heathervescent

Anniversary

Saturday the boyf and I took his car "that can not be named" up to Ojai for a daytrip. We bopped around the town, got a late breakfast and then I suggested we explore highway 33 north through the Los Padres Forest. The tires squeeled around the turns (which the boyf was taking at double the recommended speed) and I gripped the armhold on the door and wished for five point harnesses.

My face was a complete grin and there were no other cars (or motorcycles) in sight. Just magestic purple mountains, rocks and meadows. It reminded me how beautiful California is. There is really no other place on earth - and here we were - a mere 3 hours north of one of the biggest metropolis' in the northern hemisphere. Which made me all weepy for LA.

June gloom and Jacarandas remind me of my first month in LA. I knew the anniversary was coming up when the purple flowers started mucking up the sidewalks on the morning dogwalk. I watched the pair of Jacarandas - over 3 stories high - bloom and make a psychedelic canvas on the rich green grass. First week in June. Five years ago I left San Francisco and arrived in a Venice bungalow. I've spent another year in this city. It's five now. Five years in LA and no sign of leaving.

My Random Act of Kindness

John Paul is a painter and he must be over 80. He lives in the 4plex in front of our house, so every time I take the dog out I walk by his open windows and spy bits of colored paintings. Often I smell solvents and that's when I know hes painting.

I myself prefer to bake and when I do, it's generally big batches that are way more than I want to consume. I used to send a bunch with the boyfriend to work (or take some myself) but I would still have a lot left over. So I figured out a solution to my cookie making problem - maybe John Paul would like some. So now when I make cookies or brownies (or that massive batch of rice crispy treats like a few weeks ago) I make a little package for him.

He told me he enjoyed something sweet with his scotch nightcap. And I get to bake without the worry of eating everything. Problem solved - along with a budding friendship.

Weekend Highlights

I did a lot. I didn't do that much. Here's an enumeration to remind myself.

• H cranky from various things including the stock market and self-imposed stress pressure
• Boyfs sister and husband in law in town
• Spending time in the beautiful garden
• Lazy Saturday
• Crazy Baby Shower party with an old friend. Good times.
• Black Balloon and the midnight fill up.
• A high speed embrace on highway 5
• An awesome Kosher french restaurant
• The aquarium
• A tired H.

Jeeze, I've been moody this weekend. I don't know what the deal has been but I've been really short tempered and alternating between Taoist connected to the flow and wanting to rage against it (and 8 million things in between). I think I'm tired. The darkness of the evenings really depresses me. And the sun comes too early for my liking screwing with my usual standard sleeping patterns. Also the dog has really been wedging him into the wrong places of the bed. Time for the dog smack down again I guess.

Alessandra was telling me about quitting smoking a few weeks ago and describing her craving as "it wants a cigarette." Today I started using that to describe my crankiness. "It wants to be cranky. It wants __fill in the blank__." I think it's appropriate. I often find emotions to be like aliens. They just invade me and it's not like I want to feel them. What I feel is not the totality of who I am. Or, who I'd like to pretend/create/dream/assign who "I" identify with. I'd prefer to identify that person as the part connected to the larger god/life/energy/insertanydescriptionhere. So maybe I should start detaching that from myself like Alessandra was doing with her tobacco craving....

MSM and the Dog

Puppernut has an uncanny coincidence rate. He sometimes does things that look like they are in response to something he's "overheard". Usually it involves licking someone more than someone else. But yesterday a new syncronicity was found.

In the morning the boyf and I were talking about sad things we don't like to think about. He mentioned that it would be really sad when Romeo wouldn't be able to leap up anymore - and we both paused to think about our future old dog, no teeth trying to jump. This image barely formed in my mind when I snatched up the bottle of MSM on the table. For some reason I bought a bottle of this "joint supplement". Because I noticed my body being achier due to old age (which I don't believe) or stress (which I do believe). Anyway I snatched up the bottle and was waving it around saying, "Well, then I'll just start to give him MSM!" in an energetic singsong voice. Shaking the bottle of MSM supplements generally riling up everyone at the table. Sam and I joked and laughed for a while more and then went on to finish up at home and go about our paved roads to work.

When we got home and were hanging out playing with the dog in the bedroom, I looked over to his "kill pile" - this is where he takes his "kill" aka toys, treats, whatever he had caught/collected to devour - and what did I see? The bottle of MSM! It was as if he understood what we were talking about at the breakfast table and not wanting to get old, decided to start taking it himself! Of course the real answer is that it was random (and after reading several books on random order, order in random numbers, random theory, there's a statistical chance that what Romeo did was by pure chance.) But I like to think he really understood us. It makes life more interesting.

Morning Cats

On the rooftop behind our place, the sun rises. Shining it's first morning rays into my eyes. I've been waking up well before 6am. Mostly to think, ponder, half-dream, visual-self-hypno-re-program myself. Eventually my mind is wide awake and I rise myself from the golden bed of revitalization into the world of solid objects.

Yesterday I made two new friends. Two big black cats with bright green eyes. We watched each other through the screen. I was transfixed by the beauty of their sleek coats and penetrating cool eyes. And the freedom to lounge on rooftops watching the sun rise.

They remind, represent those silent morning moments in my life - past and the many more to come.

Dream come true, new dreams

Sam was driving us back from the Reptile Breeders Meeting today. We were in my convertible, the top was down, it was about 85 degrees, I had the A/C on. The new Orb album was revering bass in my seat. And it hit me - this is my dream - one of them at least.

When I was a college student in Cedar Falls, Iowa - home to -50+ below windchill weeks in the winter, I dreamed of having a Saab. It seemed so far out of reach for me. When I lived in Berkeley and needed a new car, I bought a practical Camry. I still dreamed of my fancy car. One company founder had a dark green saab convertible and I drooled over his car. Loved it. Loved it.

When I moved to LA, I decided I needed to have a convertible - because I was in LA now, right?! ;) I had forgotten my Saab dreams and loves until, like a veil I remembered. I made it happen. And now, every day, I drive around in my dream.

It's been four  years. I had forgotten gratitude. I had forgotten that this dream did not always exist. That I worked hard for it to come true. And here I was, being driven on the 5, in Southern California at sunset, top down, wind blowing, my favorite music playing on my stereo system. I was living my dream.

--
Somewhere in the past 6 months or so, my dreams changed. I've gotten caught up in day to day drama - work and relationship - and have forgotten about the big stuff. I remembered this watching Southland Tales. There's an undercurrent about manifesting in life the things that were scripted. That's dreaming and stalking for you. Anyway, it reminded me that I used to do a lot of this. A lot of being in control of my reality, pro-actively creating my life. More recently I've been caught up in winds I don't control - nor can control myself in them.

It's very discombublating.

However, now that I have realized this, I can get back to living life the way I like to. Pro-actively. Focused on an end-goal, that I don't necessarily know exactly how I'm getting there. After, the journey is the destination, and once I know where I am going, getting there is the fun.

Rumble, Gurgle

So there was an earthquake today. Just before noon. I'm sitting in the high tower (literally - the 4th floor turret of a 3 story building) and the floor starts shaking like a truck has hit the building or a huge washing machines is bumping around and I look over at Gaurav (my officemate) and say - "It's an earthquake."

I immediately look up at our beamed ceiling. Wondering if I should move. As I watched (and felt) the building shake, I waited. I waited to see how bad it would get. It subsided and then started up again, stronger than before. I kept seated. I tweeted the earthquake and I waited to see what would happen. Calm and open and receptive in the moment.

It finally finished. The electricity was still on. I was still calm. it was only after a minute or two that my heart started beating. I was not panicked. I was amped up. I had lived through my first big LA quake. Sure, I felt that 3 or 4 pointer back in El Cerrito when I lived in Berkeley. Sure I felt the little 3 pointer earlier this year while I was working in my home office. And yeah, maybe this was not the big one - but I was in an office and the building was moving, and everything was fine. I didn't mind the rumbling - I only watched in anticipation with how strong it was and was the building going to break. Was I in danger. I was not.

I enjoyed the ride. Just like those turbulent flights. Just like landing in the lightening storm in STL back back in the day. Nature, you gotta love her. You gotta respect her and you gotta go with the flow. She's boss.

4 Years Tomorrow

I remember when first heard the word "Jacaranda". It was in a Marisa Monte song in the Southern Hemisphere in a Northern Brazilian Beach town.

Four years ago I subletted a writer's cottage in Venice Beach. A light blue house with a wide grass lawn and a hammock in the back. Across the street from my home office (her office) was a beautiful tree with purple flowers. I learned this was a Jacaranda tree.

I had no reason to come to Los Angeles. I knew no one. I had no job. I had just this one month sublet. I did not come here for boy or job or to run away from my life or join a cult. I came to Los Angeles because it told me I needed to be here. That this place - this city - my birthplace - was where I needed to be. To leave the NorCal Elitist Snobbery and take a chance. Jump into the unknown. I had the guts and I jumped.

I remember these things because Friday is my 4 year anniversary of moving to LA.

Ah what times we've had Los Angeles. What we've learned from each other. What we've brought each other. The opportunities and challenges. I maintain my service to you - to uncover - to bring to light that which others ignore. To see what other can not - do not see - until I point the way - the Primer Inter Pares - threshold to the mainstream.

"My first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant me the thoughts, words and deeds likely to render my command most pleasing -- and to bring myself, my friends and my city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage."

I raise my glass to you - to another year of success - new opportunities, new friends and new adventures - always breaking new ground.

Funny Voices

Remembering reading the Libertarian tome (filled with minor characters), Burning Man books, comic books and MySpace emails in my Monster Truck, British and normal voices. I really love reading outloud in my Monster Truck voice.

Poolside in Hollywood

It's a Hollywood story. Text message. Convertible on Sunset Blvd. Valet park @ the Standard. I'm wearing my puking clown t-shirt from threadless as I take a seat in the Joshua Tree room. I'm looking at the wall paper and thinking about the ranch and how I might build a wall in the middle of the desert only to plaster it with this wall paper.

Then I'm drinking a mocha poolside while I listen to a director and two other folks talk about the movie deal. At the table next to me two sunglass clad metrosexuals enjoy their yogurt and berries. I'm tempted to order a drink but I'm trying to hit Rachel's Cardio Funk at Noon to get these abs into show off state.

I pull out my yellow book and three coins and offer a birthday gift of enlightenment to my friend. He throws the coins and the reading is one for us all. "Do not be that which you are not - be authentic - follow your true path." We talk about the things we usually talk about. Which is not politics (we're both libertarians) or burning man (much) or art or technology. We talk about the things our minds toy with. Relationships, processing. I make fun of the name he gave me "Mr Hard Ass." And I am. This time we talk about wolf packs, writing, motivation, conflict, relationships and an obvious asset. I suppose that's what we talk about most of the time. A phone call interrupts us - we have fun with it.

It's been a while since I've lived these typical LA stories. I immediately wonder why is that? I've gotten stuck in a groove. I've become more serious than usual. (All weekend the boyf was joking with me that I'm soooo serious - especially when I am joking. That reminds me that humor is not something I strive for, but rather the absurd and eccentric.)

I'm returning to things from the past. Returning to past mindsets, my internet radio show, my twisty drives in the Santa Monica Mountains. I consider Aikido, exercise, my desire for that "malibu mansion**" (I knew even then it was going to be in the Hollywood Hills). I think about which things I may cut, how I've stopped using GTD and the flow and flux of friends.

I long for those days. The vanilla sky. When LA was new and undiscovered. However it is still new and undiscovered. I've just gotten stuck in my habitual ruts. Time again, to break out.

* Image by Sam Newman

** This is joke with a friend. I'm referring to the mansion I'd buy once I was famous in Los Angeles, from back when I was only considering moving here.

ps. Remember "stealing the novelty"