I think I need this.

I'm ordinarily not a fan of message T's but I think I may need to buy this one as my new Environmental Law School Uniform.

Personal Space

Note to world: it's called personal space. And, if you're within 18" of me, you're invading mine. And, if you're invading mine, I will presume you're a self-centered, thoughtless, pushy person.
Usually this happens at Starbucks, so I will also assume that you have some issue with taking your place in lines.
But it also happens a hell of a lot at New Seasons, so I will also assume that you are so caught up in your allergies to blueberries, wheat and the color red that you have forgotten other people might be allergic to you. If I can feel the energy vibrating from your carefully tended motherfucking aura you are too close. And you know, evidently I have a lot of negative energy, so why would you even want to take the risk of getting so close that my aura might corrupt yours?
Just a thought.

The Good Old Days

Up in Washington, last weekend, somehow I’m back on my rant against helmets and having another bit of nostalgia for the days of Lawn Darts and Slip and Slide (or, as I tell Mom, population control) and we start talking about the stories Papa tells about his childhood. Stuff like clearing fields on the farm with a little T’N’T or that time he took a chainless bike up to the barn as a kid and ended up propelled ‘bout half a mile down the hill off into the lagoon knocked unconscious and woulda died if they hadn’t found him before the tide came in.
You know, the good old days!
Then Mom tells me about some stories that came out last summer at her Cousin John’s wedding. Somehow, all the grandkids started exchanging stories of what a, well, bastard Papa’s dad was. How when the boys would visit him at the farm he’d send them out alone with a gun at night into the woods so they’d learn how to be men.
“Oh yeah,” Papa says. And he tells them about the time he and his dad came across a bear in the woods. His dad threw a hatchet and hit the bear between the eyes. Bear went crazy and ran off. Then his Dad gave Papa a gun and left him there in the woods, said not to come back ‘till he’d found the bear and finished the job.
You know, the good old days.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the WalMart

Just went to the pharmacy to fill Miracle Drug X and pick up a refill. Now, let me preface this by saying I’m switching to Miracle Drug X because researchers have only just begun to discover the profoundly fucked up long term side effects Miracle Drugs Y and Z had on little lab rats like me. Side effects not so bad as the like of the ovarian cysts produced by Miracle Drug A – which I took on and off when I was younger – but none the less stupendous enough to make the gallows humor of a songs like “The Thorazine Shuffle” long stale.
So, the pharmacy fills my prescription and rings me up. Need I even say it? My insurance company doesn’t want to cover Miracle Drug X. Which means I paid $242 for Miracle Drug X instead of my $20 co-pay.
Usually, if an insurance company declines payment on a new medication they want you to try another medication first (read: a medication they’ve bargained for a cheaper price on). I’m a little bewildered though because I’ve been on these Miracle Drugs for the last 15 years and I’m pretty sure I’ve taken damn near everything.
So here we are again. Welcome to America. Where the highly insured can still pay $1,042 a month in out-of-pocket medical costs.
And so you heard it here first: fuck the workers, unions be damned, God bless WalMart.

I suck at Lent.

Dude, I managed to blow my Lent Sacrifice on day #1. This has affirmed my conviction that thou shalt not choose a self-serving sacrifice for Lent. Better to pledge charity for the homeless or neighborly justice (I'm a little unclear on what the latter entails but I'm guessing it means I finally agree to babysit for the next-doors).
I've been craving lentil soup since the start of Lent. I would sacrifice lentils but I just ordered some Dal.
Maybe tomorrow I'll get back on the Lent Wagon and give up cigarettes.

Because being named Child of Christ on the Prong of a Fork St Francis Wasn't Enough

Yes I'm giving up something for Lent and no I won't tell you what.
Who gives a shit?
(evidently, I'm not giving up swearing, think I burned that bridge when I said "Fuck Father Jerry" to Father Jerry).
Did you know you're not supposed to sing the "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" again 'til Easter? I must say, that prohibition brings me ever so closer to Christ's Suffering.

Serenity Garden

Had a great trip home this weekend. Love my wacky family.

Among the more notable developments, my mother has purchased our graves. Given we own the cemetery maybe this shouldn't seem so strange, or maybe it's strange this didn't happen a lot sooner. That said; going to see the place you might be buried is REALLY WEIRD. And funny. It's a new development called "Serenity Garden" on the lower half of the cemetery grounds. A pretty fountain lined with niches for ashes. Evidently my mom likes the view. So, there you go. Not sure I want to be buried there but evidently I have the option. And after the creepiness wore off it was pretty funny to take pictures of my Mom in front of her future grave.

Just another day in the life of an undertaker's daughter/grandaughter/great-grandaughter.

Check out these flicks!

Some of you have already heard me wax poetic about these two documentaries so, indulge me.

BASTARDS OF THE PARTY is a great HBO documentary by Cle Shaheed Sloan, a former member of the LA Bloods. Sloan traces the origins of the modern Crips and Bloods back to the Reconstruction. A great flick for anyone interested in LA, Civil Rights, History, Federal Law Enforcement.

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON looks at the life of artist and musician Daniel Johnston through his old movies, stories of friends, family, managers and Daniel. Johnston is crazy talented and also, well, pretty... Also just a great look back at the Austin music scene in the mid-80's and early 90's as well as a really cool look at Sonic Youth freaking out trying to deal with Johnston.

By the way, if you've seen movies - documentary or other - you recommend, let me know!

V-day

Happy Valentine's Day!

This morning I heard a delivery truck stop outside my house and footsteps on my porch. I opened my door to find a Flowers.com box. A dozen long stemmed roses from...Mom. Made my eyes water for many reasons. Wanting roses of a more romantic variety. Having such a wonderful mother and always reliably yet surprisingly getting flowers on important and even unimportant days from her. Still not having anyone who knows my favorite colored flower.

Then again, I know my favorite colored flower and I've got two whole rose bushes of them!

I also have a cousin who officially became a teenager today!

So, hope you're all having an OK Valentine's Day. If you didn't get a Valentine this year, check out PostSecret in my sidebar for some AMAZING valentines that will make everything better.

And remember, the thing about true love is most people are lucky to find it once in life, most people do find it more than once in life and you have your whole life to find it!

Resolution #3

I remember seeing televisions in the cafeteria of Bellarmine Preparatory School only once during my 3-year, 5-day attendance. Mother Theresa had died. All around me those carefully groomed girls with their Gap jeans, their lightly glossed lips and their barely budding breasts (some naturally, some magically inflated over the Summer months) forced tears from their vacant eyes. I don’t know if they truly cried, or, if they truly cried, what they truly cried for. But the seed of the saintly selfless archetype loomed large.

I grew up in a home where you apologized without thinking. And it wasn’t that you weren’t sorry. It’s just that you were truly sorry for everything. For breathing, for moving, for thinking, for any motion that interfered with another’s existence.

Selflessness always seemed like the ultimate goal. To need was selfish. To want was selfish. To resent was selfish. Practice compassion. Practice patience. Practice empathy. Everything you feel is selfish, you’re thinking of yourself, think how others must feel!

The thing is, I’ve never met a truly selfless person. Mostly the people I meet who talk about selflessness are terribly selfish messes really just labeling other people as selfish. The most selfless people I know have needs and boundaries. They need something to build all that strength on.

What were we crying for, Mother Theresa? What did she really think, that Mother Theresa? What did she feel? Was she sorry?

Oh, and why aren't there more oral exams?

Sometimes I hate being an auditory learner.

I get distracted way too easily.

I do all my reading at home because the library is too loud. But, at home, I can’t read if the dog snores too loud. Or, for example, like right now, my neighbor David is outside pacing and talking on his cell-phone.

Somebody needs to get some goddamn earplugs, right? I mean, Mom’s only been telling me this since I was about 5.

OK, anyone who has met Dylan can vouch for the fact that he’s ridiculously loud though, right?

The S-Season

A welcome Sun flirts with Portland these last few weeks (the South Sound too, according to Mom). I’m reluctant to call it the S-season or anything close to the S-season. The Sun might punish me.
Nonetheless, I find myself cleaning, whether I’ll call it S-season cleaning or not. And I find myself watching the dirt for growth, whether I’ll call it S-season growth or not.
Yesterday, I made my first trip of the year to the nursery, the earliest I’ve visited any S-season. I picked up three-each of Daffodils, Tulips and Narcissus. I spent a little piece of the afternoon cleaning up my container garden. Saying a long goodbye to the giant geraniums I didn’t manage to save. And planting these lovely little plants.
Planting is an act of hope. I find myself gauging whether I could withstand the loss should another frost come and take my premature hope away. Brave comes in small pieces. Maybe this is all the Brave I can take at the moment.
The wind blew the Sun away today, at least for today. But there are my little plants. Slowly telling me the S-season will come.

Occurred to me today that any number of decisions I make can be solved by simply asking, "what would Joan Didion do?"

This photo's pretty good but the one that really haunts is the one used on both "The White Album" and "Play it As it Lays." That picture is singularly responsible for the creation of my obsession with the perfect fitting black t-shirt paired with jeans and a modernity that's more feminine stoicism and steely reserve than shiny pretty open clean lines.

Having a nervous breakdown? "What would Joan Didion do?" Fly to Hawaii and work it out by watching the decline of an upper class sanctuary.

Can't face the world? "What would Joan Didion do?" Put on a giant pair of sunglasses and let her hair hide the rest of her face lips sufficiently pursed you wonder why women ever began injecting silicone.

Good god, just look at her. Ratty grey sweatshirt. Lank hair. Smoking that cigarette. And she's untouchable.

What would Joan Didion do?