The rawness in my heart

Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.
~Rosa Parks

I call myself an optimist. It's something I most adequately believe about myself, despite my own strong dramas and emotional rides occasionally, and I have thought it for many years. When a friend is down, I feel that I always have it in me to pick them up. And even moreso now, my life is so sweet these days. My forest home in the pines is amazing. I don't work too hard but I don't work too little. Life is filled with music, art, wonderful friends and family and beautiful lakes and rivers for to swim in. Money matters little, just enough to eat delicious meals, buy good music, know what to cook next, and pay the bills. My family is crazy and awesome, my four younger siblings, all of us still in the young but adult phase of our life, all of us trying to be experts at living richly in the face of semi-poverty, all of us promoters of love. The hardest thing that happened to me this year was my own lack of self courage and confidence at times, a couple bad shows, and an EXTREMELY long winter. Other than that, my life is sort of a simplicity cake. I am a pretty much spoiled, sometimes bratty, but hopefully SOMETIMES wise child of the universe. If I wanted more THINGS in my life... like a flat screen TV or a fancy laptop or shirts that cost even 25 dollars, I might not think of myself as "spoiled". But that would just be the good ol' American consumerist monster at work in my brain. Instead, I am spoiled by simplicity and luck (and whitey-white privelege) and in finding beautiful clothes at thrift stores, my stupid Iphone, Pony Espresso (the nearest cafe) having actually good espresso, a giant cassette tape collection, a husband that gets every new album that comes out that we want on vinyl, the words of Edward Abbey, a thousand different awe-inspiring artist friends whom all love nature as much as I, the sound of the stellar bluejay's screeching cry, the tweeps of squirrels around our house, the sight of foxes carrying food in their mouths weekly, my two sweet children pets- Grabby and Owl the cats, delicious fresh food that my husbie Art can whip up into a Yumminess Delight in minutes, a turquoise lake just five minutes away, a father I can call at 3 in the morning if I get scared...............and the list goes on.

But this week, despite how silly and small it may sound to anyone else, I went through a small tragedy in my heart, and the hole there just doesn't want to shrivel up. I lost a silent and tiny friend, a giant-eyed but blind, wiggling, funny, perfect little goldfish whom I called the Googler.

How he made his way so deeply into my heart is beyond me. Frankly, I didn't even know it had happened, I could never have predicted that when he died I would be so upset. But his death was as though someone took a strong sweet healthy root in my chest and ripped it out with both hands. Perhaps it was the way he died. It was pretty much my fault.

Two other goldfish, whom I have had for over 3 years, whom I moved from their 18 month home in a pond in our old house to a 30 gallon tank, preceded Googler in death. They all looked the same so they never had names, but I did love them too. One of them had gotten a dreaded sickness, some kind of horrible bacteria or something, and I was treating the tank for that sickness. During the whole time, Googler seemed happy as a lark, still eating, still almost playing with me when I would come over to the tank, and the disease did not affect him. As I treated the tank I was unaware that the ammonia levels in the tank had become quite deadly, even though I did a major water change and was following instructions on the medication to a T. And I was testing for ammonia, I was just testing with a major mistake in my procedure. I know I did everything I could, but what gets me is that it wasn't the disease that killed my telescope eyed love, it was MY HUMAN ERROR. I found out just a few hours AFTER his death that I wasn't leaving the test vial for ammonia filled with liquid for long enough. When you test for ammonia you are supposed to wait 5 MINUTES after putting the test drops in the water, and somehow, MY EYES HAD SKIPPED OVER THIS CRUCIAL PART OF THE INSTRUCTIONS, so I thought the ammonia levels were ZERO. Googler died within 36 hours or so- and to my complete confusion- because HE, unlike the others, was still healthy looking and golden. He went from eating and dashing about happily to sitting at the bottom of the tank gasping heavily until the time came that his soul left his tiny wet body. Googler didn't die of a disease, he died from ammonia poisoning. And it was MY FAULT.

Again, I know it may sound so small and so silly, just one goldfish... but the well in my heart is so deep. Perhaps it was because he had a handicap and I had to care for attentively and specially. At first for a while I thought he was just a normal goldfish. But then a few months after getting him it came to my attention that he looked very very thin, for a goldfish. I realized he wasn't getting food when I fed the others. And so I began to feed him specially, dropping the tiny pellets right above his head, and making sure he got 2 or 3 pellets. When he got one, he would sink a few inches and just sit in the water looking full and digesting, and I always would watch him satisfied with my caretaking job well done. It didn't take long for his tiny belly to grow, for him to look healthy and happy again. And somehow he knew me. He knew when I would come over to the tank that it was me, that I fed him and loved him. He would swim up to the right-most corner of the tank whenever I got near but not if it was someone else. When I was away I would always instruct the people that came to watch my pets, Mom and Em and Heather, to feed him specially as well, and one of those times Emily told me that Googler was most likely blind. I payed closer attention after that, and though I believe he may not have been COMPLETELY blind, he definitely couldn't see more than just shadows or blurs.......Perhaps it was all this watching and feeding and adoring of his sweet squiggly funny bodyshape that planted that seed of love in my heart.

Romantic love is one thing. But over the last few years I have realized that true love is FAR FAR brighter and bigger and wonderfuller and stranger than JUST romantic love. As a 20 year old, I would never have known it. But love is a thing that goes out to and comes back from a certain direction and circles through you, even if it is only in your own heart and mind. It can come from directions as small as a goldfish or from directions as majestic and nameless as a mountain or a desert sky, and there is not even one speck of meanness involved in it's stuff. It is just like what the friends who stood with us on our wedding day said.

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

And another quote from one of my favorite books in the world. I used to have this written on a piece of paper that I carried in my wallet for years. I may write it down again now.

'The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose. "


Googler is the goldfish on the right in the picture at the top of this entry......the other one didn't make it more than a couple weeks when we first got him, as can be typical when getting fish. Googler made it a few long months swimming deep into the cavity of love that is my heart. I hope to meet him again one day.

And here he is with his own reflection in the glass.




As soon as forever is through, I'll be over you.
~Toto

A Strange Phenomenon

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
-Howard Thurman

I just thought I would say.

When misery creeps into your life, it's liable to start sucking your whole soul away. But when you cut it out, your soul begins to flourish again, until it gets back to the full health of from whence it came.

Over the past couple of years I knew I was miserable. In certain aspects. But I just pushed those little discrepancies under the carpet, pretending that if I never talked of them they would only just be hidden there, doing no real harm. I was wrong. It has occurred to me, in these past few weeks of stoked-outedness, that those pebbles of misery and discontent had a rippling effect into all other parts of my life. I was unaware of how powerful they were. I know that it's real now, now that I have a clear head to look back on my life circa 2008 until now. Because I had stopped doing and BEING so many things that I love. And now. Now I feel as tho I am back. Suddenly I want to record my music again, wholeheartedly. I want to talk to people, old friends AND strangers, about everything, life, love, and not be awkward or feel unworthy. I want to play shows. I want to come up with creative ideas to make money. I want to make other people inspired to do the same.

Again. Just sayin.

If we follow our hearts we may struggle to pay the bills, but our checks and balances with the universe will be much more available for us to see: as in we will know our TRUE selves better than ever, and because of that we will honestly know what we are capable of and what we should be doing with our lives. We won't be hiding our light under the bushel so to speak. I don't want to turn into a varied strain of the living dead. I would rather not live than live a half-assed life.

"Uneventfulness collapses time." John Steinbeck from Travels With Charley

Inspiration Kicks In

Guess it's easier to blog when you don't have a job!

Last night I went to an amazing wedding for my dear friends, Jeff and Anne. I love them so, and I loved every speck of their wedding. They both are awesome people and fantastic musicians.

I wore my sister's turquoise dress to the wedding and it was just one of those days that I actually felt SEMI put-together! It is a RARE RARE occasion that I feel such. But I got a little of my style inspiration from watching the beautiful Mary Louise Parker in Weeds lately. Her hairstyles kill me, they are so adorable. So I tried one of them out and I am gonna sport it way more oft. It's just two pigtails but then you kind of ball them up and pin them so that your hair isn't hanging down, it's like two little fluff pumpkins...... I felt really comfortable in my sister's garb as well, and I have never gotten so many compliments on a freakin' dress. So thanks Bun...I needed a little pick-me-up! (I took a bunch of pics but none of myself so I will post the dress in a pic with dear Heather wearing it to her brother in-law's weddin last year)



Anyhow. So I've been feeling full of happiness. Full of inspiration. Excited about nothing really, just life in general and all of it's possibilities. I think perhaps some of this comes from quitting waitressing for awhile, even though I love the work that it is. There are just too many unreasonable restaurant-owners in the world! And one day, when I have my own cafe, I am NOT GOING TO BE ONE OF THEM. But for now, I think the universe/God has been trying to tell me something. Maybe it has to do with what I can accomplish if I change direction and go to school, or funnel more vision into music, or just take a break and try something new because the economy is NOT going to be horrible forever and there will always be waitressing out there waiting for me if I want it. But for now, thanks to my hardworking husband!, I seek inspiration. And for now, I have found it. This video below is a little taste of the loveliness that I witnessed at Jeff and Anne's wedding!



Inspiration! I have found it in the full moon tonight, with streaky stringy clouds of light wisped around it like a spider-web shroud. I have found it in this morning's haze of a hangover, when the sun shone brightly through my sunroof and heated up the dizziness but it only felt awakening and good. I found it big, thirsty, icy gulps of water afterwards. I found it in listening to dance music from the 80's on my way to the wedding last night, I found it in the keg of Racer 5 we all shared there. I found it written on all the beautiful people's faces, in their gleaming indie dresses and shiny shoes and stripy ascots and ties and in their glorious young smiles, in the meeting of new friends and the greeting of old ones. I found it writing a new song on the piano, trying to mimic arpeggios of the 1960s. I found it in the river, I found it in the golden valleys and glowing hillsides of this old Gold Rush land as I passed through the canyon from one Old Gold Town towards another. I found it in the somewhat frantic meow of my girl-cat today as she beckoned me to come get my gift from her, a very alive and pretty cute lizard. And most of all, I have found it in the warmth and kindness and greenery of this California summertime. Inspiration, I have noticed with my new fresh summer eyes, is everywhere. And then tonight I thought of this quote on a wall-hanging that my parents used to have, and I wanted to know who it was by. So I googled it -the first sentence that is- which is all that the wall-hanging said..."Youth is not a time of life- it is a state of mind." Needless to say, I was quite smitten with what the rest of it said, having never read it before.

“Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions; it is the freshness of deep springs of life.

Youth means temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. “This often exists in a man of 60 more than in a boy of 20. Nobody grows older merely by a number of years. We grow older by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bow the heart and turn the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living.

In the centre of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, courage and power from man and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20; but as long as the aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope that you may die young at 80."

Pink streaks and digi-geeks

Hi to any friends slash fam that read my rants and ravings on this here bloggity. You may be few and far between but alas! that matters not to me, ye ol' writer. I write as though I'm writing a letter to an old love that lives across the ocean.

As I wrote in my last novel-long entry, I quit the day job. And though having nothing to do but drink beer, water flowers and watch 6 seasons of Weeds during my lazy summer dayz is easy as Sunday morning, it's not what I'm really cut out for. I'm a Virgo. I like organization, cleanliness, lists, and productiveness. If only I could find a decent job with a nice boss and a SEMI flexible work week.....NOT an office job of course, since my artiste soul always dies a slow death during those spells of employment, but a nice cafe job, with a mom and pop type feel, and good tips, and good work ethic, but a kindhearted place that lets a girl switch her sched around when a wonderful opportunity in life presents itself (i.e. Yosemite, Glacier National Park, my brother's awesome play in Los Angeles, weddings of dear friends). I just don't get the mindset when you have a gaggle of hardworking employees that are perfectly willing to trade shifts and such but the boss JUST DOESN'T LIKE IT for no good reason other than they are jealous that their employees actually care less about making money than they do and therefore have awesome life experiences where they see bountiful lands and meet amazing people instead of bringing home brand new thousand dollar couches. It's SO ANNOYING! Even though working at Kaido for 2 and 1/2 years was KINDOF like enrolling in a Japanese military, at least Kazu was extremely cool about realizing that his workers HAVE A LIFE!!!

Nuff said about that. Anyhow, due to my employment dilemma, to many disheartening interviews/ resume hand-ins with not so much as a CALL BACK, and to a deepening desire to be productive in my life, I have decided to re-enlist in SCHOOL!!!! Yikesers! College! Scheduled classes! Grades, hand-outs, homework, mid-terms!!! It's not something I would have expected so soon, but I did think I had it coming, because you see I have an awfully happy interest in all things web design and website-creating and I knew that at some point I HAD TO LEARN MORE. So I am taking 4 classes. 3 of them are web-publishing based. Intro classes to Adobe InDesign, Dreamweaver, and basic HTML. The other one is more for fun and debate and it is a class called Race, Ethnicity, and Inequality in the United States...a prime time to be taking such a forum. And though all these classes seem like candy to a baby right NOW, I know myself, and I know myself too well. I have a HORRENDOUS track record when it comes to schooling. Not grade school or high school, but almost ALL of my community college experience. Most of my past grades are Ws (for withdrawals) but there are also some Ds and Fs involved! As well as As, Bs, and Cs! Help! I never was a terrible student (I like to think I'm smart as a whip) it's just that semester after semester (mostly pre-2000) I would enroll in a class, attend for PRACTICALLY the entire semester, be getting an A, and then drop out in the last 2 weeks. Teachers HATE that. If they are nice they will give you an I. But if they aren't stoked on your sudden flakiness, they tend to dish out Fs. But for me, it really just has to be something about the 3 1/2 month stretch of routine classes being exactly 2 weeks too long. But hey.....that was the old me. Last time I took classes was 2005. I finished ONE of my THREE classes. The class I finished (and Aced) was Tapdancing. Yikes....how sad is that? But, it was a different time in my life. I was still a kid. Unmarried. For years I only kept a job for 8 months at a time. I lived in 22 different houses between ages 20-30, no joking. Talk about non-committal! Since then, so much has changed. I have a husband. I have PETS! I water my plants until the rains come. I don't ditch out on a town every 6 months. This time, I am COMMITTED. If I have any inklings that I am not gonna finish a class, I will drop the damn thing in time to not have it go down in forever-history with my already-horrible transcripts! There!

So, school, here I come. And because I have no corporations or Japanese traditions to kiss the ass of anymore, I put STREAKS in the hair! Blue and pink. I kept singin' the My Little Pony theme song the whole next day after I did it. It looks a little bit ridiculous, but I don't give. I am OVER people telling me to cover up my tattoos or to wear my hair simple and plain. I love my tattoos and I AM NOT SIMPLE OR PLAIN and I NEVER WILL BE!!! Hah!!! I can't wait til my friends my age own all the businesses!



True Love
Music & writing songs
Art (& Art my husband)
Family
Friendship
Trustworthiness
Responsibility
Beer
Traveling

With All Her Glory, presenting........Summertime! (and the meaning of true beauty)

My oh my oh my. How a handful of summer days can change everything. (AKA, this is gonna be a novel-long blog/ diary entry, yikes)

For some time now, it has been warm, hot, gloriously sunshiny and summery around these parts. I believe June 21st was the last time I felt cold. The 7-month winter really did a number on my psyche, and I apologize greatly to those who listened to my angry complaining and sometimes emotional breaking-down around the first half of June (namely my husband and my sister...but also a few other sisters). On that last day of cold, June 21st, I started ye crazy ol' Aunt Flo and even though Pollock Pines got to be around 66 degrees that day, I WAS FREEZING. Just for a tidbit of period trivia, I read that on the first day of your flow, a poor girl's basal body temperature drops significantly, causing the temperatures outside to feel quite different to the lucky lady-in-red than to any nearby person that is NOT sporting the rag. (Could be a good thing if it's 100 degrees outside!)

Anyhow, enough piddly explanation of my misbehavior. Since that day, SO MUCH HAS CHANGED!!! That first summer night, longest night of the year, I had a great realization as I stayed in my house alone whilst all my dear friends were celebrating together. I was cold and in a bad mood and didn't want to put that yucky energy on my friends. I had been feeling rather gross for a couple of months, especially hard on myself, on the way I look, on the process of aging, and that day had been a sobfest on and off all day. An emotional rollercoaster about to absolutely WRECK! But instead of wrecking.....some kind of smooth sailing began. Something inside of me found peace. I stepped out onto my lovely 3-sided forest deck and leaned over in awe at the sunset and majesty of the wild pine trees. I became in touch with a feeling of being "present" that I hadn't had in WAY TOO LONG. I stopped wishing and wanting and needing and I just stopped and noticed all the wild nature and life around me, and remembered how much I have done in my short 34 years. The knowledge of my hibernating self came pouring through. I actually felt pretty for the first time in months, just standing there alone. I remembered who I really am and who I have been for years, but who, for some reason, I had been losing track of for a little while. I remembered that I am a girl that doesn't think that looks are the most important thing in life (AT ALL!!!), that it is a beauty inside that is quite more powerful and shining and real and wonderful than any pretty dress or perfect weight or sweetly golden complexion. Pretty girls are a dime a dozen, but wisdom in personality and creativity and kindness and truth-seeking in a soul is a rare thing. I remembered that experience and knowledge in life becomes the realest beauty. And that just noticing the beauty in the world around is a GIFT of beauty. And kindness, peace, caring, creativity, and nurturing ARE beauty too. And that in order to stand up to the materialism that exudes from every billboard and magazine and so many conversations around me, I MUST ALWAYS REMEMBER THE TRUTH about such things, as well as do my best to demonstrate. Which also collides with the truth about love. It was quite a night sweet epiphany for me, and it was the night that summer really did begin. I have never felt cold since. But I have felt: inspired, excited, warm to the boned, sweaty, carefree, whimsical, and powerful.



And since then I have: taken a day trip up Silverfork Road with my husb,


laid on the hot sands at the American River drinking beer with my Heather sister, visited my awesome 98 year-old grandma in Sacramento and ate at McDonald's of all places with her and my dad!,

hosted a stay at my house with my lovely sis-in-law and her three amazing kids, played a Coal Beautiere show in Grass Valley that I was super scared of but it turned out going swimmingly well, watched my cat Grabby bring a few lizards into my home and place them on the living room floor (where I promptly had to catch them under a clear pie pan with a record slid underneath)



purchased an annual pass at the local lake and swum many times in its blue turquoise waters,

celebrated a friend's, Rebecca Pangbroehrn's, birthday at her sweet Sacramento garden home,


dined with her and our husbies at one of the best restaurants in Sacramento, which she manages and her brother owns...called Magpie ( they are like 95% organic and the food is BRILLS), received a colourful and descriptive letter from a dear friend (Ryann Savino) who is currently working in Maho Bay, in the Carribbean, on the isle of St. John,

stayed a sweet dusty summer night on Lake Spaulding at the annual Nevada City Boat Party (and it was my favorite year there yet to date),
got an awesome sunburn, and to top off all the fun....................QUIT MY JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That last one may not seem like the best thing, but it really was the best thing for my soul.

(And I also have some greats of the Boat Party coming off my Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim...with all its 35mm impromptu and vignettes. I can't wait!)

So now I have so many more adventures to look forward to. I have a friend's wedding and all-girl gathering coming up in the next week, overnight hikes to go on, a desert/ LA road trip to plan, Wednesday Hot Summer Nights in Nevada City- where vendors all display their crafts and food and you drink in the street and say hi to all the friends, another road trip to Santa Rosa and Russian River Brewery, a Coal Beautiere show with an amazing Portland band called John Heart Jackie at the Cozmic Cafe (which Jacob and Alisa Mingle now owns THANK GOD!), and the Nevada City Film Festival to volunteer for the weekend of August 19-22. And because I have been thinking about all things work-related so deeply.... I think I am going back to school for this semester and taking some real, downhome, web publishing classes! I might try a minimum wage job or something just a couple days a week, but I honestly just want to have a pretty open schedule, learn a bit more about html and web designing programs, and get a little something extra next tax year when Art and I look super duper poor on paper.

Besides all the summery shiny happiness portrayed here, I really want this blog to be about remembering the truth. I want to be able to look back here and remember that I shouldn't get sucked into the system, no matter the endless winters or downheartedness in general. The typical American system, the worldly system even, is to be sucked into superficiality, materialism and consumerism. Those things cause us to judge ourselves so very harshly as women, to compare ourselves to each other constantly, to be jealous of each other, to futilely attempt to buy our happiness, but worst of all- to forget and abandon the wonderful beauty and creativity that lives so strongly within every one of us. Our women hearts are strong, are dramatic, are sweet, are beautiful, are imaginative. Our struggles are beautiful too, they are part of our experience and they become our strength when we overcome them. One time I visited a girl in Portland who had no mirrors in her house. It was about seven years ago, and I remember thinking it was a little overboard or something. But lately, I have often wished there were no mirrors in my house because they only make me feel worse than I actually feel. I know it's so selfish to go there. It's not like I am disfigured or unhealthy or disabled. I know it's so selfish. But nevertheless, this world IS SO VERY prejudiced in it's accepting of only certain kinds of beauty, and that causes us girls constant self-criticism. I hate it. It's not fair how brutally the world treats unconventional beauty, and how sugar-ly and stupidly sweet it is to girls with the regular old pretty looks. Bleah! How boring! I want to live in my mind as though there are no mirrors around me for me to look into and see only faults. I want to be stronger than the mirror. I want to especially set a good example for girlies and women of the future, because being obsessed with other interests and activites in life besides looks, clothes and money is the actual road to success. It doesn't have to be college, it can be anything that makes your heart happy. But judging oneself harshly is the surest way to falter on the path.

It's one of my only goals in life, to live strongly and feel beautiful inside no matter my imperfections on the outside, to overcome the materialism and to be the best example possible to all people around me (provided they are around me on a good day! jeez!) I know it's quite a quest, but I know I will go all the way, and I know it will be worth it.

Summer Come My Way

Hi all. First off (of course), please excuse the nature of my last blog. ...... A girl has got to have moodswings, right? Maybe not. Well, I don't know what got into me last week, but I was in a rock-bottom type of moodiness right through til Sunday. But then something in the air shifted and things got warmer and I ate some delicious summer food and drank some icy ginger ales in hot cars and by yesterday I felt great. Seriously, something felt so OFF to me last week, from Wednesday until Sunday I felt like a weird, depressed Zombie kind of girl or something. I guess one of the things that happened is that I woke up Wednesday and my house was 59 degrees inside, which seems REAL annoying in the middle of June. To me, anything under 63 degrees is TOTALLY COLD, unless it's 100 out and you're in an air-conditioned movie theater. But even then! Anyways, to top it off, I get in trouble if I even ask Art about turning on the heater, which Heather and him may make fun of me for but GEEZ! how else is a girl gonna heat up her house when the high for the day is only 57!?? Which is what the high was here last Wednesday. And I was at the very last frays of the end of my winter rope. You understand that in California here it's often 60 plus degrees on CHRISTMAS DAY?!! So 57 in the middle of June is just PURE PURE pure unadulterated torture.

But enough of that. Summer is officially and unofficially HERE!!!!!!!!!!

My quest for summer. Oh Summer, Cruel Summer. Hot, mean, sweaty, gritty, salty, dirty, REFRESHING, BEAUTIFUL summer.

Even though a bit of warmth has begun, the river is flowing harder and colder and faster than anyone's seen it flow in 35 plus years. The snow in the Sierras is melting now and there's still 5-7 feet in places. So we go down to the river, but we only dip for a second. Hence, my pics from last year (for inspiration)!




Oh summer, how your gardens grow!


How your beer flows!


Here's to inspiration! These pics are all from last summer, but they make my dreaming of it so sweet. I love that feeling of just craving a beer and a cold lake and lying in the sun in the hot heat to where it's almost unbearable. Oh summer, I know you've only just begun but please please heat up and hear my call and come to our house! Please bring the hot hot California heat with you, MAKE ME SWEAT!!

On life failing me at the moment- + 2010 Doldrums

First off. I'm 34. Not so bad you might think. Wrongo. 30 was only the beginning. I could still look past all the things I'm about to go into. 31 was fine too. 33 was verging on the edge, but one could still cling on to an OLD DREAM. But 34.....34, 34. There ain't no getting around what faces you..............................weepy, regrettable, unforgettable, calamitous, grasping-at-straws LOSS. You start to see you are losing it all. It's JUST the time that one's body begins to show off all the realities of living, unless that is, you work out at the gym 6 times a week....and even then, YA CAN'T look 21 ever again. And Looks, my friend, is only the tip of the iceberg.

Cause losing one's "youthful prettiness" in itself isn't so bad. Honestly, for the right reasons, I don't really give a rat's tail. Getting a few wrinkles/ sun spots and a saggy butt and boobs isn't the death of me (USUALLY), however, it causes a chain reaction down the line. So first, I'll go into the general downside of being an aging WOMAN (in my case, GIRL-woman)

A. Finding jobs begins to get more and more difficult. You just AREN'T AS HOT as that 24 year old that went in for the same job (especially when you are an uneducated third class citizen/ worker like myself). Ba-Bye Money.

B. Walking around at the river in a bathing suit. IT'S JUST FLIPPING HARD TO DO NOW. It' didn't USED to be hard to do so much (for me, always a little bit)...but now IT'S JUST FUCKING HARD. What about all that WHITE cellu-plight? 8 year old boys are going to run from me with low voices and snortling giggles.

b-2. These first two stem from losing one's looks. See, the problem isn't the changing way I look. If I lived in a world alone, I wouldn't care. The problem does comes from me COMPARING myself to the pretty "norm" but mostly I FEEL that it comes from the "pretty norm" laughing in my face everywhere I go. From posters hanging in malls, to magazine racks, to teenagers in public places, to rock n' roll shows, to family conversations to conversations with my very own BESTIES, being "pretty and youthful looking enough" is haughtily having the time of it's life making ME feel like shit.

3. You don't know what you are supposed to expect from life anymore. What is success? What's failure? You're too smart to think that money and fame are everything. But you're still too dumb to see things from a purely spiritual perspective. You still go back and forth between the two. Occasionally, ridiculously superficial stuff (like someone you know that knows David Letterman or something) still impresses you, most of the other times.........not at all. IN a way, it's kind of depressing. That stuff used to add EXCITEMENT to life. But now.....you just wonder what kinds of seeds to plant. But alas, you're still no Buddha on the mountain-top.......

4. You're SUPPOSED to have achieved success by this point. (Meaning: Parents and grandparents are supposed to be uber-proud of you).........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................FUCK.

5. You're SUPPOSED TO be having, thinking about, or already have had babies by this point...........................................................................................................................................................................................................FUCK.

6. You get jaded. There ain't no way around it. No matter how bouncy, cheerful, kind, optimistic you were in the good old days....the crusty depressing realistic weight of cynicism sets in. And you hate it. You're even jaded about your jadedness. Underneath it all, you knew it would happen.
Bullcrap.

7. Life in general just loses it's lustre. Swimming in lakes isn't as exhilarating. A brilliant movie just isn't as brilliant as it once was. Even your Iphone seems like an old piece of junk in your purse. Your clothes are ripped, you're 34 but pathetically you can't afford new ones. Your bathroom smells weird, no matter how much you clean it. Your family gets jaded too, and possibly even sick of you and themselves and all the other siblings, another chain reaction that leaves you more stranded and alone in your struggles than ever before. Phooey.


Right.

You know, give me a break, I'm having an off day. BUT STILL! Doesn't this kind of thing at least ring true SOME OF THE TIME? For everyone? OK, maybe never for Meg Ryan or Jenny Lewis or freaking Jane Fonda, but for the mass of us, yes.

REASONS WHY BEING 34 IN 2010 MAKES IT FAR, FAR WORSE

1. Neverending winter in Northern California. I MEAN IT. I MEAN C'MON GOD! It was 57 degrees high at my house yesterday. Granted, I live a little up in the mountains. BUT THIS IS SHIT FOR MY SOUL.

2. THE FUCKING RECESSION. If aging didn't look good back in 2004 whence trying to become employed, IT HARDLY IS BECOMING NOW. My chances of getting a waitressing job after 2 weeks of scouring restaurants in June 2010? About 2-3%.

3. No one listens anymore. They all screech screech screech constantly to their Twitters. To their Iphones. To their damned BLOGS ( i Know I know). They don't even hear their own children tugging at their skirt. How sad is that. I include myself in this (except without the children part)

4. EVERY SINGLE PERSON between the age of 14 and 39 is in a band. It used to be a novelty, a rarity, something to get listeners out of their houses on a Friday night. (See # 3) Now....there isn't an audience. Just 55 more bands listening to each other. SO much for inspiration.

5. Diaries are non-existent. You remember those precious blank books that girls once wrote novels of their own lives in? Adios. Hello Facebook, Myspace, and every other status updater that makes writing to no one a lost art form.

6. THE FUGGING BP OIL SPILL. It's enough to make you want to go down to Mississippi, roll around in the goop, and suffocate yourself so that you can know what that poor wildlife is going through.

7. Aging movie stars get prettier and prettier whilst us normal folks are looking worse and worse sheerly for the fact of what we are compared to. Botox is making MYSELF look like a weathered old indian chief. (which is actually OK with me)

I've run out of things to bitch and whine about. I sat here on this here computer tonight and forced myself to stay in because I was in SUCH a TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, horrendous bad mood that I figured it I went out I would only cause a mass sadness to society...especially my friends. SO. Here it is via my lonely old computer.

Now for bed at 9:45 thanks to the teensy fraction of a waitress job that I DO have. (Waking up at 4:15 tomorrow)






OK. All that sounded purrrrty crappy, right?