since my first Oktoberfest in 2001. I met a fun, intelligent, driven, eclectic and transient clan of co-workers who became my newest group of friends. I helped people register to vote. I had some sweet conversations with sweet views of the mountains and the water at sunset on porches with fountains and buddhas and massive spider webs. I learned Seattle's streets at a speed only taxi drivers could beat. In moving to a new city I decided that the best way to shake my early inhibitions was to knock on random people's doors to talk about politics and ask them for money. And they actually gave me money. I raised some serious funds for the Demos, and still I got this sweet T-shirt which I'll no doubt be called upon to return someday.
The Bad: Working for a daily and weekly quota is fine until the magic wears off. Then, you realize that medical insurance is important.
It's not because of the money, it can't be. It's because I do not want Republicans to run the White House nor wrest control of government from the party I believe is made of and for the majority of the American people. I didn't like the door slamming into my face, but I loved people waving at me or telling me, even when they said no to my cash request, that they appreciated me doing this thing that they could never do for something they believed in. I didn't like the people who didn't care. I didn't like one-sided lectures from people, but I loved being that guy who maybe was a highlight of their evening or made them watch the news longer than usual that night. I loved the blackberries growing on the side of so many streets, the trees everywhere and the flowers in front yards, and the sweet wooden angles of the homes where people spent their days and nights. I really didn't like being rejected over and over and over again at the front doors of average Democratic Seattle-ites who didn't understand that as little as $5-10 from every one of them was significantly responsible for what I relied on for income.
My last night on the job came on a dark late-summer street below a half moon over Puget Sound in a neighborhood named after a stove company. It rained from dusk till dark and my clipboard was damp. My last donation came from an Ohio family renting someone else's house. My last opened door showed me an apathetic guy whose house smelled like a warm cookie factory. My last door was a home filled with people in the large front window sitting or standing and talking, ignoring the ringing doorbell, the hard knocking on the solid wood door, and the guy who needed them to answer it.
So, here's how we'll do it: In February of 2006 the DNC launched a groundbreaking Fifty State Strategy, which placed campaign staff and organizers on the ground in every single state. We know how much this helped us to win the Senate and the House in Oh Six, but it also helped us to win key races around the country in places we didn't even know we had support in before. So now, with 15 months before the 2008 election, we're out here early to build that infrastructure and just imagine what we can do in that time.
The stakes are just huge for who we elect as our next president, and that's really why we are out in your neighborhood tonight. Here's our statement of support... the best way YOU can help us is with a contribution of $350 to the DNC. We know that this kind of grassroots energy is absolutely essential to a successful national campaign and it's YOUR support that gives US the resources it takes to win. And the best way you can do that is with a credit card or a check made payable to the Democratic National Committee."
That was me. For two months in Seattle, the summer of 2007. I'd knock on 100 doors a night in my blue t-shirt sporting DNC in American flagging letters. 50 people would open the door. 30 of them would cut me off at some point, leaving only 20 people who hear the whole rap, and of those 20, maybe 5 would turn around and give me cash, their credit card information, or hand me a check. Some gave $200. Some gave $5. One gave me $3, "For beer," he said, "not for the Democrats."
It's more complicated than just giving "the spiel." I had an answer for every reason someone would say NO to me, taking the conversation back to them, eventually improvising my words with their ideas and concerns into a conversation, and funneling everything back into the idea that this was the time and place to give a lot or a little to keep the GOP at bay. There are countless ways to get anyone to at least listen to you longer then they are willing, and each way opens another avenue of trust and interest or rage and passion which all eventually leads to a rather unique experience at someone's front door, and the longer you extend the interest in that experience the more likely the avenue will lead back to the point where they might actually consider giving you money, even when they were convinced that they weren't going to give any. Why? Because politics matters and it enters everyone's lives at some level and we all need to be involved if we care. Period. Also, I used to sell raffle tickets on Union Street in San Francisco and would sing for you if you bought 12 for $20.
In the entire two months, one couple offered me wine and dinner. Three offered me water, a pair of sisters offered me a beer, and one guy gave me licorice, ice water and a $200 credit card donation. Many Republicans offered me advice on how to grow up/stop being a communist and a socialist/what to tell my bosses, but more of them were genuinely sorry to be of absolutely no interest to me as they closed the door. A few snarled as steam rose from their ears and venom swelled in their mouth, but only a few. Children hid from me behind open doors, smiling. Small dogs of the high-pitched variety snarled and jumped and chased me out of long open front yards. Large dogs just licked my sweaty face. Countless cats let me walk over them among the lavender bushes. A few people per day invited me into their homes to give me money or to just sit and talk, including a total of three teachers who offered sagacious advice on my upcoming career choices. One guy offered me comic books he had published about WW2 from the Japanese perspective. Another man said he didn't have time because his wife was in labor, and I kept myself from asking, Why are you answering the doorbell, buddy?
The Good: I walked at least 7 miles a day up down and around all of Seattle and the Puget Sound area, along waterfront property and hilltop mansions, back alleys and concrete jungle side streets. I lost another 25 pounds in the process to drop me below The Mendoza Line for the first time since my first Oktoberfest in 2001. I met a fun, intelligent, driven, eclectic and transient clan of co-workers who became my newest group of friends. I helped people register to vote. I had some sweet conversations with sweet views of the mountains and the water at sunset on porches with fountains and buddhas and massive spider webs. I learned Seattle's streets at a speed only taxi drivers could beat. In moving to a new city I decided that the best way to shake my early inhibitions was to knock on random people's doors to talk about politics and ask them for money. And they actually gave me money. I raised some serious funds for the Demos, and still I got this sweet T-shirt which I'll no doubt be called upon to return someday.
The Bad: Working for a daily and weekly quota is fine until the magic wears off. Then, you realize that medical insurance is important.
It's not because of the money, it can't be. It's because I do not want Republicans to run the White House nor wrest control of government from the party I believe is made of and for the majority of the American people. I didn't like the door slamming into my face, but I loved people waving at me or telling me, even when they said no to my cash request, that they appreciated me doing this thing that they could never do for something they believed in. I didn't like the people who didn't care. I didn't like one-sided lectures from people, but I loved being that guy who maybe was a highlight of their evening or made them watch the news longer than usual that night. I loved the blackberries growing on the side of so many streets, the trees everywhere and the flowers in front yards, and the sweet wooden angles of the homes where people spent their days and nights. I really didn't like being rejected over and over and over again at the front doors of average Democratic Seattle-ites who didn't understand that as little as $5-10 from every one of them was significantly responsible for what I relied on for income.
My last night on the job came on a dark late-summer street below a half moon over Puget Sound in a neighborhood named after a stove company. It rained from dusk till dark and my clipboard was damp. My last donation came from an Ohio family renting someone else's house. My last opened door showed me an apathetic guy whose house smelled like a warm cookie factory. My last door was a home filled with people in the large front window sitting or standing and talking, ignoring the ringing doorbell, the hard knocking on the solid wood door, and the guy who needed them to answer it.
Friday, August 24, 2007
A Month of Hot Oregon Weekends
What you do apparently when you get to Washington is go to Oregon, a lot. Or is it that all of your friends who have run north from California or south from Washington all of a sudden really really need you to come see them, all at once, in one month? Like Oregon will close if you don't see it before the first fall leaf lands.
I could write a list of all that's happened this monumental Summer 2007, but it wouldn't be complete without a catch-up of what happened since December 2006 all the way to May, which of course needs buttressing from what happened in the Fall of 2006, which wouldn't be complete without a description of the Summer 2006!
You see, I am a writer. I just moved from Munich to California to Montana to California and now to Washington. I have no clue where to start because each day something new pops up that I wish my scribe would write down for me. I imagine my scribe to be monk-like, with a quill and an ink pot and a great ability to listen without speaking and the fastest shorthand calligraphy on the planet. But alas, he only exists in my brain.
Once more into Oregon this weekend, to dance on a farm with my brother, and then maybe I'll look into hiring that monk. :)
I could write a list of all that's happened this monumental Summer 2007, but it wouldn't be complete without a catch-up of what happened since December 2006 all the way to May, which of course needs buttressing from what happened in the Fall of 2006, which wouldn't be complete without a description of the Summer 2006!
You see, I am a writer. I just moved from Munich to California to Montana to California and now to Washington. I have no clue where to start because each day something new pops up that I wish my scribe would write down for me. I imagine my scribe to be monk-like, with a quill and an ink pot and a great ability to listen without speaking and the fastest shorthand calligraphy on the planet. But alas, he only exists in my brain.
Once more into Oregon this weekend, to dance on a farm with my brother, and then maybe I'll look into hiring that monk. :)
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
It's nearly August
I am sleeping on a floor without a futon, windows full of sun to the east each morning. It's hard to get out of bed before 11am when you are just then adjusting to a good level of comfort on the thermarest and the mummy bag and you didn't get back from work until 11pm, the next day starting 14 hours later. It's like the dial of your daily life gets turned clockwise about 4 hours, and there is no time to write. But I lay in this room sucking sleep from the waning morning long enough to feel like the potential of Seattle pushes against the windows and the ceiling. So when I get up I instantly feel like the pressure releases, and when I walk to the grocery store, see people walking their dogs or restaurants mingling between the breakfast and lunch crowd, and the sun pours down on this place so newly called home, the pressure is gone and the potential burns. I am so young in this city.
It's almost that magic month of August, and my birthday month will bring even more solidity to this move than July carried. A new home on the horizon, a new job for the year, continued growth in myself and in my relationships with others. All the hard work continuing and the benefits showing themselves in some very intangible ways, an unexpected kind of growth for a man who has relied and often thrived on instant gratification.
It's almost that magic month of August, and my birthday month will bring even more solidity to this move than July carried. A new home on the horizon, a new job for the year, continued growth in myself and in my relationships with others. All the hard work continuing and the benefits showing themselves in some very intangible ways, an unexpected kind of growth for a man who has relied and often thrived on instant gratification.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
In Deep End - Dance
About a month ago, in the heart of an already challenging time up in Washington, my singular '95 Chevy was impounded, towed, released and towed again to a shop called Clary's where it sat way too long to get fixed after a sudden CLANGdropBLAMrattlerattle over Interstate 5 disabled her and kept her from going into anything greater than third gear, much less into reverse. Insert new transmission over long time. And a few weeks ago my beloved dirty, woodchip-filled, food-stained, paint-pealing car with San Diego sage hanging from the mirror replaced my too-new rented Kia sport sedan with the tight turning radius and sunglasses compartment. Nothing has been quite the same since.
The next day I interviewed for an activism job and was working three hours later. As I patrolled the hilly and lavish area between the University of Washington and Lake Washington in the same clothes I had on that morning, I wondered what vehicle had brought me to this point? A few days later a charming room in the back of a clean, wifi-equipped college house outside the University district of Seattle came up and I took it, with east sunrise windows and a pair of walk-in closets above a laundry room opening themselves for me and all which will happen for the duration of the summer. Now, a week and a half later I am on board at the Democratic National Committee while I continue to look at teaching opportunities for the fall.
A new trannie and all of a sudden things start to click. If the trannie were a human body part, I think it may be the nasal cavity. Not the lungs, yet similar. You really don't get the most out of the air you breathe unless your nasal cavity is clean and well oiled.
Today Americans (and a hilly gathering of people in Rebild, Denmark) celebrate American Independence. And around the world there are celebrations like Reunification Day in Germany, May Two-Four in Canada, other calendar days of significance for people around the world that, for many reasons, I think we need to celebrate on our own independence day to honor the freedoms of others as well as our own. Why not just think on them? It's a long day, and you have time to consider all of them.
The next day I interviewed for an activism job and was working three hours later. As I patrolled the hilly and lavish area between the University of Washington and Lake Washington in the same clothes I had on that morning, I wondered what vehicle had brought me to this point? A few days later a charming room in the back of a clean, wifi-equipped college house outside the University district of Seattle came up and I took it, with east sunrise windows and a pair of walk-in closets above a laundry room opening themselves for me and all which will happen for the duration of the summer. Now, a week and a half later I am on board at the Democratic National Committee while I continue to look at teaching opportunities for the fall.
A new trannie and all of a sudden things start to click. If the trannie were a human body part, I think it may be the nasal cavity. Not the lungs, yet similar. You really don't get the most out of the air you breathe unless your nasal cavity is clean and well oiled.
Today Americans (and a hilly gathering of people in Rebild, Denmark) celebrate American Independence. And around the world there are celebrations like Reunification Day in Germany, May Two-Four in Canada, other calendar days of significance for people around the world that, for many reasons, I think we need to celebrate on our own independence day to honor the freedoms of others as well as our own. Why not just think on them? It's a long day, and you have time to consider all of them.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The 'core' of discovery....
These changes we make...
My friend Kevin asked me once what I would have seen myself doing right now if you had all the choices in front of you (he's an old mate with 20 years of history with me, and I couldn't have ever predicted he would create and conduct a Grammy-winning boychoir). I told Kevin that I would have been a cultural anthropologist and archeological writer, excavating old ruins and writing their history, being the scribe on many an adventure into the most unknown territory and telling its present story, engaging civilizations everywhere and linguistically unearthing their histories and telling their story to the world. And then there are all the acting roles which Will Ferrell took from me. We both agreed that each was valid and plausible. I am not either of those things. However, when I travel and write about my adventures I am really fulfilling my own version of my dream job, only a different manifestation of it. Often I romanticize about what that linguistic/archeological/anthropologic world would have been like, and definitely I know I would have owned a cool worn-in safari hat all the time. Yet, I also am my worst critic when it comes to the current choice of words in my blog, journals, emails, editorials... when really, perhaps I am just now beginning to realize my own version of my dream job. At 32, is it really possible that I am only now getting it?
What history begs us to do is create more of it, now and today, to take the experience that happened yesterday or a hundred years ago and make this moment the beginning of something similar. Every story we begin is something that will have its own life in our memory eventually for us to unearth it later or savor it just after it has passed. Or we can write about it now and be the present chroniclers for a later time, for our older selves, for our descendants or others we don't yet know. We should look to the idea of potential and the story to come because individuals, nature, incoming voices and new environments are waiting for us and beg our appearance, asking us to engage them to whatever end, if only just to engage.
Nothing grows backward, it just fails to grow over time. So each story begins with its own hope for a future, and some come with a soundtrack or a series of images in mind or eye. But life and its stories are not all wrapped in a warmth like that in a Ken Burns documentary.
My friend Kevin asked me once what I would have seen myself doing right now if you had all the choices in front of you (he's an old mate with 20 years of history with me, and I couldn't have ever predicted he would create and conduct a Grammy-winning boychoir). I told Kevin that I would have been a cultural anthropologist and archeological writer, excavating old ruins and writing their history, being the scribe on many an adventure into the most unknown territory and telling its present story, engaging civilizations everywhere and linguistically unearthing their histories and telling their story to the world. And then there are all the acting roles which Will Ferrell took from me. We both agreed that each was valid and plausible. I am not either of those things. However, when I travel and write about my adventures I am really fulfilling my own version of my dream job, only a different manifestation of it. Often I romanticize about what that linguistic/archeological/anthropologic world would have been like, and definitely I know I would have owned a cool worn-in safari hat all the time. Yet, I also am my worst critic when it comes to the current choice of words in my blog, journals, emails, editorials... when really, perhaps I am just now beginning to realize my own version of my dream job. At 32, is it really possible that I am only now getting it?
What history begs us to do is create more of it, now and today, to take the experience that happened yesterday or a hundred years ago and make this moment the beginning of something similar. Every story we begin is something that will have its own life in our memory eventually for us to unearth it later or savor it just after it has passed. Or we can write about it now and be the present chroniclers for a later time, for our older selves, for our descendants or others we don't yet know. We should look to the idea of potential and the story to come because individuals, nature, incoming voices and new environments are waiting for us and beg our appearance, asking us to engage them to whatever end, if only just to engage.
Nothing grows backward, it just fails to grow over time. So each story begins with its own hope for a future, and some come with a soundtrack or a series of images in mind or eye. But life and its stories are not all wrapped in a warmth like that in a Ken Burns documentary.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Washington = Home
I faintly remember something about writing a blog a day for April. Did I say one PER day? Maybe I meant READING a blog a day... Yeah, that's it.... yeah...
No matter, it seems life got busy leavin' and now it's no less busy arrivin'. I began to physically move to Seattle over a week ago, leaving San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon and camping off Lake Shasta that evening, myself and my as-yet-unnamed chevy sedan following and leading Kelli and Rosie on a meandering five-night journey up the left coast of America. The four of us camped and trolled ourselves through Oregon very slowly, stopping for waterfalls and thai food, following rivers which cup the road for miles into national forest land and uncountable trees. We waded down into the bubbling source of a clear river we had never heard of after camping on its beautiful shores the night before. We foraged for wood off the side of the road so we could cook burgers in the dark at 11pm and still had the forethought to cook up a spare pair up for the next morning's breakfast burritos, eaten with salsa on the rocks of the river bank. We grooved to Steve Kimock and John Hartford, hiked into deep woods to rest our atrophied driving muscles in hot springs, and swam in a wide tree-lined lake while a pair of bald eagles above engaged in a long and sweeping dogfight with a young hawk for the fish it had in its talons. Fish was dropped, we were floored, all was silent again.
And all of this has led us into the metropolitan area of Tacoma and Seattle, where the sound of trees and whooshing of birds' wings in flight overpower the low and constant hum of interstate traffic. I currently have multiple homes (on the couches of friends) and I am fortunate for all of them. One of my homes doubles as my car, where a few boxes of clothes make up the ultimate in low-frills closet couture, along with camping stoves and sleeping bags and multiple cozy blankets, not to mention all those sweet music cds, and of course my smiling buddha statue turned to face the passenger door diagonally, good Feng Shui requires this.
So, last night I met a homeless man about 14 years older than I outside the bar and grill I was using as my internet hotspot. As we talked together about his circumstances he was obviously educated but also extremely bitter over the life he had been dealt, and he had given up and was secure in taking at least half of everything he ever earned and using it for drugs to get by, the other half to invest in drugs to make more money to get by. His subsistence each night dangled on multiple back alley deals going just right so that he might get just a little food money, and everything he relied on carried an 'if' with it, but he had workable skills and he could tell his story with quiet eloquence. He had simply given up hope in himself to get off the streets.
As I talked to him I somehow let the words slip out that I had no home either, and before I could realize my audacity he gave me genuine sympathy for that, even though he knew I had cash and a computer and a car to drive me away that night. I am not homeless, I told you I am home-FULL! Yet I also envisioned myself without my car, sleeping next to him that night on University Ave in Seattle, in the cold, and wondering what in God's name I would be thinking that night if I wasn't as lucky as I truly was that night... it all felt weirdly closer to reality than I thought I was capable of experiencing, and it freaked me the hell out. So, I gave him some food and bought him a pack of cigarettes, and then went back into the bar and grill, like that would just make me normal...
There I met another man from Homer, Alaska, who couldn't believe that I had been there once (when I was 11) and was buying drinks for everyone at the bar over and over with fresh $100 bills while he waited for his buddies from one of the crabbing boats from the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" to show up, which they never did.
All that cash flowing for drinks for strangers and the man outside who had lost hope and was resigned to his life on the streets, and me with my car feeling a little like both of them.
So this morning I'm dirty and my car smells like bacon cheeseburgers and old wood smoke and the sage I burned when I got back into my car and almost recoiled from the mixture of the first two smells. Life simply is not always pretty and never makes itself understood without some digging. I feel this is a slightly stiffer and different Washington than the free-love and open one I left back in'01 - for obvious reasons if you know Holden Village - as I begin to make my roots here with new people and a few years of life-altering experiences behind me, preparing to rediscover the country I still feel is one of the most beautiful regions in North America.
No matter, it seems life got busy leavin' and now it's no less busy arrivin'. I began to physically move to Seattle over a week ago, leaving San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon and camping off Lake Shasta that evening, myself and my as-yet-unnamed chevy sedan following and leading Kelli and Rosie on a meandering five-night journey up the left coast of America. The four of us camped and trolled ourselves through Oregon very slowly, stopping for waterfalls and thai food, following rivers which cup the road for miles into national forest land and uncountable trees. We waded down into the bubbling source of a clear river we had never heard of after camping on its beautiful shores the night before. We foraged for wood off the side of the road so we could cook burgers in the dark at 11pm and still had the forethought to cook up a spare pair up for the next morning's breakfast burritos, eaten with salsa on the rocks of the river bank. We grooved to Steve Kimock and John Hartford, hiked into deep woods to rest our atrophied driving muscles in hot springs, and swam in a wide tree-lined lake while a pair of bald eagles above engaged in a long and sweeping dogfight with a young hawk for the fish it had in its talons. Fish was dropped, we were floored, all was silent again.
And all of this has led us into the metropolitan area of Tacoma and Seattle, where the sound of trees and whooshing of birds' wings in flight overpower the low and constant hum of interstate traffic. I currently have multiple homes (on the couches of friends) and I am fortunate for all of them. One of my homes doubles as my car, where a few boxes of clothes make up the ultimate in low-frills closet couture, along with camping stoves and sleeping bags and multiple cozy blankets, not to mention all those sweet music cds, and of course my smiling buddha statue turned to face the passenger door diagonally, good Feng Shui requires this.
So, last night I met a homeless man about 14 years older than I outside the bar and grill I was using as my internet hotspot. As we talked together about his circumstances he was obviously educated but also extremely bitter over the life he had been dealt, and he had given up and was secure in taking at least half of everything he ever earned and using it for drugs to get by, the other half to invest in drugs to make more money to get by. His subsistence each night dangled on multiple back alley deals going just right so that he might get just a little food money, and everything he relied on carried an 'if' with it, but he had workable skills and he could tell his story with quiet eloquence. He had simply given up hope in himself to get off the streets.
As I talked to him I somehow let the words slip out that I had no home either, and before I could realize my audacity he gave me genuine sympathy for that, even though he knew I had cash and a computer and a car to drive me away that night. I am not homeless, I told you I am home-FULL! Yet I also envisioned myself without my car, sleeping next to him that night on University Ave in Seattle, in the cold, and wondering what in God's name I would be thinking that night if I wasn't as lucky as I truly was that night... it all felt weirdly closer to reality than I thought I was capable of experiencing, and it freaked me the hell out. So, I gave him some food and bought him a pack of cigarettes, and then went back into the bar and grill, like that would just make me normal...
There I met another man from Homer, Alaska, who couldn't believe that I had been there once (when I was 11) and was buying drinks for everyone at the bar over and over with fresh $100 bills while he waited for his buddies from one of the crabbing boats from the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" to show up, which they never did.
All that cash flowing for drinks for strangers and the man outside who had lost hope and was resigned to his life on the streets, and me with my car feeling a little like both of them.
So this morning I'm dirty and my car smells like bacon cheeseburgers and old wood smoke and the sage I burned when I got back into my car and almost recoiled from the mixture of the first two smells. Life simply is not always pretty and never makes itself understood without some digging. I feel this is a slightly stiffer and different Washington than the free-love and open one I left back in'01 - for obvious reasons if you know Holden Village - as I begin to make my roots here with new people and a few years of life-altering experiences behind me, preparing to rediscover the country I still feel is one of the most beautiful regions in North America.
Friday, April 13, 2007
A Hero to Myself
I hope he's cool with this, and I think I remember him saying it was cool: today I am posting the words my nephew John Sander Christensen wrote a few years ago. As he has grown older and is nearing teenager-dom, he has gradually come to realize a few realities of his life and has taken responsibility for himself in ways I never could have when I was his age, and these words are part of that. The following words are about back surgery, and for John this was just one of a series of challenges he will come to face, and if you know or will come to know my nephew you will hear his personal story from him in his own words. John is a natural writer, budding musician and one extremely funny and joyful kid. I'm proud to say that he recently won selection to the national Reflections Program photography competition, winning the Montana state title and of course his regional contest in his hometown of Great Falls.
Thank you, buddy, very very much for sharing these words with me when I was there over Christmas... you're my kind of hero and your uncle loves you and misses you, but I can't wait to dance with you non-stop in Oregon this summer at the NorthWest String Summit. WHOO HOOO!!
A Hero To Myself by John Christensen
Back surgery is the worst thing that has happened to me.
"Mom," I said, "Why did you wake me up?!!"
"Remember surgery?" said Mom. Then Mom let me sleep for 5 more minutes. When I got to the hospital I was so scared my teeth chattered. I got in the waiting room and waited with a warm blanket for what felt like hours. Then they put me on anesthesia. Anesthesia is a medicine that makes your senses go numb.
I woke up in my room, tried to roll over and then, "Ow, ow, ow!!!" Mom got the nurse, so I could get a pain reliever. I slept like a log for hours. Then I woke up and turned on the TV and watched all night.
It was so painful because I got an I.V. tube, but it was worth it. Another hard thing was relearning to walk. It was like learning to write with broken fingers, but much more wobbly. I took it step by step. It took lots of practice, time and stress on my back. I hated getting to and from a lying and a sitting position.
Yes, I did have fun in the hospital too. I played a joke on my Mom and got lots of presents and cards. I went home after 5 days. My first meal at home was Wendy's.
I'm very proud of how I made it through my back surgery. It was a lot of pain for an eight year old to get through. Since I was only 8 years old when I did that, it made me feel like a different kind of hero.
Thank you, buddy, very very much for sharing these words with me when I was there over Christmas... you're my kind of hero and your uncle loves you and misses you, but I can't wait to dance with you non-stop in Oregon this summer at the NorthWest String Summit. WHOO HOOO!!
A Hero To Myself by John Christensen
Back surgery is the worst thing that has happened to me.
"Mom," I said, "Why did you wake me up?!!"
"Remember surgery?" said Mom. Then Mom let me sleep for 5 more minutes. When I got to the hospital I was so scared my teeth chattered. I got in the waiting room and waited with a warm blanket for what felt like hours. Then they put me on anesthesia. Anesthesia is a medicine that makes your senses go numb.
I woke up in my room, tried to roll over and then, "Ow, ow, ow!!!" Mom got the nurse, so I could get a pain reliever. I slept like a log for hours. Then I woke up and turned on the TV and watched all night.
It was so painful because I got an I.V. tube, but it was worth it. Another hard thing was relearning to walk. It was like learning to write with broken fingers, but much more wobbly. I took it step by step. It took lots of practice, time and stress on my back. I hated getting to and from a lying and a sitting position.
Yes, I did have fun in the hospital too. I played a joke on my Mom and got lots of presents and cards. I went home after 5 days. My first meal at home was Wendy's.
I'm very proud of how I made it through my back surgery. It was a lot of pain for an eight year old to get through. Since I was only 8 years old when I did that, it made me feel like a different kind of hero.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The importance of smoked oysters
Tonight, my boys and I revisit some old haunts. We're in our thirties now, and when we were teenagers we would gather once in a while on Ocean Beach, at Stall 24 (or was it 22, or 26 or 28...) and aim our sights on a spot halfway out from the breaker wall to the ocean and make a fire. We would "find" wooden pallets (most likely from Safeway) not too far away, sometimes we would have to "find" wood in other places as well, and there would be a small amount of non-alcoholic beverages and everyone's mothers would be notified that we were indeed safe and sound, and we would feel free to party our faces off on the coast of America. We would sing, invite strange gang members to join us, run around the coast like we owned it and sometimes we would even strip down to our "bathing suits" and feign death and the ocean undertow, crashing into the coldest waves you could imagine.
Tonight, a new crew of people and a mixture of the old guard are hitting the beach again, because now it's legal to have fires on the beach as long as they are made in the pits provided by the dudes from Burning Man, and we'll see how successful old traditions remain in our slightly older and much more legally responsible hands. And finally, we will be able to drink beer legally by golly. :)
Old traditions can't fade. Ever, even if we forget them we are still bound to live some aspect of them. In our friends we find things that we do to be just what we do, but over time they become a good habit and when we get older and take a few steps away from we can revisit our old habits and traditions together and look at how our hair has slimmed, bodies grown huge, but what remains? We do. Maybe we have even added a few new people to our lives, to join the tradition, and some are gone and won't be back. Oysters and brie, choral music played under moonlight, hacky sack in crowded places, frisbee golf, Monty Python marathons, and the fires at the beach are those traditions for me, and in the last decade I've picked up a few more. They will never ever be stupid or lame or outdated, even if they really are lame or stupid to others. We have to fight against the pressure to only like what is 'cool and now' with what we know is really really cool, that which is classic and timeless and can't be outdated. New can be very very good but old holds its precedence in the minds of those who have gotten old too. You can't know that until you've lived a little and know how valuable your traditions are. Traditions are a part of community and as our community grows and we invite new loved ones into our lives and our circle of friends they bring with them their own traditions, and so the world gets a little smaller and a ton richer. We only want to share smoked oysters and brie with everyone, a big fat circle of all our friends come together, each with a slice of sourdough and a wedge of brie topped with a small smoked friend, everyone feeding the person to their left. It's good, no?
Tonight, a new crew of people and a mixture of the old guard are hitting the beach again, because now it's legal to have fires on the beach as long as they are made in the pits provided by the dudes from Burning Man, and we'll see how successful old traditions remain in our slightly older and much more legally responsible hands. And finally, we will be able to drink beer legally by golly. :)
Old traditions can't fade. Ever, even if we forget them we are still bound to live some aspect of them. In our friends we find things that we do to be just what we do, but over time they become a good habit and when we get older and take a few steps away from we can revisit our old habits and traditions together and look at how our hair has slimmed, bodies grown huge, but what remains? We do. Maybe we have even added a few new people to our lives, to join the tradition, and some are gone and won't be back. Oysters and brie, choral music played under moonlight, hacky sack in crowded places, frisbee golf, Monty Python marathons, and the fires at the beach are those traditions for me, and in the last decade I've picked up a few more. They will never ever be stupid or lame or outdated, even if they really are lame or stupid to others. We have to fight against the pressure to only like what is 'cool and now' with what we know is really really cool, that which is classic and timeless and can't be outdated. New can be very very good but old holds its precedence in the minds of those who have gotten old too. You can't know that until you've lived a little and know how valuable your traditions are. Traditions are a part of community and as our community grows and we invite new loved ones into our lives and our circle of friends they bring with them their own traditions, and so the world gets a little smaller and a ton richer. We only want to share smoked oysters and brie with everyone, a big fat circle of all our friends come together, each with a slice of sourdough and a wedge of brie topped with a small smoked friend, everyone feeding the person to their left. It's good, no?
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Because I never have read any Kurt Vonnegut and today he died...
It happens this quickly, that there is nothing except the process of art, and the artist himorherself simply dies and that's it, like everyone else, except we somehow want to understand why that particular life seemed special and important and why so many people care. Sadly the amount of people who care about any death is always so unequal to the number who have no clue at all. Yet we strangely come to why we are human, because we know that no matter our feats or experiences, everything which we love and know and care about - everything, with no exception - will one day die and be gone from the present. Gone, dead, ceasing. And I always meant to read Vonnegut but now I feel like I missed out, I could have been a believer while he was still wandering the earth. He really wouldn't have cared either way, but now the decision has been made for me and it feels like something to mention.
When I awoke in Tanzania my first morning back yonder in the summer of '04 I had been asleep for twelve hours, following am unsleepable 15-hour journey from Germany via the Netherlands. That morning was the beginning of a three week exploration of hospitals, schools, wildlife reservations and Maasai villages, and I remember hearing on that first African morning the sound of bird literally perched above my slatted window, which filtered early light into my room, bird and light both alerting me to my surroundings: the pair of wood closets and wood desks and white paint on the walls, the soft glow on my backpack thrown over the opposite empty twin bed with it's top open and spilling its innards slightly out onto the brown army blanket. The bird, though, was like a stork bellowing its call into my eardrum and I swear it was talking to me, and I loved it and wondered if anyone else had ever awakened to the same feeling I had, laying there in my boxers thinking THAT was an AFRICAN bird saying hallo this morning to me, and I'm waking up and I'm in Africa, and I will be in Africa for a few weeks so I better get used to being in Africa because, yeah, I am in AFRICA!
I had a sweet day of indulgence. My brother Dave took me to the edge of Golden Gate park to sit in an airy restaurant with seats outside huddled near to the cypress trees. We ordered a french onion soup with a huge mound of gruyere cheese melted onto wheat bread floating atop the brown salty broth. Then we had a trio of prosciutto-wrapped scallops atop a bed of ziti and red peppers. Then came his sirloin steak and my ham-provolone-artichoke heart pizza on a thin crust. I had a homemade porter, Dave had a tall diet coke, and our waitress seemed to spend a lot of time at our table. We both agreed that, given our smiles and conversation and the way we didn't mind sharing our food, we must have been seen as the nicest gay couple of the day. :)
I put blinders on my Weight Watchers goggles today (and yeah, it's only the third day), because I have no idea really what all was in-and-around those scallops, pizza, steak, soup, dark beer, etc... so I'll call it a 28-point day and pretend for the first time in a while that I am a meat-gorging drooling glutton with a big smile on my face and no energy after. I ate so much I had to lay down for a while, my stomach is shrinking and it feels sooo gooood to know that. But I'm on a mission to get down to my fighting weight again, back to those days when I could run up a mountain and back down again and still feel like dancing on the porch in the evening. Call it Cascades Training. Who needs a well-intentioned but overweight sherpa, really?
When I awoke in Tanzania my first morning back yonder in the summer of '04 I had been asleep for twelve hours, following am unsleepable 15-hour journey from Germany via the Netherlands. That morning was the beginning of a three week exploration of hospitals, schools, wildlife reservations and Maasai villages, and I remember hearing on that first African morning the sound of bird literally perched above my slatted window, which filtered early light into my room, bird and light both alerting me to my surroundings: the pair of wood closets and wood desks and white paint on the walls, the soft glow on my backpack thrown over the opposite empty twin bed with it's top open and spilling its innards slightly out onto the brown army blanket. The bird, though, was like a stork bellowing its call into my eardrum and I swear it was talking to me, and I loved it and wondered if anyone else had ever awakened to the same feeling I had, laying there in my boxers thinking THAT was an AFRICAN bird saying hallo this morning to me, and I'm waking up and I'm in Africa, and I will be in Africa for a few weeks so I better get used to being in Africa because, yeah, I am in AFRICA!
I had a sweet day of indulgence. My brother Dave took me to the edge of Golden Gate park to sit in an airy restaurant with seats outside huddled near to the cypress trees. We ordered a french onion soup with a huge mound of gruyere cheese melted onto wheat bread floating atop the brown salty broth. Then we had a trio of prosciutto-wrapped scallops atop a bed of ziti and red peppers. Then came his sirloin steak and my ham-provolone-artichoke heart pizza on a thin crust. I had a homemade porter, Dave had a tall diet coke, and our waitress seemed to spend a lot of time at our table. We both agreed that, given our smiles and conversation and the way we didn't mind sharing our food, we must have been seen as the nicest gay couple of the day. :)
I put blinders on my Weight Watchers goggles today (and yeah, it's only the third day), because I have no idea really what all was in-and-around those scallops, pizza, steak, soup, dark beer, etc... so I'll call it a 28-point day and pretend for the first time in a while that I am a meat-gorging drooling glutton with a big smile on my face and no energy after. I ate so much I had to lay down for a while, my stomach is shrinking and it feels sooo gooood to know that. But I'm on a mission to get down to my fighting weight again, back to those days when I could run up a mountain and back down again and still feel like dancing on the porch in the evening. Call it Cascades Training. Who needs a well-intentioned but overweight sherpa, really?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Home, landings, day three and still going!
Today my body and mind are in my home of San Francisco, and today was like a day where you felt the old world coast again, the wind seeking every crevice and flying over your balding head like you were walking on the old sand dunes of the Pacific Coast and the winds drew worn ships to its harbor, back when there was no city here and this peninsula filled itself with scattered and loose outposts of community. The cold wind here is relentless and timeless, subtle sometimes but ever-present, as if you can still smell what it meant to be here at its genesis. I appreciate the history of my home in this city, and these are the last few months when I will be experiencing this so tonight I am indulging myself.
Today was for writing while thinking about Africa, Germany, and Washington state, places I have been and am returning to soon enough. And I think we all must come home in order to say something to that home in writing or action or thought, to recognize the place and situation which created and molded you and to sit awhile and reflect with it, to whatever end. I have always known that my SF home was a place to come back to but not to stay in, that this will be my home and always will be and I'm glad. Now, I am eager to get on with it once again because I feel I am called to be somewhere else. Dealing with the origins of your life allows you to follow more freely the movements of your life beyond.
"Everyone deserves music, sweet music." - Michael Franti
Today was for writing while thinking about Africa, Germany, and Washington state, places I have been and am returning to soon enough. And I think we all must come home in order to say something to that home in writing or action or thought, to recognize the place and situation which created and molded you and to sit awhile and reflect with it, to whatever end. I have always known that my SF home was a place to come back to but not to stay in, that this will be my home and always will be and I'm glad. Now, I am eager to get on with it once again because I feel I am called to be somewhere else. Dealing with the origins of your life allows you to follow more freely the movements of your life beyond.
"Everyone deserves music, sweet music." - Michael Franti
Monday, April 09, 2007
Monday the day after Easter
I have a feeling that if I continue writing a blog a day you may actually come to know something about me, that I will no doubt reveal a thing or two which you didn't know yet, stumbling on my words until a fact comes sprawling out on the pavement from my treehouse door. I sense that tonight already. For instance, I am writing with my shoes on now. I almost never write with my feet not bare.
Earlier this eve: I'm sitting at a familiar bar, a talky pair of men to my right and nothing but empty space and a window to the left, my SF Giants losing again on the television mounted above me with the ocean roaring beyond the windows in the dark behind me. The conversations get boisterous and specific as another round of drinks comes to the right-hand-men, and I remain sipping my lonely beer slowly as the night plods along. It's Monday, and my brain is somewhere else. Hey look, the Giants just lost and the bar has emptied by a few more people, while jazz springs around from the speakers in the background. It's cold in here, like an air vent to the beach across the street is open and no one feels like getting up to close it, chilling the space around the few people in this joint tonight. The bartender walks down to my end and glances at me but I don't look up, and he gladly goes back to the talking end of the bar. I'm down here with the electric dishwasher and the extra glasses, in the darker corner, and tonight I like it. My heart is on a plane headed to Rwanda tonight and all day tomorrow. My eyes feel alert with loneliness which mingles among immense gratitude rather than sadness, reflecting on a missed soul rather than mourning a temporary loss. My brain requested this beer and my body brought it to this familiar bar where we will eat and drink together soon enough, once my heart returns from Africa in early May. Things are where they should be, for now.
I came to this bar not to drink but to write and think and sit and watch people and wonder. When I feel a pulling to write it seems wrong now to resist, and to be here now feels as good and solitary as if the spinning jazz CD were a live quintet in the corner to my lonely left smoking its music in the shadows while I huddle as I do now, listening and scribbling and watching. For now, I am a solitary man living a non-lonely life alone and aware tonight of the simple fact that yes, life is good, loneliness and aching are also good. This beer is good. My Giants, however, are not good.
"You got to learn how to die, if you wanna wanna be alive." - "War on War" by Wilco
Earlier this eve: I'm sitting at a familiar bar, a talky pair of men to my right and nothing but empty space and a window to the left, my SF Giants losing again on the television mounted above me with the ocean roaring beyond the windows in the dark behind me. The conversations get boisterous and specific as another round of drinks comes to the right-hand-men, and I remain sipping my lonely beer slowly as the night plods along. It's Monday, and my brain is somewhere else. Hey look, the Giants just lost and the bar has emptied by a few more people, while jazz springs around from the speakers in the background. It's cold in here, like an air vent to the beach across the street is open and no one feels like getting up to close it, chilling the space around the few people in this joint tonight. The bartender walks down to my end and glances at me but I don't look up, and he gladly goes back to the talking end of the bar. I'm down here with the electric dishwasher and the extra glasses, in the darker corner, and tonight I like it. My heart is on a plane headed to Rwanda tonight and all day tomorrow. My eyes feel alert with loneliness which mingles among immense gratitude rather than sadness, reflecting on a missed soul rather than mourning a temporary loss. My brain requested this beer and my body brought it to this familiar bar where we will eat and drink together soon enough, once my heart returns from Africa in early May. Things are where they should be, for now.
I came to this bar not to drink but to write and think and sit and watch people and wonder. When I feel a pulling to write it seems wrong now to resist, and to be here now feels as good and solitary as if the spinning jazz CD were a live quintet in the corner to my lonely left smoking its music in the shadows while I huddle as I do now, listening and scribbling and watching. For now, I am a solitary man living a non-lonely life alone and aware tonight of the simple fact that yes, life is good, loneliness and aching are also good. This beer is good. My Giants, however, are not good.
"You got to learn how to die, if you wanna wanna be alive." - "War on War" by Wilco
Sunday, April 08, 2007
A Blog a day, that's all we ask...
I am a Blue Diamond Almond, dull but crunchy, salty and plentiful. A buttermilk sky and a Brahms piano concerto opened my morning today as my father walked his route and I drove by him, honked at him, and exchanged finger gestures jestfully with him. It was a good morning and I wish I had written on it. So, I hereby vow to word-it-up every day till the beginning of May, create a word or too and see why the chips fall where they do and who if anyone is in attendance to hear them fall at all. Too many moments these days are going unwritten, with a pair of journals and a pair of blogs and a side order of scratch paper tucked into books half-read I see that practice takes precedence over thought. And clarity is the answer to everything. Without further ado, I hit the POST button...
Sunday, January 28, 2007
For Doc
I don't even know what the word mentor means anymore. Now that I'm all grown up and think I've figured out a majority of life, those who I admire I tend just to call 'friend.' But when I was a wee lad I was influenced by many good people, most of them were family and the others were my teachers. And then there was one man and the only man I would call a mentor, William 'Doc' Ballard. He wasn't the family physician but rather a doctor of music ('You can BE that?' queried the 7-year-old), and Doc was the man who taught me to love music. He represented the highest ideals and greatest depth within music during my youth, the Artistic Director of my first boy choir. Doc conducted the top ensemble, and before you had finally graduated through the training choirs and into that ensemble you would sing under him only on the BIG pieces in the BIG concerts, so Doc had this aura about him that was understood. Most of the time you would see him float, rock-like, around the choir headquarters either jovial or angry but always passionately doing something... yet when he saw one of 'his boys' he would grin from ear to ear and call them by name, even if it took him a second for some of the newer kids. In later years when I moved into that top group I would go to his house and sit in his kitchen with fellow choir studs awaiting my 'passing time' - a harrowing and nerve-wracking twice-weekly 10 minute period in which each of us would stand in front of him and sing from memory the music in our repertoire for that season, and if you 'passed' you would earn a certain amount of points for each song, and the dude with the most points at the end of the season received a medal you could proudly wear as part of your performance attire. One year I was in a competition with Carl Rabun all season long for that medal, and in the last week he beat me by a handful of points. I was cramming my head off trying to learn music - memorize it and sing it well in front of my director - just so I could wear that simple, beautiful symbol of accomplishment. And I lost, yet Doc and his wife Edith decided to give medals to Carl and to me. We had proved our point to his satisfaction, that we knew and loved the music, and that we really loved to wear those sweet ribbons. He didn't know how much that meant to me but in my actions I tried to show him that respect (except when a certain 13-year-old choir vice-president decided it was better to run amok in Rotorua, NZ than obey a simple curfew. He promptly removed me from office. 'Nuff said.)
Doc continues to be a beacon of quality, discipline, self-worth - all filled with the love he modeled and shared with us through music. In a few weekends I will drive back to San Francisco for Doc's memorial service, attended by those who loved him, sang for him, traveled with him, sat in that kitchen or on the tour bus, and were hugged vigorously and scolded even more vigorously by him. We will sing two more pieces for Doc in the cathedral of St. Ignatius where we used to hold those massive annual Spring and Christmas concerts. And there will be stories and tears in our reunions, vigorous hugs and ear-to-ear-grins. While our wives and children (no, not mine) will be in the audience sitting next to our parents, and our voices will resound a shocking three octaves lower, we will all be together as 'Doc's boys' again for the first time in a very, very long time. So I am uplifted and humbled, because I didn't take the initiative to thank my mentor and tell him, 20 years later, how much he meant to me. Doc being who he was, though, surely knew exactly his role in all our lives. Just as Edith said recently of her husband, Doc was truly interested in and really liked people. And I'm one of his boys. 'Nuff said.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Top 5: Cats Under the Stars
A much-needed homage to my favorite felines, simply five of the coolest animals I know, in no particular order except from #1 to #5, but there are no favorites and the list can change here and there, but ladies and gentlemen, as always, please... NO WAGERING! Click on the photos, the bigger the better. And if I sound a little cat crazy, I am, so shoot me. But stay tuned for more Top 5s including dogs, stir fry vegetables, new bands, composers, great lines, etc. My High Fidelity moments, and my admission that Top 5's are not enough to express joy but are necessary for our short-attention-span universe. Mee Owww.
GRETL - A born conversationalist, leaver of loving claw marks on backs and shoulders, she grunts when you sneeze and attacks when you pant. Follows ballet on TV. Signature pose: arms and legs spread in surrender position, full belly exposed, slight curl to body, mewing incessantly.
TOBY - Groomer and kneader of humans' heads only after he has first groomed his private parts; best paired with brother Griffin for maximum sweetness, and has the biggest eyes in Catdom. Signature pose: a single paw-pat gently touching your face as a morning reminder to feed him, then a double-paw-pat a few minutes later when you fail to get up.
MAX - An urban catboy who wears his tuxedo to every occasion, he occupies upper bellies since wider sister Gretl usually takes up all the lap room. Also becoming proficient in the martial arts. Signature pose: on your belly laying facing you, two arms in front of him stretching toward you like he's giving you a hug.
GRIFFIN - Lover. Thinker. Barfer. Will contort body around any shape made by brother Toby; his preferred method of self-heating after direct sunlight basking: microwave. Signature pose: laying with arms tucked under body, head bowed and eyes closed, facing the weirdest direction possible.
SQUEAK - Truly squeaks with each step when running to her food dish, carrier of infectious disease C.O.L. (Cat On Lap), which renders her victims seriously hot and totally immobile. Signature pose: sitting prissily on back legs with right front paw raised and curled up, Karate Kid style.
GRETL - A born conversationalist, leaver of loving claw marks on backs and shoulders, she grunts when you sneeze and attacks when you pant. Follows ballet on TV. Signature pose: arms and legs spread in surrender position, full belly exposed, slight curl to body, mewing incessantly. 
TOBY - Groomer and kneader of humans' heads only after he has first groomed his private parts; best paired with brother Griffin for maximum sweetness, and has the biggest eyes in Catdom. Signature pose: a single paw-pat gently touching your face as a morning reminder to feed him, then a double-paw-pat a few minutes later when you fail to get up. 
MAX - An urban catboy who wears his tuxedo to every occasion, he occupies upper bellies since wider sister Gretl usually takes up all the lap room. Also becoming proficient in the martial arts. Signature pose: on your belly laying facing you, two arms in front of him stretching toward you like he's giving you a hug.
GRIFFIN - Lover. Thinker. Barfer. Will contort body around any shape made by brother Toby; his preferred method of self-heating after direct sunlight basking: microwave. Signature pose: laying with arms tucked under body, head bowed and eyes closed, facing the weirdest direction possible. 
SQUEAK - Truly squeaks with each step when running to her food dish, carrier of infectious disease C.O.L. (Cat On Lap), which renders her victims seriously hot and totally immobile. Signature pose: sitting prissily on back legs with right front paw raised and curled up, Karate Kid style.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
MT for the Masses
Have I ever told you about Montana? Well, I won't go too deep here, it's a big state with lots of ground to cover. American western writer Wallace Stegner considered the entire state of Montana to be "a very big city with very long streets." With less than a million people it may seem true, but you wouldn't know unless you drove those streets. So, imagine if you took the population of San Francisco and scattered it like seed across an empty state the size of California. That's Montana, complete with college towns and rodeos, hippies and philosophers, musicians and farmers, Republicans and Democrats, and everyone in between, all people combined to be outnumbered each by space, trees, livestock, mountains, sky. A state where the majority of people are still humbled by the land around them, seeing themselves as receivers of a gift few know about, not just as rightful heirs of a land just asking to be overtaken and populated. There is still resistance to that here. Here exists a pleasant unbalance: the land wins and the people are glad for it. That's a Montanan's secret to share at their leisure. I'm lucky to have a permanent bed here to sleep in and my family to live with whenever I want, so the secret is mine to share, too. 
Recently a band called the Wayword Sons found their way Montanaward, setting up their folk instruments on the stripped down altar of my brother and sister's church for a concert here in Great Falls, bedding themselves in the house of the preachers and their son and his California uncle, resting their instruments to sleep next to the Christmas tree and atop the foosball table, laying their heads next to the full keg of Montana amber ale with the smell of lasagna and beef ribs and old hands mingling high in the air, and awaking to pots and pots of coffee and homemade waffles followed by the opening of instrument cases and a sit-down pick of strings playing songs you know the tune to and a few verses of but which can't be placed on any CD because they are everywhere songs.
That was a weekend in Great Falls, and as they slipped out of town in a van named Turd we followed them two nights later down to another smaller town. To get there we followed the Missouri River and watched it cross beneath the highway over and over again, meeting it on the other side of mountain passes or several times watching it slowly grow toward us across long and people-less prairies. You have to get out and drive and move around the state to fathom what may keep you in Montana. The "Big Sky" doesn't joke around, it's not just another Show-Me State or Garden State moniker. The land here rolls slightly and often, but as if someone took a rollling-pin to the land and you are a spot on a pizza, the land is pushed away in all directions up to a crust of long mountains which surround you in the distance, mountains which shoot the horizon much farther away than you expect. These mountains, at that distance, containing long rolling prairies within actually stretch your perspective and the sky above about 3X the distance you ordinarily see and expect. Just as an ocean horizon at sunset sends your mind peacefully adrift, Montana's big sky is an endless ocean above you. 
This is where I come to get back home, whether in the kitchen with my sister, the studio with my brother, or with my nephew on the floor in Legoland. My lifestyle with them somehow elevates all that is important for a good existence, not a fancy one, but a good one. I usually grow my hair out and my beard gets thick, my belly swells and there is lots of reading to be done when I'm here. This is home, and a river runs through it, or at least to the north and west of it. There is wireless at Cool Beans, and lots of space on the couches. Good beer flows from the taps at Bert and Ernie's, and live music plays there most nights of the week, including a bluegrass roundup on Thursdays for anyone. The train pulls up outside of town but within range of hearing its whistle each day. The streets downtown were built in the 1800s so a horse cart could turn around, and each street has a back alley for your garbage pickup, extra parking, and so a guy like me can walk behind everything especially on snowy quiet days. They sell the best sausages at the Beer Baron grocery store, and the best bread at Great Harvest. There is more to describe, just as there are things to avoid which I won't mention, perhaps elements of small-town rural life in America which thrust some stereotypical images into your head, and which of course are true. But there are other truths about small towns like this which you can only uncover for yourself, and that's all I have to say about that, for now.
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The other night I went out the kitchen door and into the little mud room exposed to the elements by a torn screen on the door leading outs... -
The sun shines pretty hard these days as it works to fight off the cold that has gripped the Pacific Coast. Cold always wins, and all heat ...