northern california coast (circa 2007)

These were taken right outside the town where
Hitchcock filmed "The Birds"
It was beautiful but eerie there. I passed several trees filled
with perched vultures---

I stopped at a little general store to get some batteries,
it was like walking into a weird dusty, mildewy paperback
that had been sitting in
a cardboard box in a basement for 30 years.

Driving on the winding country roads,
I'd look in my rearview mirror and
seemingly,
out of nowhere,
there would be a pick-up truck
riding my ass..
It would get so close I could almost feel
the driver's flannel shirt wearin' breath on my neck.


All this the morning before a 10 day silent seclusion with strangers in the woods...

current conditions: dayquil

I've been experiencing a head cold which is mostly like hosting an out of town guest with annoying habits that I constantly have to clean up after.

My 7 year old niece was given an award at her school for being compassionate!



There were PIRATE SHIPS gliding around the Santa Monica Bay. That was a fun thing to see. Also the kind of anachronistic thing that makes the ground feel shakey and the edges blurry and maybe you forget your name for a split second.


My friend who is a psychic sent me a fantastic email about his latest gig:

"i got hired to clear a woman's house. today i got the psychic scoop from each of her 6 cats, who've been trading gettin really sick, one per week, and tomorrow i sit down with her (and see how much of her karma she can bear to hear about), and then begin to clear energy from the about 100 carved wooden masks she was suddenly obsessively driven to procure from all over the world and hang in her house, blanketing the walls in some places. you would not believe what it feels like in there! there is also at least one discarnate spirit there.
it's like a psychic storm....this job is going to be one thing at a time. i've done energy work on the cats, and two have had behavior changes. one that's on prozac (no fucking kidding - angry peeing on everything brought that about) stopped hiding and moping. i think she needed to be heard that she feels stuck in the drug prison of unclarity. the other one - it's his first time as a cat, and he's totally freaked out because he's pretty sure he's not supposed to be a cat. his change was being able to sit with me and not feel threatened, and make eye contact and "hear" what i was "telling" him. he's so skiddish usually that you can't interact with him at all."

on a side note: the cat who is on prozac is named "Feisty"

Went for dim sum in Chinatown on Sunday. TALK ABOUT A PSYCHIC STORM! It was like dining on a bollywood set, lots of lights, lots of gold...lots of mirrors, and pink. The faces were incredible, from Hong Kong fetish parlor to 1500's rice farmer..and everything in between. And then those carts stopping by like efficient trains, carrying a bizarre mix of things, dumplings, eggrolls, asparagus but also strange balls that look like chewed food wrapped in boiled intestine and other blobs resembling the contents of a liposuction tube. Then walking around Chinatown, where the ancient meets the cutting edge...fashionable art galleries next to herb shops lined with fish stomachs and bags of what look like toe nails. A stylish girl with architectual hair and a plaid mini skirt walking in front of a chicken slaughter house, the sound of squawking chickens mixing with techno music and classic Hall and Oates and at least 3 languages...all this before noon.

found: fun with sharpies

I love everything about this!
The caption says:

They miss the excitement.

"Angie feels they have moved on, but Brad would like to recapture the passion of their early relationship."

says an insider.

Ridonkulous!

wow! this makes me happy..
The spontaneity, the collaboration, the way the song keeps building
on itself
until
it's coasting on an air current
keeping company with the birds
flying over paris.
And then it morphs into an autumn leaf
gliding and twirling side to side
down invisible steps
to a velvet landing.
Oh, and the navy blue topsiders...

- summer of '78-
* f l a s h b a c k *
GREASE is the word!

japanese synchronized kitty team

new minor obsession to report:
japanese videos of cats on youtube.

Hello Kitty, indeed.

(it might be a fact...Japanese cats ARE cuter)

insomnia/momversation

Almost midnight here and I feel, um, well, awake. I should be asleep. But, instead, I have a tired body and alert mind that keeps bringing me a dirty slobbery tennis ball like a Jack Russell terrier wanting to play.


My mom sent me a very sweet card and then, in her very dear way, included this 2 inch by 2 inch section from an article...

she writes, "NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED TO REST OF ARTICLE BUT DONT THINK IT WAS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT"

here is the sent portion of that article :

You love your son or daughter who suffers from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, but sometimes it can get to be a little too much.

You can take some solace in the fact that you are not alone. About one child in 20 is diagnosed with ADHD, says Dr. Rick Robertson, a psychiatrist with Valle Viste Hospital in Greenwood.

"ADHD is really a deficit of self-regulation," Robertson says. "it's not an inability to pay attention, but an inability to make yourself pay attention."

and it made me think of one our recent conversations which went something like this...

ME: I think I'll bring Tim to Missy and Pat's Holiday party.
MOM: Sam?
ME: No, Tim.
MOM: Well then,who's Sam?
ME: What?
MOM: Who's SAM?
ME: I don't know.
MOM: I thought you said you were bringing Sam.
ME: No, I said I was bringing Tim, you said Sam.
MOM: I'm confused, who's Tim?
ME: A friend of mine.
MOM: But wait, then who's Sam?

overheard on bike path

"I bought a king-size bedroom set and then I couldn't find a house to fit it in."

on today's walk

Oh Look, a sea vagina.
Really, what is that thing?

This crab was so flirty,
and LOVED having it's picture taken.
No, seriously, IT WAS POSING!
I felt kind of crushy.

A starfish couple,
still holding hands
after all these years.
Aw.

Meet Wilber and Pico.
They are best friends.
They had more personality than their owners.

This Great Blue Heron
was not flirty.
But, he did let me get pretty close.

Here comes a sea, followed by an ocean...

Earlier this week I took a walk down to the pier. The late afternoon autumn sun was coming in at that magical angle, and it inspired an alternate and longer route.

That timed my arrival just before sunset and the sky looked like layers of sherbet. The light went from gold to pink and dusted everything with this softness, shadows were long and edges were diminished. When I reached the end of the pier, I noticed a man wearing a black suit. He was standing alone--exactly in the middle of the circle that forms the end of the pier. That's quite a thing to see, a man in formal attire at the end of a fishing pier, so I took his picture. I wasn't sure if he saw me, he seemed deep inside his head. My intuition told me that something very important was going to happen. But, I had no idea what.

~

~~~

I watched the man. He was taking slow deep breaths and looking out over the ocean. Eventually he turned around and faced the long length of the pier. He stood in what is best described as "parade rest", standing with the feet hip distance apart, arms in a downward "V" and hand over fist. He just stared ahead, motionless.

I saw a pretty girl walk towards him. She was carrying a HUGE bouquet of white roses, and her expression was of bewilderment, as if a stranger had just handed her the flowers and said "walk"---it was clear, though, that she recognized the man in the suit. His statue face finally registered an expression. He was happy.

What happened next, was both fast and also in slow motion.
He didnt move.
She walked all the way to him, a slow glide.
He got down on one knee.
Her eyes became shiny bowls, her hand spread and lifted to her mouth.
He pulled out a black box,
and electric taffy flowed from his eyes to hers...
He asked her to marry him.

She said 'yes'. They embraced. Her heels rose out of her little white flats as she scaled his shoulders in a hug. It was beyond beautiful...it was a moment so pregnant with all that is good that just watching it made me feel like I was made of liquid sparkles.

Oddly, all of the images are blurry until the final embrace...an apt visual metaphor for the moment, two flames in the process of becoming one, a dissolution of boundaries, if only for an instant.

~~~

:::::::::

at whole foods check out

CASHIER (to me): Hi, did you find everything okay?
ME: yeah, thanks..
BAG BOY (to me): paper or plastic?
ME: paper
CASHIER (to bag boy): Well, I would do, like, modest nudity. But not like Playboy or anything.
BAG BOY (to cashier): There's some tasteful stuff in Playboy, I think you can choose if you wanna show your snatch or not.
CASHIER (to bag boy): Oh. Well maybe, but I'd rather be in something that more young people look at, I think Playboy's not really that cool anymore.
CASHIER (to me): Here's your receipt, have a nice evening.

Whole Foods, maybe...Wholesome Foods, not so much.

momversations

MOM: I've lost my handlebars!
ME: What?
MOM: My handlebars, they're gone!
ME: Someone broke into the garage and stole your bike?
MOM: NO! Silly! I lost weight!

overheard

uttered by exasperated woman,

"Eat my mother's fuck!"

yikes.

typo=cheap laugh

Wish I could know who's responsible...
the sign company or the person placing the order with the sign company?

And, if it was the person placing the order with the sign company, did no one
at the sign company think to correct it? Was it laziness, revenge or
a quirky sense of humor? Maybe no one even caught the mistake?
Hell, I've walked past this sign 100s of times and I just now noticed it.
Did anyone get fired?

and then i was a gerbil
on a habitrail wheel of questions that will never get answered,
but mostly I laughed.

on today's walk

for my favorite "chimeny sweeper"

Oh wow. So much to love here.

Um, THIS, from a store on the Venice boardwalk
that has a big animatronic fortune teller named ZOLTAR
in a plexiglass booth at the entrance...
Many times I have walked by,
today, for the first time...(12 years)
I walked in.

Ok. So.
I love that the person writing the "display description"
was so enthused that they almost didn't leave enough room
for "profession",
in fact...I had to look up "profession"
to see if it was spelled properly
because
it looked SO weird.

"Dolls by Profession" ?

But mostly...
"for your favorite..."
CHIMENY sweeper?
nevermind the misspelling,
I don't know anyone that even
KNOWS
a chimney sweeper,
let alone has a "favorite"

Also,
($2._)?
sad.
like, isnt that what gum costs?

(and "Joey" doll in overalls
with wooden implements in pocket and dutch boy haircut,
what profession is that?)

watts happening

went to south central

dogs and cats running wild tijuana style
hair weaves in halloween colors on baby mamas
the treble of tejano and the bass of rap

on a dead end street are these towers
built over 33 years soley by one man
who started at the age of 42 and finished at 75.
He used no ladders or scaffolding,
no bolts, rivets, drills or welding torches

he declared,
"I wanted to make something big and I did"
then he left town and never returned.
the watts riots broke out a few blocks away
the same week he died

They stand like a tall ship
sailing through some mighty troubled waters

Got a one-on-one guided tour
by a man who sounded like
James Earl Jones...
in a word, DICTION
wait. in two words, FUCKING DICTION
and he painted the air with his hands while he talked.


an I love LA day.

$

world's largest zen garden

Um, yeah.
The beach last night was magical.
It was less about the skies,
all about the place where land and water meet...

it was such a sexy ballet.

O

it warped the sense of time and space
and size,
often felt like
I was seeing everything from an airplane.
instead of looking up everyone was looking down,
we were honorary birds for the day...

ME- just standing around observatrixing, waiting for a friend.
HER- woman in her 70s exiting public restroom.

HER (to me): "Oh my GOD! What a relief!"
ME: HAHAHAHAHAHA

she might as well have said, "Hey! I POOPED!"
(it was kinda cute)

oh mangy? OH,YES!

I got a flat tire on memory lane.
OOOOOoooooooo_____________

things to report

a bird pooped on me.
Google says that's a good luck omen
and it was good luck
not to be looking up with my mouth open.

I handed out candy to
the politest trick-or-treaters ever,
I gave a large handful to a little girl
dressed as an angel,
she thanked me for my generosity
and remarked...
"you dont expect that sort of thing from a
house on a somewhat busy street"

I heard a joke that keeps
making me laugh when I tell it to
myself in my head...

-What's the smartest thing that ever came out of a woman's mouth?
-EINSTEIN's cock!

at the laundromat today: adventures in clean clothes, OR...the vagina prophecies

I start putting my clothes into the front loaders and a man puts a neatly folded shirt and pants on top of the washer and says
(with an African accent--unknown country of origin)

"Can you sew these for me?" he smiles and walks away.

I just start laughing and say, "Oh, I cant sew, sorry."
Him: "You mean you just havent learned to sew yet."
Me: "Yes, I guess I stand corrected."
Him: "You know, sewing is going to be very important in the future."
Me: "Well, possibly, especially if there is a technological apocalypse, but I'm hoping there are more important things than sewing in my future."
Him: "You reap what you sew''
Me: "Yeah, when you put it that way sewing does seem very important."
Him: "Not as important as sewing the seeds of God."
Me: "?"
Him: "In the future, nothing will be as important as your vagina. Are you a virgin?"

and scene.

M. O.

Make sense,
nonsense
but incense, not so much...

Dressed like the sky...I called first and asked
"hey, what are you gonna wear?"

there was a...

DOLPHIN SHOW!!! They were trick riding the waves..
back flips, and high leaps...the kind that get memorialized on
paper weights and necklace pendants.

smoke on the water

a fire in the sky

you can feel the fire everywhere now,
with your nose
your eyes
your mouth.

hot and dry owned every moment of the day