heathervescent

Beat your own dead horse

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Grace: One Year Later

A year ago, I was with my grandmother. She died several days later. It's hard to believe a year has gone by. A year of not sending her cards, seeing pictures, visiting her.

She died peacefully in her sleep on the morning of May 28th.

I wanted some way to celebrate her life, her impact on me. I can say without a doubt she _was_ the most important person in my life. But I do not pine for her. I do not wish she was still her. I miss her. But my memory is full of so many good times. I am surrounded by her things and I think of her constantly. Not one day goes by that I don't use or see or wear something of hers and with that I remember.

I remember her laughing, her trips, her house in Oceanside. She is as fresh in my memory as she was in person.

I'll celebrate her life on Sunday, by eating and drinking her favorite things and remembering her.

Checkmark: Kicking Ass in 2006

I had one goal for 2006: To Kick Ass.

That's a pretty big, not to mention vague goal. How would I know if I succeeded, and what were the SMART metrics for success?

Well, that was part of the challenge. Going so far above and beyond that is it completely obvious that I am kicking ass. When I first came up with this goal, I had been working with Susie at Superviva and spending a lot of time creating, doing and updating my life lists. Susie was inspired by my Kick Ass in 2006 goal that she surprised me by making one up and offering it on the Superviva CafePress store (yeah, that's me modeling it)! She also surprised me with one on one of our visits. It's a shirt I love, but I don't wear it often.

Here's the story of how I kicked ass in 2006.

So I'm on a camping trip with my boyfriend and 30 of my best friends out on a dry lake bed in the middle of the Mojave Desert. We've been out there two days and its Sunday morning. Saturday night I spent the evening playing with a flame thrower, off-roading, riding on an art-car and surviving a crash and dancing on the local stripper pole (with moves that I learned in my pole dancing class which was on my SuperViva life list).

It's the next morning and I'm sore and hungry. The boyfriend and another friend are hanging out in our shade structure and I'm starting to make breakfast. I happen to be wearing my Superviva Kick Ass in 2006 t-shirt. I haven't showered in two days. I'm boiling water on the back of the truck on our camping stove and making oatmeal and coffee for us. It's not too hard and I'm doing it quickly and efficiently as we making friendly conversation. I bring breakfast over and am about to sit down to eat when the boyfriend says, "Hey, can you bring me the sharpie from over there?" So I do and start to sit down again. Then he says, "Hey, can you come over here?" and I'm tired and all I want to do is sit down and eat my oatmeal and have a cup of coffee, but I'm still standing, so I go over. And before I notice what he is doing, he’s taken the cap off the sharpie and checks off the box on my shirt.

But seriously, I had been wondering if I was kicking enough ass. I mean, making my living as a blogger (yes, actually paying my mortgage blogging), bringing Streetwars to LA, Participating at BarCamp (and I'm talking like 3 different activities: 2 presentations and e-iron chef), not to mention keeping down the future, moving to West Hollywood, having the most amazing mind blowing boyfriend, not to mention the most ass kicking friends to spend time with. What more could I want? Oh yeah, I have all these additional goals. Well, at least I have something to work on for the rest of the year.

I'm watching to see if I can kick as much ass in the second part of 2006 as I did in the first.

A week of surprise

This week has been full of surprises and celebrations - for absolutely no reason. It started out on Monday when I made a cake for Sam. I love baking and any excuse to make a cake is a good one. The only problem, is that since I work from home, I'm the one with the cake in my direct vicinity and chocolate cake is just the kind of snack for the afternoon break.

The afternoon came and with it the mail bringing presents from England. Chocolates and cuff links. I planned to get S bullet cuff links for his bday next month. For some reason, I could not find any in the US, so I had to go to England. I find this amusing because it's easier to get bullets here in the US than the UK and yet, I had to go over the pond to find cuff links. Maybe it's because cuff links are worn more in Europe than here.

I was so excited at their arrival and how good they looks that I couldn't wait and gave them to him immediately. And, of course, he loved them.

Tuesday brought the big surprise. S had been hinting about a surprise since last week but was vague about it. I waited patiently, knowing that it could be anything. He got up early Tuesday and was out of the house before I could get my weary legs on the floor. Later in the evening when he got home I had some crazy stories to share and we came across a nest of hatching spiders, so we rushed out to buy spider death. I was personally willing to let the little ones live, but I had to defer to the leaseholder.

So we run out, get spider death, kill the things and the house smells like yuck. I'm like, "hey - didn't you have a surprise?" and S said "let's go on a walk." Thinking it was just to leave the house to get away from the spider death, I was glad to leave. But then he starts smirking and talking about the surprise and we're walking down the sidewalk and I know what he's done. He's gone and bought a Jeep and is going to surprise it on me.

We cross the street and I'm looking at the cars parked on the street - there are a lot of Jeeps usually parked on the street, so I can't immediately pick out a new one. Pretty soon we saunter up to a silver Jeep, I'm not about to assume this is the one. It looks totally cool, with big black netting in the case, clean, silver. And S walks up to the door and unlocks it.

This is it! The big surprise. A new Jeep. He hands me the keys and we put the top down and I proceed to check it out. It's exactly what we've been talking about - although S is the one with the high Jeep fever. It's actually a lot of fun.

But, that is not the end to the surprises! Last night I got home and there were two packages in the mail. One was full of Sake from my friend in Oregon. I promptly put them in the fridge. The other was yet another surprise from S to moi.

I opened the package and inside was a little black nonpod from idont. I'm busy filling it with my Mp3s right now - all the ones except the songs I've bought from iTunes and my personal CDs that have been imported into iTunes that are in m4a format.

So, it's just Thursday - I wonder if there can be any more surprises, because I'm happy with the ones I've given and received.

All Caps =

Just remember, you heard it here first (or at least, read it here first).

From now on, when I see ALL CAPS, I am imagining that you are talking to me in a Pee Wee Herman voice!

HA HA. NOW, ISN'T THAT FUNNY!

Burning Man in the house

So the theme of Burning Man this year is "The Future: Hope and Fear". Personally I think that's two themes, but whatever - I'm not the BMORG. I'm much amused because my house is literally on Future and my bedroom is currently full of drywall dust - which is what the dry lake bed that Burning Man is held on is full of. So I'm having a mini-burning man in my bedroom. The metaphor continues. Burning Man is a temporary city - and well, my living in the future is temporary - as much as I pretend to be in denial about it.

I was sitting on the bed yesterday, surveying the project (sanding the ceiling, priming ceiling and wall and re-painting over the patched ceiling wound), looking at my bookshelves and the books and other items stacked on them. Feeling a sense of comfort from my books and things and at the same time feeling completely alien and outgrown. So many books with memories attached to them. Someone who gave them to me, someone who read stories out of that one to me. Books I bought with no intention to read. Books that changed my perceptions of the world when I read them. Books I keep to remind me of college classes I didn't do enough with. Books I want to know the contents of, but don't want to read.

I feel all these things in an instant. In the moment. And I'm detached. Detached from the thoughts, from the books, from my room, from my house. I'm not grounded here anymore. These things don't have my current energy. So where is it? The person who filled these bookcases is not the person looking at them. Where did she go? She's in the past: the Future. My world is shifting right in front of my eyes, in my own house. What do I hope? What do I fear? I fear leaving the future because it represents someone I no longer am, but I really enjoyed being. I've transformed some major personality characteristics in that house. And I'm walking out a different person with more awareness.

But the bigger question is, where am I walking out to? It's not the future, because that is what I'm leaving behind.

Quiet Silence

  desert_morning silhouette 
  Originally uploaded by dopaminejunkie.

Pulled from cdj. I love these trees.

Highlight of my life: Wielding a Flamethrower

I'm learning how to run the thing here. Note the flame is controlled by a motorcycle throttle handle. Can you see the ecstatic look on my face? I don't think I've been happier in my entire life! thanks Kmo for taking these pics. I think you just capture the happiest day of my life (so far)!

And yes, I am wearing a full length silver sparkling ball gown.

Mash-up Goodness

I'm back on Theory Radio and this week I have a very special show with guest DJs A+D (Adrian and the Mysterious D).

I’ll start the 7pm hour out with selected tracks from DJ Ztrip’s phenomenal bootleg album Uneasy Listening, then I’ll throw in 2 many DJs and Optimo along with other mashy goodness until the rebel DJs take over theory air waves.

If you’re local in LA and love mash-ups as much as I do, be sure to check out BootieLA this Saturday, May 6^th at the echo.

And if you thought mash-ups were a thing of the 21^st century, check out this synth mash-up video with Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby, Stevie Wonder and Howard Jones mashing up their hits back in 1985:

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  [Radio stream]

desert on both sides of the week

It's been June Gloom here in LA for the past 3 weeks and frankly I am tired of it. What up SoCal? Where's the blue sky? Is this some kind of hint? Well, if it is - I'm taking it. I'm outta here! Back to the desert.

Last weekend was packed with about 10 different adventures. (Ok, 10 is hyperbole, but I did have 5 distinct ones planned in 4 different cities.) But as plans go awry, my plans changed. I ended up having a great time spending time with a good friend.

I miss the desert, but I'll be back out there soon enough and hopefully for a lot longer than a few days.

the microscope is on...

Discernment.

1. The act or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment.
2. Keenness of insight and judgment.

From dictionary.com and wiki