heathervescent

out with the tiger, in with the spider

I've got a lot of things swirling in my head and body. Thoughts, revisions, emotions, feelings, goals. Reviewing my goals for 2004. Preparing the map for 2005. I keep lists and notes about what I want in my life. What I want to do with my life. What my dream life looks like. I've made many revisions in 2004. On Jan 1, 2004 I wrote this list:

• Make some money. Try to pay for 1/2 of my expenses.
• Make Decisions. Start small.
• Resolve relationship with Clint. Start on new track.
• Practice being happy and satisfied.
• Live in a new place. New apartment or house. Buy a house.
• Continue working on body. Best in shape 125-130 lbs.
• Outline one book and start writing it.
• Track/Stalk myself and my relationship with Carson.
• Travel: Midwest, Portland, SoCal, Southwest and beyond.
• Continue to align my intent, my connection to Intent! Dream!
• Purge toxins - physical, emotional from mind, body, soul.
• Reset financial and core values.

I've revisited it many times in the year. I made progress on everything on my list. There's one item that dropped off. That seems to be what happens with my lists like this. It's interesting knowing that as I write my list for 2005. I wonder which of these items will drop off? Will become less important. And what other things not on this list will become important.

• Move into the house. Unpack and have all my stuff in one location.
• Rebuild financial base.
• Completely, legally disengage from Clint. Burn the letters.
• Impeccible style, impeccible interactions.
• Love and be loved.
• Success in work. Achieve business goals, keep integrity, be authentic self.
• Get a kitten/gecko/bird.
• Work on staying physically fit. Continue fixing/healing my arm/shoulder.
• Take at least one international trip.
• Plant a garden with bulbs. Cala lillies.
• Take a tango lesson.
• Live life on the edge. By the seat of my pants. Navigate from the unknown, unexpected.

I'm excited for 2005. My year of the rocket.

what will you do in 2005?

I've been working on my list of goals for 2005. I'll post it in a few days. But in the meantime. What are you, dear readers planning to do in 2005. Here's an interesting site that might help get your juices flowing.

How to keep your new year's resolution

heathervescent 2004 revisited

2004 was a tough year. It was a year of dramatic change. It was the Indian Ocean Tsunami crashing into the shore of heather. Luckily I'm the vescent one and I bubbled with change. But it's been a year of casualties as well. I'm picking out a few of my favorite posts of the year. I started this blog in February.

• Unraveling in February
• The decision to move to LA - March
• On True Love - April
• A Perfect Day - May
• Airplanes and Adventures - June
• Conversations with the Road - July
• Stories within stories - August
• The commute begins - September
• I drove off the canyon road today - October
• Los Feliz/Potrero Hill/Oakland - November
• Consumerism - December

2005 is the year of the rocket. I've got a couple more days until blast-off! Say YES!

No risk, no adventure. I will give you my best advice, for friends, cats, clients, and anyone listening:

• say YES to as many things as you can in life, that’s where living starts
• you will be wrong a lot
• you will be fully alive
• there are no guarantees, and...
• you never know enough

Remember, we are human beings, not human doings.

Thanks be to LA Blogs

Thank you Jonah for including me in your list of notable blogs of 2004. Your site, LA Blogs, was extremely important in me settling in here in LA. It's made me feel a bit of the intechnetness of the north, while experiencing all LA has to offer. I'm honored and amazed and surprised and awed by being on your list. And I have to admit - I feel pleasure in being pointed out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

a hint for 2005

I've been trying hard to not mention this on the blog. You know when things aren't finalized yet, and anything could go wrong? I've got two of these tracks going right now. 2005 promises to be a bang. A firecracker. A ride on bucking bronco. A wheelie. A parachute jump. A 3 ft zipper on my stiletto boots. The snap on my driving gloves. The sunburn on my forehead.

And the future starts in Gloriously in Glassell Park.

Where the hell is that you ask? Check the 5, the 110 and the 2. And check the top of Mt Washington. And then look for the future at a corner with Burnell. My future.

in the pink

what I want for christmas

a copper teapot
a good pair of garden clippers
a basket of tulip bulbs
red and pink flowers
all my dreams come true

ping pong laptop travel

I've ordered a new laptop from IBM. Here's what the tracking statement says for today. I think it's great. I want to travel like my laptop. (It occurs to me that I should visit every place every product I buy goes... hmmm...

Dec 21, 2004 10:41 P.M. ONTARIO, CA, US ARRIVAL SCAN 10:38 P.M. INCHEON, KR DEPARTURE SCAN 10:37 P.M. ONTARIO, CA, US ARRIVAL SCAN 8:31 P.M. INCHEON, KR ARRIVAL SCAN 4:34 P.M. ANCHORAGE, AK, US DEPARTURE SCAN 4:34 P.M. ANCHORAGE, AK, US DEPARTURE SCAN 4:28 P.M. CHEK LAP KOK, HK DEPARTURE SCAN 12:10 P.M. ANCHORAGE, AK, US ARRIVAL SCAN 12:10 P.M. ANCHORAGE, AK, US ARRIVAL SCAN 12:57 A.M. HK BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

inspiration invincible

This morning I took Las Flores Canyon Road up to the ridge. The ride was gorgeous. Twisking roads going up my hands flying on the wheel back and forth and back and forth and the views of the rocks and the chaparral - just what I needed. Going to a high place, stopping and enjoying the view and then the ride down.

I realized that I like climbing to the peak and part of that experience is being at the top - although you are at the top just for a moment. A moment to savor the view, to breath the crisp air.

When I drive these roads I always feel a pang because I don't live on them. I don't live in these mountains with these views as my daily views. But in reality these are my daily views. The tiny moments I experience on these roads, seeing these hills is something I experience every day. No body can own these views or all these mountains. So why should I want to? I have the freedom to experience these roads, this landscape every day. There are many roads and I can take any of them that I want. I am not limited to the freeway or Malibu Canyon. I experience the climbing rush up the canyon, the cool moistness from the trees, the brisk wind up top and the sun warming my back as it burns off the purple haze in the valley.

A moment of inspiration and then the return to invincibility and the path down the mountain. It's just as exciting looking up around you, seeing the mountains and knowing you were up there. Remembering the view.

Hooray for Agriculture

This painting was done by none other than Joe Heaps Nelson, my best x-boyfriend ever. I love his choice of subject. I loved him for his solid Midwest roots while keeping the funky flavor. We used to drive around the "ghetto" of Des Moines listening to Salt n Pepper and Beastie Boys. He spent his last 20 bucks on dinner with me at the Y-Not Grill. I always wanted him to buy me something to remember him by, but he never did. He bought me lunch everyday for a Iowa Capital session - so I own many of my cells and sinew and blood to him. Ahh, the sweet memory.

consumerism

It's the holiday shopping season and of course that means the glut of shopping, spending money and buying stuff.

I was walking through a shop in Menlo Park last week with a friend and we realized we have very different experiences of shopping and purchasing. He goes into a store and sees interesting things. Just knowing that these things exist and if he has a few moments to admire or hold them are satisfying. I, on the other hand, go into a store and see things, could imagine wearing or using or having them around to admire in my own space and want to own them. I like to find interesting things to give to someone. It's something new they wouldn't find or something I want to see the reaction of the person.

Sometimes I give people things as an investment. I give them something because I want something back. Sometimes this is obvious and I'm aware of it and sometimes I'm not. I really try to stay away from this because it's not satisfying and backfires in the end. Sometimes the attachment is due to the cost. It's the ROI (return on investment) with the gift. Did/Is the person getting the amount of satisfaction / excitement / etc. from the gift I gave them? Is that reaction worth $50, $500 or $5000? Sometimes it is. (That's the basis of the priceless Visa ads.) Yes, some things are priceless - but can be bought with money. (Also this can be applied in reverse - I got a bargain and that person really really liked it.) Commensurate.

Sometimes I give people things with attachments. This is slightly different than giving investments. Giving something with attachments is a kind of homework. It's a particular type of energy I put into the gift - I suppose you could compare it with guilt (although guilt is more of an investment than attachment). However, I'm detached on the outcome of the "homework". I could care less if they pick up on the attachment - I've given them this gift to point them in a direction they need to go in - they can choose to pay attention or ignore it.

I get tremendous satisfaction by the act of purchasing.

Sometimes I buy things because I like the store - it's funky, hip or unique and I want to support it. Sometimes the products are interesting and I want them to be out in the world - not on display in a store. Sometimes I'm feeling off and I end up buying way more than I mean to. Sometimes I buy things to be excessive with money. Sometimes I buy things and then regret buying them later. Sometimes I return them, sometimes I am too tired, scared, embarrassed to return them. It's just money after all. And you can always make more money.

Realizing that I am somewhat satisfied by buying stuff made me feel shallow. I've always thought that consumerism and shopping to satisfy something inside you made you shallow. So when I told Carson that I realized I feel validated and get pleasure from spending money he just laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed as we drove down Sunset. Does the awareness that you get pleasure from a "shallow" activity make you shallow? Being shallow with awareness. That sounds deep. ;)

as good a plan as any

I guess I'll spend the next couple years here in LA - living in my house and rebuilding my financial base - hanging out with friends and practicing living my life by the seat of my pants - traveling to places to find the country I want to live in. Then, by the time I am 35 - move to another country. maybe have a kid in LA before going 3rd world.

Have a big room with a thatched roof where I can keep all my art projects and make crazy art sculptures. A side room with a big espresso machine, near the ocean, with my moped or convertible nearby.

beach web cam

how cool is this?

http://watchthewater.co.la.ca.us/beach.cfm?bid=18

as above, so below

"The entire Universe is condensed in the body, and the entire body in the Heart. Thus the Heart is the nucleus of the Whole Universe."
  -Sri Ramana Maharshi

There's been a lot going on. I leave this quote to sate you for the moment.

the marriage of sticks

     "When anything truly important happens in your life, where ever you happen to be, find a stick in he immediate vicinity and write the occasion and date on it. Keep them together, protect them. There shouldn't be too many; sort through them every few years and separate the events that remain genuinely important from those that were but no longer are. You know the difference. Throw the rest out.
     When you are very old, very sick or sure there's not much time left to live, put them together and burn them. The marriage of sticks."

The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll.

If this book is anything for me, it's the clanging of a thousand frying pans one after the other after the other.

flaws

people are not perfect. sometimes you have the good fortune to identify and see very clearly other people's flaws - the things they need to work on. I've noticed "flaws" about people I meet and friends of mine. Sometimes I would be irritated by them or want to tell them so they could work on them. But recently I had an epiphany. I don't care. Those flaws do not effect me. I can like them or love them or hate them or be irritated by them regardless of the "flaw". That flaw is not part of who they are and yet is a part of them. I'm not sure I have explained this completely or well... but it's something I've been thinking about, seeing and feeling.

Who wants to always be in balance? always perfect. Life is a fluctuation of cycles of hormones, seasons,
emotions, colors vying for attention.

anyway, what do you think?

my next bike

along with everything else I am doing, I've decided I need a new bike and set my eye on the Honda 919. What do ya'll think of it?

Here's a picture of the baby:

this one's for you Franco

I heard the story Franco, and just as a warning... you'd better watch out, because tricksters come in 3's and there are two over here and we're gonna get cha. Watch out. ;) hee hee.

Also, when are you going to send me some sweet delight of your work to post on the blog? or enjoy? don't stay so to yourself, come out and play. ha ha ha. (And join in the Karoke next time.) hmm...

first celebrity sighting (that I am aware of) in LA

Monday night I met Suzanna at this Bakery on Fairfax near 6th - Manny's I think. I'm having strawberry shortcake and she's having raspberry chocolate mousse. We're tanking up before hitting the x-mas goth pajama skating party. (Yes, that's correct.) I showed up in my evening wear which included white fishnets under a pair of boxes, black tank top, red short robe, red and black knee high socks, red boots and red cap. (I know, red is so not very goth, but I was focusing on the PJ/x-mas theme.

I'm totally wired because I'm so excited to go roller-skating and jabbering off the wall telling funny stories to suzanna and being the exuberant excited heathervescent - making funny jokes with our waiter, Alex. A couple walks in and stands at the counter. We're sitting in the fishbowl center window seat. I notice the guy looking at me - this is not surprising because I am dressed like a naughty elf - I'm not a normal sight and I'm not surprised to draw attention to myself. Then I take a second and third look because the person looks somewhat familiar... it happens to be Anthony Kiedies from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. (I had to look up his name.) I'm looking at him (and going off my own adrenaline steam) and noticing that his facial structure looks a lot like Carson. The way his skin is, the lines in his face. He had his hair in a ponytail and was with some girl, who I didn't see, as she was standing at the counter.

Suz and I eventually got up and went on to our night on the town. Rollerskating (Wumpskate) was canceled because of flooding, but we ended up at Alternative Karaoke where we sang Rapper's Delight by the SugarHill Gang. (This was actually very hard, because Rapper's Delight is about 6 1/2 minutes long and very very very wordy - it's a rap ya know.)

However the highlight of the evening was our version of Michael Jackson's Thriller. I sang with Suzanna and two other lovely blondes on backup. We had the entire club singing and dancing and grabbing their crotch along with us. It was such an awesome time. Monday night Ground Control is where it's at!

Too bad I already have plans for Saturday (clothing swap at my place) otherwise I'd join in Santacon. Photos from Monday night coming soon. (Along with Portland domestic bliss photos.)

Some photos of the evening. What fun!

life is a chance

When you are living in the moment. Taking chances. Jumping. Free Falling. That's when you are alive. Living by the seat of your pants is the only way of living. It's what makes you know you're alive. It's when your biggest concerns are gas, water, food and shelter. Not whether your PRD or software code makes the code checkin date. Office politics are small things compared to feeding and sheltering your 50 huskies in Alaska.

Live by the seat of your pants. It's more fun than sitting in front of the TV. Take that chance, make the jump and the rest will follow.

sometimes it's just a light

You meet people for a reason. Often it's not obvious what that reason is for. People come into your life to mix it up. Sometimes it's to mix up someone else's life. Sometimes it's just to point out a direction or show a new view.

I like people to be important. Important to me, and me important to them. It's hard sometimes to realize that the interaction was a moment. A moment only and then gone forever. Possibilities and potentials are not reality and often not realized. The shiny wrapped chocolate bunny turns into the waxy hollow core when unwrapped. It's ok. It's fine. It's a learning process. It doesn't make it any easier. I still dream. Not everyone you meet is going to be a core person in your life, no matter how cool or how much potential or how intense a connection you have or how long a history you have with them (well maybe that person is a core part of my life).

I think back on the various moths I've blogged since Feb. Various potentials flaked out by their own flakiness. One of them said once, "you don't have to go out of your way to maintain a relationship. You don't do anything to destroy the bridge, but you don't do anything to maintain it." (I guess that's a nice way of saying, I'm not interested.) He had potential and we had a couple nice walks. He was instrumental in getting me to Santa Monica. Then there was the first love of my life. The adventure I hoped would last a lifetime - but the adventure didn't. I still love him, but it's different. The adventure was Berkeley - where all my dreams came true. Then I dreamed a new dream with a new dreamer. Those dreams took me into desert landscapes and dream realities. We slingshot each other to Los Angeles and split apart to maintain our support structure. Most recently a character pointed out the neighborhood where I am buying my house. I had a feeling that he was just a pointer. But hope springs eternal.

It's not just men - although the heart is an effective way to get that fire under your butt. (Just see the movie, Body, Rest and Motion).

So I move through my life, with passion, detachment, excitement and adventure. I have one partner through my entire life. I will always be here.

All my dreams will come true. They always have.

Happy Hour with Heather - THIS MONDAY in PALO ALTO

A general announcement. For readers in the SF Bay Area, come hang with the Vescent one.

I'm a heading north and hosting one of my famous happy hours. Come have some drinks, snacks and catch up with friends and hear about my adventures (New city: Los Angeles. New house: Abandon all Hope he who enters The Future. New job: Internet Real Estate. New company: Acting/tech project - this is LA you know). Share your adventures with me. Let's get caught up.

December 13th, 7pm

Nola's
535 Ramona St
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Phone: (650) 328-2722
http://siliconvalley.citysearch.com/profile/920419/palo_alto_ca/nola.html?cslink=search_name_noncust&ulink=search__searchslot2_520__0_profile_2_1

quote

"I have a one-track mind and it runs on Jet fuel"

this pretty much sums me up.