went slightly nuts…

Sorry to be away for a few days, but I think I was on one of my more nutty, totally loopy tangents of life. In response to being sightly pissed off at someone, I joined what I can only call desperate chicks looking for desperate dudes anonymous. I won’t begin to tell you how bizarre it was checking people out by their 25 year old photos, and finding people I work with and know through social means. What’s even scarier is that everytime you click on someone’s photo, they know it. There’s a huge cache of crap right there for everyone to see. I even paid extra to see when people read my emails.

I am a voyeur. So now that I have left both .coms, I will have to join voyeurs anonymous. It got to the point where I was seeing those desperate dude people in public. I actually believe I did see at least two of them. It gets really creepy. Do these DDs ever find women — oops, I mean DCs who really do want them just for the listening and cuddling. Give me a break. When the handsome 60+ year old man says he’s looking for a 25-55 year old woman, you might just as well cross off the 55 and make it ‘anyone who will……..’ — I won’t litter my words with stupidity and crudeness. As one friend said, “What Hallmark card did he get that from?”

After the third day, my searches all ended up with the same matches. Some of them had a look at my information and photo, and just clicked on past when they noticed the body type I had selected. Who really knows why they look away. If you’ve lived in SF your whole life and are now 57, never married, etc., chances are you have been doing it with someone, honey. The two or three men out of the hundreds I checked out were polite, and responded very quickly. There was the self-confessed, savvy online dating guy who made beautiful furniture–lived in Oregon–and just divorced his wife he married in 2005. He said he was dating two women right now, and that northeastern Oregon was too far to even consider a relationship. I think people should go anywhere– do you hear me –ANYWHERE if someone writes what they want to hear, regardless of body type, hair color, height, or income.

Do I sound like a jilted woman? Perhaps I am. One guy is a musician from somewhere within 50 or so miles of here, who talked about some very obscure composers and the like in his bio. When I wrote, I mentioned some factoids about the people he was talking about, some even more obscure info that I didn’t even have to look up. His response was to wish me good luck in my artistic pursuits. There were others. I would really like to hear from the very first guy I wrote to, but he’s probably just getting home after a week full of veterans activities — it’s really ok.

I’m much more at peace now. Going to do it the old fashioned way, but this time insisting on tantric rather than the old grunt, grunt, grunt and it’s over kinda guy. Don’t know who’s going to read this wild and wooly missive, but it makes me happy to write it. Now maybe I can get back to my art, instead of trying to live through a few old time photos staring at me from this slim little silver box they call Mac. Maybe it’ll be Mac and me for a while. Cool, sleek body. It knows I’m a dog and doesn’t care.

I just cancelled both memberships…….they were expensive. I paid the price. Of course, I’ll always be curious about the violinist in Healdsburg with the lovely smile and the stunning white beard, the retired Nashville musician who lives alone on a farm in Isleton, and a few others….but not curious enough to stay with it.

Love is where you find it, you say? Love is all you need, you say? You know what? I love me, I love my art, I love where I’m living right now, I love sitting here and looking out the window to see the maple leaves on those small trees shimmering in the breeze, I love that I’m going to make a cup of tea in a bit and sit in the living room and communicate with my dear departed grandmothers, two of them were born on my birthday, one died on my birthday and one died two days before my birthday — just couldn’t wait. If I were a stickler for grammar, I’d have the red pen all over that last runon sentence. My friend Morris, the English professor, called it “style.”

Ok, dahling. I’m off to the tea kettle and communication with the grandmothers + a few others who join in for the experience.

Of course, I love you for just being you. Homage to Fred Rogers.

later…

new friends, old acquaintances

Met last night with an old acquaintance…now a new friend.  It was like sitting across the table from myself — saying and doing things that I’ve said and done.  Totally surreal.  Many years have passed since anything like this has happened.  I know we have a history way back before this lifetime.  Perhaps this will be one of the important discoveries of this lifetime.

We stopped by my place after dinner.  She loved the actual bones of the house, and made me realize how much I enjoy living there.  Landwomen decided that for all practical purposes, they will not be moving in until mid to late September.  So I’m ok for a while.  I have a home for the duration.  Just wish the mosquitoes weren’t so prevalent.  Causes issues with sitting outside in the evening.

Showed her all the fabric pieces I had at home; love at first sight.  The commentary on the piece for the new friend was intense and appropriate.  Incidentally, I got another commission the other night — a baby quilt (insomuch as I can actually make a ‘baby’ quilt) for a child not due until February.  So that’s four commissions in the offing!  Wow.  Didn’t actually realize that until I said it.  A couple of them will be short term completion times, but two of them will longer time periods and will be more involved with silks, beads, etc. 

This weekend is full of activity for some.  For me, I will spend some time on the computer — some of you know why.  Anyone else can guess.  I will reveal more as time goes by.  Saw the clay in the garage last night.  Really need to get started on those plates and bowls for my cupboards. 

Ok, can you tell I’m loving life again?  I seem to be going in waves — up, down, over and out.  Such a changeable Charlie right now.  I’m very tired.  Looking forward to a long  weekend when I can go lay me bodday doon and stay as long as I like, and return there periodically to refresh and reflect. 

New MacBook Pro is a wonderful thing.

Later…

online again…

What a relief. Once again have a functioning computer at home. Hope that it isn’t such a distraction (“shiny object, shiny object!”) from the art that I find myself with nothing when time rolls around for the annual show in January — or whenever.

The new MacBook Pro is good. Even better now that I can do this from the comfort of my home – my temporary home. Still in the throes of decision making about the future. It must be interesting to be in a settled situation, knowing where you’re planning to be in several years’ time. Wonder what that feels like. Feeling a bit like a transient right now…with a few new pieces of furniture, a new bed, and a couple of new pieces of clothing. This morning wishing for a truck so that I could get some more of my few possessions out of the storage place — including my fabric stash, and a couple of books that are old friends.

Looking forward to a nap later today! Isn’t that funny? Just had a phone call from a colleague who is scoping out new places for me to rent. She’ll get me out of this place sooner than expected, I’m sure. Guess I’ll go borrow the parents’ Blazer and transport a couple of things. Maybe I can get Sam to help me later. Have something else to pick up, too. Right now, I’ll go get the green fabric and get started on the new fabric piece that has been haunting me. Then scope out the rentals that are out there waiting for me.

Later…

ok, baby

reality bites.  How many times have I said that since I started writing here?  If I haven’t said it, I’ve thought it countless times.  This weekend is for art.  I’ve been at a creative standstill for a while now.  Much moving from house to house, setting up the new place, greeting curious visitors, and loving every moment of it.  When I stopped to look at my recent art production, whether fabric or clay, I was astonished at the dearth of anything except having glazed four or five pots from a month or so ago.  Perhaps I need to wear my gaspeite earrings (never found the new one I lost) that I bought recently, and set to.  Wanting to make some plates and bowls and cups for my own use.  Got the clay last week.  Will either search through storage place for fabric tomorrow or go to the store and get something to start on.  You know which I will choose, right?

Reality of the situation…get cracking, honey.  No production, no show in January or any other time.  I must say, however, that when I do get started there’s no stopping me.  I do have several pieces in mind, and should really sketch them before I lose them. 

Realizing now that I spent an immense amount of time and energy on the recently completed d’avance.  I’m really ready to move on, baby.  Whether or not my movin’ on will have to do with d’avance I know not at this moment.  Perhaps in a couple of weeks I will be able to reveal all.  For now, I will immerse myself into clay at least wrist deep, and hope that I come out Monday in time for work.  If not, I will probably be found in my back yard at home covered in clay with masses of pottery around me!  What a joy that would be!!!!!

Perhaps the Tibetan bells that were rung in the house and the yard last week for the purpose of bringing out the creativity have finally taken hold.  Whatever it takes, I’m taking the dive.  Yahoo!  Just thinking about it is exciting. 

Later…

morning edition…

Ok.  So where was I?  Where am I?  In the throes of making decisions about music involvement.  What do I do, you might ask?  As one would expect, I go to the store where I buy my clay — bought four 25 lb blocks–that’s 100 pounds.  The last time I did that (last year) I finished making things with the 100 lbs., couldn’t stop, bought another 75lbs., and finally stopped after finishing up that lot.  I was doing my favorite thing…coil-building large pots and glazing them with lots of stripes of every color and size.  The pots range in size from about 10″ to 25″ in height, and 12″ to 25″ in diameter.  Some of them make a beautiful noise when held just right with one hand and struck with the top knuckle of the middle finger.  All this is to say that another one of those clay spurts is about to happen — of course at the time when I am making decisions about other parts of my life.  Did I mention this all happened in the span of about three weeks?

A friend stopped by my place last night.  She said this house suits me — the kind of place I should be living in — perhaps this is practice for what is to come.  This whole newness is so invigorating.  My new New Balance shoes are good.  Walking tonight after the heat of the day has passed…looking forward to that.  Looking forward to the peaceful weekend ahead.  Tonight, I have to myself.  Will stop on the way home to return a clothing rack that I thought would work.  When I started to put it together, realized that I had actually bought the same rack before, put it together and then took it back to the store.  It has happened once again. 

Continuing to love whatever is put in my path.  Sort of like the schmuck who was caught by cupid’s arrow — only it’s not just the first thing I see, it’s everything, but not necessarily everyone!

The music dilemma.  Continue involvement with the current genres leaning toward classical (oboe and English horn), doo wop, etc. (vocals), or delve into the world of excitement and innovation with a new group of multifaceted individuals who are interested in just getting out there and sharing new, dare I say happily energetic ideas.  I vote for the latter.  Whereever I am, there are people who want to do……..are doing just that.  Time will tell.

I don’t mean to ignore the world’s issues, but at this moment choose to develop my more immediate world, the geography of my environment (thanks to Tim Hallinan, former professor of geography at CSUS who fed my brain in my last GE class all those many years ago — what a guy).

I’m off to see the wizard…..

later

lovin’ life, lovin’ myself

Get ready for soppy…I’m all up in it, loving my new furniture down to the colors, the feel, just sitting there looking out the window to the lovely home across the street; the fabric pieces I’m working on – can’t get green out of my mind, so I’ll work on the new green piece while I finish the purple one; the restful back garden where I sat for 2 hours yesterday with my mom and step-dad (my mom said it was peaceful enough for her to come there and write poetry); everything I do, the people I see, what I say, my perceptions, and so much more.  For the very first time, it all feels right.

I have to decide which is more important…hanging up my clothing, or hanging up my new green fabric piece to do the final arrangement before all the basting, backing and batting are added.  Must really go to the storage place and get my fabrics and shelves.  Without them, I am frequenting the stores where I have no business being.  Probably have enough cottons, silks and brocades for at least the next few years(brocades went on sale locally for $6.99/yd.).  Sometimes I have to get one new fat quarter or a little piece of a new color of silk to get started.  Did that with silk yesterday.  Green and pale green.  Used them on Camelingoes II in January.  Maybe that’s where the green monster took over.

Last meeting of Artist’s Way tonight.  My gift to the each person is a clear plastic Chinese food container (unused) filled with pieces of 9 cottons and 9 silks and a little bag of beads and stones with the message, “Have fun!”   We are to bring some snacks — I’ll take a block of St. Andre cheese that I love so much alongside some great crackers.  Cheese plate and knives still packed and in storage.  So I go for the plate I got at Pier One Clearance Center and a knife from ——- somewhere.  May need to pick up the cheese and take a bite if I can’t find a knife.

Lately I often wonder which side of reality I’m on.  Things are seemingly exquisitely good.  I’m really loving living, and actually will be happy to stay home on Mondays and Tuesdays when my classes end this week.  I will always be out on Wednesdays for the pottery class, however!  I have always questioned the reality base that includes my life.  Picked up a book by the author of Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach, yesterday.  In this book, Romancing the Ordinary-a year of simple splendour.  I started reading a few pages last night, did some thinking, read a little more, went to sleep in my new nightgown (what! you weren’t wearing a tank top and undies?) yes a new nightgown, the softest cotton and lace you could ever hope for.  Going back for others today.  Hope the 30% off sale is still on!  I’ll be working through that book after tonight’s class is over.

So here I sit in reality-based surreality.  Where is that?

I now have my new fixed bridge (sounds painful) as a result of the 6:30am dentist appointment this morning.  Full compliment of teeth now, after having had an extraction several years ago with no bridge then.  I love Dr. Leslie Fong.  He takes such care with his patients.  Found him when I perused the teeth of my friends, and asked the one with the most impressive mouth who their dentist was.  Of course, I chose the person who was discriminating about every aspect of her life, also. 

He wants me to practice the oboe tonight to be sure there’s no air leaking, etc.  It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference to my playing.  Actually looking forward to playing regularly again.

Gotta go.  Catch up on other stuff later…

Mick Martin rocks the blues…

On Tuesday evening, I will have my last class with the great Mick Martin, a harmonica player of repute.  To say that the last couple of weeks have been filled with wild and sordid stories of his experiences in his own world of music would be an understatement.  He has filled our ears with sounds that chill your bones, that make you cry for no apparent reason, that exhilarate you to the max, that make you want to put down that $15 harp you just bought wishing you had spent it on his latest cd instead.

He has transmitted his love of the instrument, the music, and of other harmonica players of repute and of ill repute.  You can’t help but love him.  He’s one of those guys that my mom and grandma used to look at and say, “Ain’t he just full of himself!”  Of course, it was a negative comment.  Suspicion surrounded anyone who was full of himself and who loved himself enough to get up on the stage and treat us with his gift – a seemingly unlimited gift. 

To have seen him in his younger days must have been a powerful experience.  Right now, he is 56.  Tomorrow he is 57.  What a lot of crap and at the same time amazing stuff he has gone through.  In spite of knee surgery recently, he stands before us so earnestly and with such dedication to the instrument…you know it must hurt like hell.  He is still a powerhouse, lovin’ every minute of it.

Admittedly, he knows nothing about music — about reading music and that whole scene.  While I sit and try to relate his riffs and solos to the written note, he’s finished the song and on to the explanation of the lyrics of the next one.  He loves shocking people; the ones in this class sometimes seem so bland.  You know they all play the heck out of their instruments at home and become sheepish and bleating when they come to class.  I think that’s why Mick is so good.  His lectures about infidelity, about being too old for rehab so the sex and drugs are less important now, about his family and their reactions to his practice sessions, about the importance of his family to him are all rivetting.  He is a storyteller.  You know we all love stories, and would sit for hours if we could just listening — especially to the illustrious Mick Martin as he interjects those marvelous bits of music.

His classes attract a diverse group.  Last week I sat next to a psychiatrist; this week a biker in leathers and riding a Harley.  To Mick, they are one and the same.  They all want to learn more about the harmonica — the harp. 

What am I learning from the fabulous Mr. Mick Martin?  Loosen up and bear down on that harp.  Put that thang into your mouth and blow, baby, blow.

later…

how do you tell ‘em?

I want to sing “Baby I’m Yours” Barbara Lewis’ version, ”The Water is Wide” James Taylor version, “I Love You Like the Earth” Audrey Auld Mezera, “Angel of the Morning,” ”I’ll Never Find Another You” by the Seekers, “Do You Want to Know a Secret” and “Something” and “Long and Winding Road” by the Beatles…I could go on forever.

All I want to do is be able to tell someone how I feel in no uncertain terms, leaving nothing to the ’game’ of love that we all agonize over for months, years, decades.  I know how I feel.  I know what the possibilities are.  I know the inevitabilities.  At my age, I’d really like to be able to do that…simply, with care and understanding, with love.  Get the crap out of the way, and just say what I mean. 

Truly, madly, deeply…….isn’t that how it goes?  

I’ll get my chance soon in a few weeks.  Hoping — no — knowing the feelings will be totally mutual.  Yes, this is a high risk situation but any relationship is.  Do we ever really know another person?  There are times when I think I know someone’s perspective and find out that I’m on another planet.

I’m going to do it.  Look out buddy.  This girl’s on a mission.

More to come…later.

wasted on the way…

In listening to the Makaha Brothers, Sons of Ni’ihau in the Live at the Waikiki Shell album this morning on the way to work, I heard their version of the Crosby, Stills and Nash tune Wasted on the Way.  Realized that I had always gotten carried away with the harmonies and never the lyrics, looked them up, printed them out and was quite surprised that it really fits where I am right now.  Today.

I remember going back to Hawaii, my birthplace, when I graduated from high school.  Stayed with Aunt Betty and her family (husband, three nearly grown kids) in a two bedroom apartment where she ironed trousers by putting them under the cushion on the patio and sitting there for a couple of hours, smoking and reading a book.   Uncle Walter who was a Chief in the Honolulu Fire Department before he retired did all the cooking.  The wonders of bok choy!  Learned from Aunt Betty that the less rice you eat when you go out to Chinese dinner, the more other stuff you can eat.  Funny what you remember, isn’t it?  Made a holoku for my mom while I was there.  Beautiful yellow fabric.  My aunt had only black and white thread — black for dark colors, white for light colors.  No need for matching, she said.  So I sewed the long zipper with white thread showing through on the outside of the yellow fabric.  I think my mom still has the garment hanging in her closet. 

I’ve been back there only one time since then — in 1999 when my son was 13 — ostensibly to meet a half-brother whom I had found in December 1998.  In an almost surreal, frightening way, my brother Rick with whom I shared a father, was so much like me it was hard to believe.  We had been raised in almost conflicting environments, but had somehow retained the genetic memory that came to us from our father who died when I was 14 and Rick was 3.  People who knew my father said that he was a very affectionate man who loved my mom and adored me.  For various reasons, I rarely saw him, but had a great affinity for his presence whenever I was allowed time with him.

So anyway…when I went to the islands way back when, my cousins took me to the Waikiki Shell just down the street from where they lived………just remembered that I lost my high school class ring in the sands at Waikiki…………  The show that night had Don Ho as the headliner.  I think he was about 100 years old then, and 150 when he passed a while ago.  And all those hapahaole songs … not a dry seat in the house!

Have no idea who else was on the bill, but I’m sure there was hula and some surfer band as that was the fad in those days.  Spent many an hour on the beach, swimming, tanning (burning), innocently talking to anyone who would share a word.

Check out the words to wasted on the way.  They might ease you through a mighty tough moment some day, as they have done for me today.

http://www.afn.org/~afn30091/songs/c/crosby-wasted.htm

Later…