Sabino, Part Deux

I didn't make it up at 6am on Friday. My alarm went off, but it was still dark, so I hit snooze (4 times). I finally got up and out and headed to Sabino. I was there by 730 and via la diference!! I got a great parking spot and the weather was nice and cool and the sun had not yet cleared the hill, so the road was shady almost to the top. Which is where I made it to. There are 9 tram stops along the road, and I made it to just past stop 7, when I just decided, yeah, that's enough. I figure I did 6 miles round trip, though my pedometer says I did closer to 7, but close enough.

It is so quiet and pretty this time of day! So, you know the Saguaro cactus only grows in the Sonoron desert, so here in Southern Arizona towards northern Mexico and I think it might squeak into a bit of California, but the plant only grows in a very narrow range of temperatures. In fact, the sun in the winter has to be JUST SO or the cactus won't survive. For example - this north face has NO cactus on it, (click the photo to see it closer up) as it gets very little sun in the winter, where as this southern exposure is just covered with them as the sun keeps the babies warm in winter...and by babies, they are truly ancient when they grow arms...usually over 100 years old before the first arm appears! And they have heavy sumbitches...if you hear a creaking noise when you are standing under one, haul ass, as they weigh multiple tons. They are also not "full of water" as some seem to think. When it rains, their roots collect water and suck it up and they swell, but, not free flowing water inside - it is kinda a mushy sludge, that I don't think will kill you, but you'd have to be pretty fuckin' thirsty to drink it.

Here is a Palo Verde tree. It has tiny little green needly leaves, and green bark. When it gets super dry, all the leaves fall off and it does photosynthesis through the bark! How efficient is THAT???



I like this rock face...Do you see the winking man?

This is a teddy bear cholla....cholla is pronounced Choy-ya, and it is a cactus, so even though it looks fuzzy and cuddly, don't do it.....they also call it jumping cactus, cuz if you get too close to it, it seems like it jumps out at ya...Dogs get jumped often, and the ends of the needles have little hooks un them, so its not so easy just to pull them off......

The tram doesn't start running until 10, and even mountain lion warnings don't seem to scare the fat white people away once they are, but at 730, there were just lots of women walking together (talking loudly), and a whole swarm of baby stroller pushers. This is a relatively easy walk - it is a road for god's sake, but it is NOT a flat walk- there are lots of hills!! In fact, the last hill on the way BACK is right before the end...They call it Heartbreak Hill for a reason. The photo doesn't do it justice, but it is a killer, and the sun was out by then, and there is like a 4 inch square of shade that is very popular.

As I was finishing, the trams were starting, and a whole boat load of new folks were shuttled in. A lot of people take the shuttle to the top and stop 9, thinking they are going to walk back down, but they get to stop 8, or 7 and they realize this might have been a mistake.

It is such a lovely place, and this time of year, there is always water in the creek....

Today, it is off to Mt. Lemmon....gonna be cold!!! have a nice day everyone

Sabino

Today me and Big G met up for a late breakfast and a walk up Sabino Canyon. I love this place, as it is such a geological treasure, and has so many good off-road hikes, particularly the one up to Seven Falls.

Today we just walked up the road, which is finally open again. Two summers ago, there was a big flood in the canyon and it took out the road almost completely. Even last summer, it was still closed off. Walking up the road itself is pretty spectacular. The bridges and Dam were built by the CCC during the depression and from the looks of the road, it has been redone, and resurfaced many times, but the little stone bridges are still the same, except for the one wiped out in the flood of 2006!

If we had gone all the way to the top and back, it would have been 7.6 miles but we got started too late in the day, after jawin' for an hour at the cafe, and it got too hot to go the whole way, so we only went half way up, or about 4 miles round trip.

The down side, other than the sunburn I have, despite SPF 15, was that I have never seen so many people in there...it was like frickin' Disneyworld. The little tram service was running, but they had THREE of them going at a time, and they were ALL full of fat white people! I figure each tram had 60 people on it, x $8 x 3 trams and they were running twice an hour, so that is...um close to $3K an hour? I am going to go tomorrow morning at 6 am and try to make it to the top before the hordes arrive....

Bikes aren't allowed between 9 and 5 pm, to avoid accidents with pedestrians, and I am grateful. I have been here when the bikes were whizzing by like hornets! I will probably see some tomorrow.

OH, and speaking of flying insects, there was some GIGANTIC black flying thing - it looked like a tarantula with wings......

Want to read more on Sabino Canyon? Try THIS or THIS

Worka Worka Worka (kinda like Brusha Brusha Brusha from Grease?)

I am always saying how much I Looooovvveee my job, and I really do, but just to put a dose of reality in the mix, I almost killed my co-workers a while back. We were in San Francisco, and as I am on my way into the restaurant for breakfast, J, the other woman in my office, is on her way out with our boss, el Hefe. They grab the wheelie cart with the box of materials out of my hand, saying they are going to go set up "early." What ever...I am eating chocolate croissants, strawberries and cappuchino!

I head down to the meeting space (on time) and before I have even sat down, she tells me, in an accusing tone of voice, that some papers we need are missing from the box. I remembered packing everything the night before, but hey, maybe I was on quaaludes, so I went back to my room to get them. Naturally, it wasn't there (because. I. had. put. them. in. the. box), so I went back down and said, "Are you sure they aren't in the box?" My boss snorts (really), "Well, you can LOOK if you don't believe me." At that, I simply opened my note book, took out the master copies and started towards the hotel copy center. J gets in my face and hollers, "it is 75 cents a page! (x 5 pages, x 35 copies...gotta love hotel markup) and I said, "HEY if I hadn't FORGOTTEN to pack them (as apparently I had), then it would be no big deal, but I fucked up, and we NEED them, so we will have to suck it up and pay to get it done."

I think I then asked her if she'd like me to pull the original 35 copies out of my ass, but whatever I said, caused her to get all swole up (see definition #5). We then had "words" in front of el Hefe...Her latina machismo coming out, my fiery italian attitude bubbling to the surface....had she not been a black belt in karate, and a former Army drill sargent, it might have come to blows! I have not wanted to physically hit someone so bad in YEARS!!

Instead, I stormed off, leaving them to do the copying and registering of folks, while I sat in the audition room doing the timing and man, did I have to suffer through some horribile auditions. The candidates usually get 3 minutes, but there were a few that day who got cut off at 2:49 (sorry).

When they were over, I came out and started packing up the box to go back to my room....and THERE, in the fucking box, are the copies that she and el Hefe SWORE were not there!!! I was LIVID.....it wasn't even like there were 4 or 5 boxes to deal with - there was ONE!!! I took a couple of breaths then, through gritted teeth, I asked el Hefe in a disturbingly calm and even voice, "why the fucking hell did you not tell me you found them?" His response? "Oh, there wasn't anything we could "do" about it since we had already redone the copies." Well, maybe not, but I had sat in that godawful audition room for FOUR hours, thinking I HAD Screwed up!! He LET me sit there, thinking I had made a collasal and expensive mistake...

I was just so irritated.....I know...I should let it go, but I just wanted to kick J in her smug, know it all face. I don't make mistakes, but on the rare occasion I do, I will do whatever it takes to fix it, ya know?

So once again, yes I LOOOOVEEE my job. it is just a damn good thing they let me work from Arizona most of the time and I don't have to play nice with them every day! Plus, she is such a messy worker, it makes ME feel like a neat freak! And they work with all the florescent lights on, where as I have the sun filling my office, or a small lamp with a muted shade.....

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old...

I am a cling on. I admit it. I am emotionally attached to every card and letter I have ever received, I hold onto bills so I can look at them from time to time and say, "wow, XXXX sure is more expensive these days," I keep magazine clippings I swear I am going to read, show programs, the ceramic dinosaur I made in 4th grade, the entire set of Bobbsey Twin books hat I bought with my own hard earned cash. Hell, my car is 15 years old AS IS the tshirt I am wearing (there is an event ad on it). It took a 17' truck to move this crap from Texas 6 1/2 years ago...I am really not one of those freaks that belong on the Dr. Phil show. I am capable of stacking very neatly, as my 100th post can attest.

Of all this schtuff I have accumulated, I prize my friends the most. The first 7 school years, I was in 6 different schools and I have a smattering of acquaintances from those years, mainly thanks to Facebook. By the time 8th grade rolled around, and my 7th school, I was adept at making friends quickly - who knew how long I would be there...and then I stayed for 9th grade, and then I went to high school with the same kids, then OMG, I freakin' graduated with the same kids!?! The bond is like cement in some cases! I still see CC regularly, Allison less often. Kim touches base every so often, as does Greg and a few others. Gracie Lucie and me have been writing back and forth for years. At the 10 year reunion I reconnected with Laurie E, Janie and Steve and a few others, and a few more at the 20 year reunion...And now that I am on Facebook, (it's not just for kids), I found even more of those people who were at one time a vital part of my life, and I am so glad to have found them again - even a couple of the boys I had crushes on (who are now happily married, but with kids and thinning hair - man am I glad I dodged THAT bullet), even a guy from elementary school who inspired me to learn how to ski is now back "in my life." so to speak.

Not only do I love my job because they still give me a paycheck every week, and so far it seems relatively recession proof, but the most awesomest thing is I get to travel all over the country for conferences and meetings. Even after being with the company for 11 1/2 years, I have YET to go to a city where I don't have a friend or a family member who will come have dinner with me or show me the sites! Last summer, I saw BP from My Three Sons while I was in Denver for a conference - we were roommates sophmore year and she found me on Facebook (and then I read her blog, and then Charmaine's and then I started my own and here we are!) Are we a coupla smiley broads or what!?

Now, the last time I saw Gracie Lucie was in 1984, when CC and I ran into her at King Soopers. We had met in 8th grade, and shared a locker, a Girl Scout troupe, and then went on to High School together, where we got into varying amounts of trouble, depending on who tells the story. I do thank her still for calling my mother for me when I got hit in the parking lot, and I am TRULY sorry about your purse!! Anyway, the last time we saw each other, we were in different colleges, and then she ran off to Alaska, got married, moved to Alabama and had kids, in that order, I might add! She drove down to Birmingham while I was there last week! I was so freaked out when she got off the elevator at my hotel - she looked exactly the same, although I didn't remember her being so much taller than me!

We had a great time, reminiscing and she brought her yearbook, so we googled everyone we could think of. As I mentioned, she'd been my locker partner a couple of times (they were assigned by last name and we had the same last initial), and we helped break my mom of ever wanting to be a Girl Scout leader again, we had French class together, (when she actually showed up to class), and we survived Composition for the College Bound (the class that taught me how to write, although I am confident it is not evident here....) and Helmet Head (our teacher)! Then we went out to dinner at PF Changs, and even though the wait was over an hour, we had a great time - and dinner was fabulous - she wrote about it much better than I could on her blog. Back at the hotel, we closed the bar down (well, maybe not), and she spent the night, then took me to the airport on Sunday morning! I learned some things I didn't know in high school...and my mama always liked her, cuz she was the "NICE" one... but your secrets are safe Gracie Lucie!!

So, here I am, on the slippery side of 40, in my umpteenth job, in my umpteenth apartment, in the umpteenth city I have lived in, and once again I am reminded of the kevlar-like strength of the thread that keeps me connected to who I am, who I have always been. Thanks for coming up Gracie Lucie!!!! You are in my heart forever...please remember me for another 20 years, OK!?

Random Tuesday....Because that's the way it is

Yes, I have a lot to catch up on, but while I am still sorting things out, here is a great line from David Mamet's Speed the Plow that I saw on Broadway a few weeks back. William Macy had replaced Jeremy Piven and did a STELLAR job. Someone asks his character, the conscience-free Bobby Gould, Why something or other had to happen and he answers:

"Why? Why are nickels bigger than dimes? Because that's the way it is, that's why!"

Any more questions???

note: this is not a picture of William Macy, or Jeremy Piven, or indeed any other actor who has ever done Mamet on or off stage...this is rear admiral Joseph Nimmich.....Credit for the photo goes to Javier at NPS, but it had the right TONE for the post, dontcha think?

FL Ren Faire 2009

I love the Renaissance Festival. Not sure why, as it is almost always a dusty, back breaking, crowded, stomach-ache inducing affair, not to mention expensive. Every time I go, I either end up with intestinal distress, if you get my drift, or some crazy eye infection. But, I love the costumes, and the fantasy, and some of the shows are hilarious, and who doesn't love Picklina, the Pickle Lady? And some of the food is awesome, like the arepas! And I love the jewelry and music, such as the Minstrels of Mayhem (they are broken up now, but this is a fabulous version of Health to the Company), and Celtic Mayhem too! Fortunately, over the years I have cultivated some good friends who work for the various faires, so not only do I get in free sometimes, I usually have access to the inner sanctum, the back stage area, and the "after parties."

This year, while I was in Ft. Lauderdale, I went to the 19th Annual Faire with my friend D. I worked at this one the first year or two it was in town, but D actually went on the road with them for a while - they do a circuit of the US and go to Virginia, Wisconsin and some other places. There is another tour that goes around to Texas, Arizona and Colorado, etc. The people who work there live in campers and tents and usually get regular temp jobs during the week when they are in town, like some of my friends are massage therapists or they make jewelry, etc. D was on the road with a couple of different booths until she birthed twins and it became a little harder to live in a camper.

Here are some highlights and lowlights of this year's melee...It is always such a mix of traditional renaissance era costumes, and Robin Hood, and Lord of the Rings, with fairies and sorcerers, and wenches and fair maidens, and courtiers and courtesans, and then there are the ones who couldn't pick just one. Some people dp NOT look in the full length mirror before they leave the house, apparently, not that I am the fashion police. It did piss down rain for about 10 minutes and there is very little shelter to be had at Quiet Waters Park!




it takes all kinds, dontcha know?

Houston

Stranded by Crapinental, I called my aunt and asked what she was doing this afternoon. Ever the smart ass, she snorts, "why? you gonna stop by for coffee or something." And I said,
"well, as a matter of fact..." So she and my uncle drove up to IAH to get me, after a pitstop at Hobby....communication is KEY..

So here I am, and my daddy drove down too, with Willie, so he is getting to know Dippy the new Grey-huahua...part greyhound part Chihuahua....lovely impromptu evening. Remember my earlier post on "seeking happiness" as if it were something to pursue? Here I just put myself in the hands of a stupid airline, and voila....contentment...

I missed this when it first came out...but this is hilarious.....

Everything is amazing, nobody is happy...

Travelin's a Curse

so here I am in Birmingham, AL, a nice town, but really very dull, even though the place was swarming with Swiss tourists who were also in town for the Davis Cup.

I am supposed to be halfway to Houston right now, which would mean I was almost 1/2way home, and in the immortal words of Steve Martin, Buuuuutttttttt NNNnnnnooooooo! the flight before us was delayed cuz a flight attendant was sick, so they took one of ours, finally...and now apparently we are waiting for a NEW one to be FLOWN in (Don't they have anyone else here that could wheel the drink cart up and back? No, I know it is more involved that that, but I'm just sayin')

So, my options are either fly Delta at 5pm through Atlanta and get home in the middle of the night, OR, spend the night in Houston and get a flight out in the morning. I am not a big night driver, so I have opted to spend the night in Houston....The added bonus of seeing Aunt C, and possibly my pop makes this more appealing, but dude, I just wanna go home!!

Oh, they are boarding us finally....Gracie Lucie - it was a joy and I will write about seeing you last night next....I need to upload the photos!!!

Putting it Out There

"They" always say to write down your goals, the things you want the universe to bring you; to be specific and ordered in your desires and they will come to you more easily. Put it out there, they say, so with that in mind, here is what I "want" (oh, sure BESIDES a cure for diabetes, world peace, economic recovery and all those things I can do NOTHING about):

I want to live in France. That's it. Just for a while, say 3 - 6 months. Don't much care where, but just there. I want to become a part of the culture and life. I have friends there, and speak the language, I have been many times and always feel very at home, at peace, really, when I am there. You may not see it in the photos here, but the smile on my face is pretty genuine!

I just can't seem to make it happen that the cards line up right for me to make a move. I have no kids, no pets, no mortgage, I have a flexible job that could probably be bended around 3 -5 months of me working from even more afar...I have some cash saved...My passport is valid...what is stopping me?

That's what I want. Maybe writing it down in public, instead of just dreaming about it in private will help...maybe not.

So, what do YOU want?

Fabulous Florida

I had a great time at mom's this past week...enjoyed the sunny weather with a couple of nice walks, drank coffee at my favorite little bagel place, where one of the guys who works there remembers me from year to year. As usual, it was all about the food....

M3 and I went to Carlos and Pepe's for margaritas and chimichangas;

MTR and I had brunch at the Floridian, then we joined M3 for drinks at the Southport Raw Bar.

My mama is on Nutrisystem, so there was nothing to eat at her house but packaged food...so she took me out. A lot. I need to be on Nutri-system now. She took me to Lago Mar for an outstanding omelette AND a chocolate chip pancake. We went to Sea Watch on A1a for out of this world salmon and dessert to load up on insulin for, that included a "pot" of hot fudge. We also ate at Kelly's a couple of times....there is no clam chowder like Kellys. AND she made me a delicious lasagna. I think I am ready for my BEFORE photo now!

DKK treated me to a day at the Ren Faire, with M and P, and NO kids!!. The Faire will get a post of its own soonish. It needs it

Mom and I also met up with JU at Blue Martini and had lunch at Johnny V's where i had the divine smoked tomato soup with the little grilled cheese sandwich croutons...yum, and cheesecake bread pudding...

I didn't make it to the beach (the photo in the earlier post was actually from last year, when I had 2 broken ribs and I couldn't even lie down on the sand cuz it hurt so bad!), and other than a few walks, I have not worked out in a week. Are we taking bets on how much weight I have gained?

I am in Birmingham, AL now....wheeeee...Lovely hotel though!

the HOW of Happiness

Someone actually wrote this book! According to a review I read (since I don't think this is a book I would read), the author, Sonja Lyubomirsky, "studied" the subject for 18 years, apparently, prior to writing the book. She thinks we fail to "recognize genuine sources of bliss," like walking on the beach and spending time with friends, because we are always in "pursuit" of happiness, cuz it is something to be chased or achieved. I don't know about the other 9 billion folks on earth, but I experienced bliss today, having breakfast with Maria at the Floridian, drinks with my girls at Southport Raw bar and a drive down A1A with my mom...and I didn't need 18 years to realize that was all I needed...

new York Nitty Gritty

I have a friend who has one of the greatest photo blogs on the web...if you like New York City, go see New York Nitty Gritty....he always has an interesting shot of some little slice of New York....Here is a photo of the master at work - he then turned around and took the photo at the link above:





And here is my own attempt at a shot of the tallest building in New York. I am no "Otilius," but it's not so bad.



I am actually in Florida now, and will try to catch up on the last few weeks of travel....NYC, Chicago, Vegas.....and hopefully think of something interesting to write.

victimized

sign....so I only have a few anyway, so it was very noticeable when I lost one of my homeboys in the following...I had been reading about poor Diane and Julie and their dwindling rollcalls, but they both had dozens, if not hundreds of followers....me, I only had 10, and I love everyone of you like you were my own children...and now there are 9. Am I boring you? Did you have to delete ME to make room for someone more interesting - don't worry, I totally understand....sigh...I will try to have more interesting things to share with the rest of the world, but with competition like Irish Gumbo, Ryan, Captain Dumbass, and Henry the Dog, (not to mention the seveal others I need to catch up on, like Braja and Charmaine and the OTHER Janie, and Vodka Mom.....sorry) heck, I don't have any more original thoughts, nor do I have time to put them on paper, or whatever this is!

On a good note, however, I survived yet another groping by the imbeciles at TSA, and Crapinental flight (i hadn't seen anyone actually use the barg bag for its intended purpose in decades, and the child be hind me used all three in her row...and then mercifully stopped kicking my seat and fell asleep), and am now safely esconsced at mama's in Ft. Lauderdale. My lily white skin is about to get ravaged.......

Wee Willie

Diane just posted a tribute to her awesome white dog Sundance, so I was inspired to write about Willie, my daddy's dog. No, Willie is no mere dog, he is part of my dad, and a whole person unto himself, and quite the little fashionista rebel, if truth be told.
Growing up, we always had a dog around the house...a terrier named Angel, and her pup John, then there was the Leroy the Chihuahua, Blue the blue tick hound, the toy poodle named Dolly, the standard poodle named Pucci, the part manchester/part doberman Nugget, the ALL doberman Bear, the lahsa apso Odie, and I might be missing a couple, but I never really paid them much attention - it was my sister and brother who were the animal lovers in the family, and it was always fine that way. (And it's not like we were fickle about the animals...we moved a lot and it was not always prudent or easy to take a dog across international borders, and we also seemed to attract the dogs who liked to jump fences and get hit by cars or get irreversible kidney problems and painful arthritic hips).

Both my sister (Sometimes Wicked Witch of Michigan) and brother still have dogs....SWWM currently has a terrier mix named Jasmine and a Chihuahua named Flash. The brother has a pug named Zeus. It turns out however, that it is really my dad who was the real dog person in the family.

When mom and dad split up, he moved to east Texas where he found a stray wild dog, (I think she was more than part wolf), and he named her Jewel (after the ghost of Aunt Jewel who lived in his house). Jewel was a great, loving dog, hairy and big with a snarl to kept all the bad guys away. You always sensed that a wild heart beat inside her chest when she'd look hungrily at you, but she was a good friend and companion to my dad in his dark days. Tragically, she was hit by a car (or something - they didn't stop), and somehow managed to drag herself back to die under daddy's house.

Dad was heartbroken but remained dogless for a while (he had just lost his mom, his dad, his sister, his great aunt, and his first cousin, then his girl friend left him, and THEN he bought Enron.....if nothing else, my papa has impeccable timing). He wandered over to Thailand, then to Costa Rica, he went to the Esalen Institute and took up yoga, roamed around a bit, dallied with a cat here and there, but nothing permanent, and then came Willie.

I am not sure where he found this little white ball of fur, and indeed, even the idea of "Willie" does not make sense to me or my siblings. He looks like he would be a little yappy, high strung dog, not at all what my dad would want, but au contraire! He is a paragon of patience! Willie is Zen, Willie is a Buddha. Willie is the anti-yap dog. Few things rile him up - he used to love to go visit Chica, my aunt's dog that was killed in January - Dad would say, "you want to go see Chica?" and Willie would run over to the car. Chica, a bouncy, Tigger-like Chihuahua, used to try and rile Willie up, and jump on him and nip at his ears...he would just go for her ass a couple of times and she'd run off wimpering.

Dad says he named him Willie cuz there is only one part of him that is not white, and that is his little...well, you know....but Dad also refers to him as Willie Nelson - particularly if Willie is ignoring dad. The stern "WILLIE NELSON" almost always gets his attention. In general, Willie will SIT and STAY til the cows come home and he knows what GET IN THE CAR means. His cutest trick is "Boing." if I could get a good shot of this, I would send it into America's Funniest pets....cuz it is hilarious:

Now, dad doesn't go anywhere without his faithful companion. They drove out to see me a couple years back, on the way to a funeral. While they were here, we took Willie to see snakes out in the desert and let him play with Timmy, the world's dumbest dog. Last year, I went to SWWM's for Thanksgiving and dad and Willie came too. Pop is refurbishing a boat and Willie is a real sea pup now. He also likes to go for rides on the motorcycle. He used to sit on the back seat, claws dug into the leather, but the new bike has no back seat, dad says, so he just tucks Willie into his coat, with his face peeping out and off they go. Last week, they went into town and dad went into a store and left Willie on the seat of the motorcycyle. He said a crowd of people were looking at the little guard dog who was so fierce and never left his post on the back of the bike - truth be told, Willie is actually a little pussy and was probably too scared to jump off!!

I am not an animal person...I travel too much to raise a pet (or a child), but if I had a dog, I'd want one just like Willie.....

A few of my Favorite Things

I'm playing a little blog game, courtesy of Barking Mad. The idea is to post links to your own top 5 or 10 posts.....The point? Well, to win a prize, of course, but more importantly, to help new readers (or even some old readers) find out a little bit more about the blog's author. I know sometimes when I find a blog I like, I go all the way back to the beginning and read every single post, for as Inigo told Fezzik, it is always best to go back to the beginning when you don't know what else do to. If Everyone were to play this game, the competition for the prize would be fierce, but again more importantly. then readers could get to the soft, nougat-y, perhaps even mushy, moldy and worm ridden, center of everyone...then again, I will most likely still go back to the beginning of the blogs I like, for I enjoy seeing the development and evolution, each in its own distinct way.

That said....I'm in for the prize!! The five posts that (I think) say the most about who I am are:

Hope
Ode to Alone
My Sermon For Today
Chica Remembered
My Favorite Commercial

There are others in which I am more eloquent, funnier, pithier, far more intelligent, and in some cases, a better speller, umm, I mean a more accurate typist - but these are the five that paint my general outlines.....

Read the rules and enter your own self by clicking the link above!

Irish Gumbo Nailed it

Irish Gumbo found the words to express the noise in my head......Read this

I am still wondering how he got in there with all the other stuff that crams every nook and cranny, and managed to pick out all the right words to verbalize how this world makes me feel.....

Song

Another of my favorite poems, Song by Adrienne Rich, followed by my new interpretation

You're wondering if I'm lonely:
OK then, yes, I'm lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.

You want to ask, am I lonely?
Well, of course, lonely
as a woman driving across country
day after day, leaving behind
mile after mile
little towns she might have stopped
and lived and died in, lonel

If I'm lonely
it must be the loneliness
of waking first, of breathing
dawn's first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house wrapped in sleep

If I'm lonely
it's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in the last red light of the year
that knows what it is, that knows it's neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with a gift for burning.

When I first read this poem, I thought it was sad, about being alone and lonely. AR wrote this poem a year after her divorce and several years before she came "out." Some critiques think it IS about isolation because of how many times repeats the word "lonely." The frozen water, the house wrapped in sleep, the cold breath of dawn, mile after mile....all these images that conjure up a frozen wasteland of a sad and useless life.

When I tried to do this piece 20 years ago, it was a miserable failure. I could never understand why I couldn't give the piece the proper treatment...I was good at going for the melancholy, but I just couldn't reach the proper feeling of isolation.

After reading it again today, I realize maybe it is not so much just a "sad poem about being lonely," but rather, a celebration of being alone. And THAT speaks to me now. The plane is not lonely in the chilly sky...it is filled with life and promise and hope and it is headed to a beautiful place, headed for the ocean breezes and sandy beaches. I sat on a plane flying west and watched the sunset...the colors changing, the landscape evolving and the empty sky not really so empty with all the stars and clouds and the twinkling lights below.

Nor is the woman driving across the country lonely. I have sat in that driver's seat many time, and never once have I felt LONELY. There is a literal freedom in that solitude! She, and I, MIGHT have stopped, as AR writes. Or not. And perhaps rather than being trapped in one of those little towns and sucked into a lifeless marriage, she has chosen to be alone to experience more of what the world has to offer.

It is not sad to be alone in a house full of sleeping people, knowing that noise and chaos can erupt at any moment.- there is a bit of a thrill to be the first one up, sometimes - perhaps Christmas morning...hushed and quiet, you can hear the clock tick, as you enjoy a peaceful cup of coffee, knowing you won't hear the clock tick again the rest of the day....

Yes, yes, I know I am putting my own interpretation on Adrienne Rich's piece, and she was feeling badly when she wrote it about not following the expected and more traditional female path of getting married and settling down, and whatever else she was conflicted about, but isn't that the point of poetry? To evoke something in the reader/speaker and cause an emotion to be felt? Besides, I am an actor, I take words and use them to create a feeling, an emotion, a reality, if possible. And it isn't always the author's intentions that actors convey, as much as the author and playwright hope. We always color the words with our own experiences and interpretations and bring OUR lives to the words. When I did this piece at 26, I hadn't been the lonely of which the author speaks, and certainly couldn't tap into the pain she was writing about. Interestingly, I found an article about AR by, novelist Kristy Gunn. She had this to say about AR's writing in general, but I think it particularly applies to Song:

It is dangerous, Rich is saying to be a woman in the world, and to be alert to that world. We are dangerous to men when we see ourselves this way, we are dangerous to ourselves. But through that experimentation with danger comes strength, and new ways forward.

And NOW, as a more grown up person, with more time on Earth, I have been lonely, and I have been alone, and I have survived both. I have driven and flown across the country and around the world with freedom and abandon, and I have sat in empty houses full of sleeping people, and I have sat in empty houses all alone.

I have been the frozen vessel, and I am ready to burst into flames.....

Extremities

My life is about extremes.....frantically busy one month and dead lethargy the next. Full on gym/exercise/early rise routine one week, blink and I am a sloth like, chocolate swilling, sleep til noon kinda gal.....On Monday, I trudged through an icy Central Park with heavy black shoes, a long, black wool coat, a scarf, mittens and a hat, lugging an overnight bag and today, I got sun burnt at the park in Tucson 'cuz I wore shorts and a t-shirt and no sun screen went I went for a little jog!

As I was unpacking, and doing laundry (so I can leave again next week), I contemplated this volatility which even extends to my so-called "love life" and wondered if perhaps I had created some kind of monster within myself. It has been 2 1/2 years since my last male relationship, and I ponder if this exile has anything to do with my affinity for extremes....I mean, I have HAD me some BIG FUN, but generally I can sum it up my love life one way:




Yeah, that's it...a big blank empty place. And I swing in my emotions about that...I am UP, and I say to myself, I don't mind, no butt-dunking in the middle of the night from a toilet seat not put back down, no little black man-hairs in the sink - but then the pendulum goes down, and I wonder if it would be a good thing to have a reason to (learn to) cook and eat dinner on a regular basis, and to not work all hours of the day and night...and then I swing UP, bonking myself on the head, and say THANK GOD! I CAN SLEEP ON WHATEVER SIDE OF THE BED I WANT!! Does this make me bi-polar?

I have been told I am too picky...but I don't think that is it - and just to illustrate that for you, here is an abbreviated laundry list of some of the men I have dated over the years (and NO, I absolutely did NOT sleep with all of them, in fact most of them didn't even get a kiss good night!). Honestly, most of the men I meet aren’t chaps I want to meet my mama, let alone take back to my house. I'd be afraid I’d get to my door, and realize my judgment was no longer impaired and scream in horror til they ran away!!

There was the skinny, dairy farmer with the handlebar mustache, and the goofy soap salesman with the hot tub, the very tall, very young Danish computer programmer; the mentally challenging photographer (not mentally challengeD, though he did do his best to piss me off sometimes) who taught me to play backgammon, the pocket-protector wearing engineer, the old cat-lady rocket scientist, the Safeway produce guy; a professor at the university; the closet holy roller; the Nascar enthusiast; the fat lawyer; the spinning instructor from my gym; and the unemployed fisherman - he DID at least cook me some fine salmon. I also met the cutest gendarme on a train in France one year...he didn’t speak much English, which was OK with me. Then there was another computer geek I dated for about a month or so...he really REALLY liked me, so I knew I’d find out what was wrong with him eventually (turns out he really WAS bi-polar and was off his meds). There was Rick, the “entrepreneur,” Conrad, the perpetual “student,” Kevin, the runner, Michael in real estate, Chris in pest control, and Ed, who, since he delivered Dreyer’s ice cream, you’d think he’d be my dream man, but NOPE! When my neighbor moved, I prayed for a cute, single, straight guy to move in. I got my wish, but he was 15 years younger than me, and as much as I hate to admit it, I am NOT Demi Moore. There was Joel, a special forces unit unto himself; Mike, the professa; Frank (aka Jabba); Scott, the homeless nurse; Simon, the French adventure tour operator (oh la la); Dave, the house painter; Art, the rentacop; Shane, the musician with no sense of rhythm; and then there was Gary, the submarine engineer who I never really figured out - he was such a workaholic, I never had a chance to scare him off.

I even dated my own (male) secretary once...and YES, I did fire him first, to avoid any sense of sexual harassment (he was quitting anyway). So, NO, in case you wondered, I am NOT TOO PICKY!!!

I could write a BOOK about the men I have dated...Charmaine, look out, I could give you a real run for the money! Ya know, all I want is someone who can keep up with me without laughing hysterically or crying in frustration...is that so much to ask??? Oh, and no cats, and no World of Warcraft, please.....

OK, back to laundry...and I will catch up on my recent trip with photos soon!

back in the saddle

i am back in nyc after about 2 weeks on the road...chicago, las vegas, and boy do I wish I was home. I almost got on the wrong flight on purpose yesterday...a gate near mine was going to Tucson.....they wouldn't let me get on, though. Sigh. One more week...then I can catch up on all the blogs and catch up on my own...the last few weeks have been very busy, and fun too, and lots of family...and I sprained my shoulder, which makes airports and trains a LOT of fun, and stairs are just impossible....but, thank god for homeless guys who want dollars, ya know what I am sayin'?

anyway....hope there is someone out there still reading my blog, and who noticed I was gone....miss you guys!!

SSP