The turning.

The tide has gone out and left the little lost ones to starve for water. Others have swayed with the foam and held on long enough to return to their brethren. 

The cliff is the best spot to view the coming's and going's of the spells of my life. Legs thrown over the mantle of the shale and lichen museum, being careless. Being reckless without anyone noticing.

I write a note with my finger in the ether to let you know I still love. 

Loved you farther than I've ever loved before and its gotten me here. A beautiful dead-end of sorts. Never-ending sunrise and sea stars caught up in my curls, gasping on air and gulping for water. Sand glinted glitter tattooed to my feet. Earths ragged edges leaving imprints on my palms.

Calico, corduroy and cowboy boots piled high-half naked and adrift in cotton and lace. I fall apart here, in the pale of this reiterating morning of my mind.

There are only a handful of ways to get off this cliff. Jump, climb down, walk from whence I came, fly or dig in. And so I do.

I construct a fort right here. Recognize it is a terrible place to build and do it anyway. Build for survival. Build for aesthetics. Build out of the pain. Build even as the cliffs erode around the foundation and I'm left a singular outpost, an island in the encompassing sea.

Sew a flag from the remnants of who I was. Divine a symbol for the crest that is me and send it up the pilings that pitch the flag pole. 

Once a year bang pots and pans barefoot on the roof. Call the seagulls in and make them tea. Listen to their collected stories from life out in the beyond then shake their wings and salute them as they set sail off the balcony for another 364 days of fish and refuse, leaving feathers and seed kernels to germinate in my cupola called home.

(Their home is out there. Mine is right here.)

Until it's not anymore.

When my toes grow together and the scales begin to erupt I know it is time. I am turning once again. I break the mirror and lash a dagger of it at my waist. Place every piece of jewelry on ever given to me by any man who has ever loved me and left me and dive deep into the sea, for I am a changed woman now. 

Mermaiden mistress among the shells, no longer imprisoned in her own sorrow and beauty, swimming for her treasure, coursing through her sea.

How I Learned about Vice.

No doubt that horses and vice have been interconnected for thousands of years.

Twitch a gelding’s lip with a chain looped steel rod when your 7 years old and you realize real quick that there might not be such a fine line between violence, force and control. 4”2 and a twist of the arm-between he and you- suddenly an asymmetry exists that isn’t mimicked in the rest of society.

Small overpowers large.

Weak controls strong.

Female subdues male.

Walk down the centerline of a double-barreled barn at dusk, with horses stabled to your left and to your right, the concrete and stone still damp from the mornings mucking and pieces of sawdust floating through the air, momentarily captured in the spotlight cast by the setting sun breeching through tiny cracks in the stall doors and listen.

STAMP.

STAMP.

KICK.

STAMP.

STAMP.

KICK.

Like a dragon in a cave you’ve heard the echo of the stud down the corridors all day and for hours have wondered what he looks like. Your imagination has begun to get the best of you at 9. Fire breathing and cloven hoofed this fear, this unknown, excites you.

Approaching his stall, making sure no one spies you falling prey to the temptation of his ferocity and beauty. Lying at the furthest edge of the barn with a buffer of empty stalls placed around him, a veiled protection for the mare’s nearby who send him into an untamable rage with even their slightest tail swish.

Feigning innocence as you near him. Moving in towards the door as you approach. Tension builds as the hoof slamming pauses and you rise up slowly onto the tippy toe’s of your stained red stripped Sperry’s to see in, holding your breath as though you were underwater.

His nostrils pulse. Opening and closing rhythmically. He takes you in with the wild whites of his eyes and curls his lip into the Flehman Response. With his arching crest stretched high into the air as though he was blind and searching he begins to pitch about the stall snorting and clopping his hooves onto the revealed mat below As if to greet you he smacks the door sending a vibration of energy through your fingertips deep into your bones.

Later that night as your dad drives you home in his 1984 Thunderbird you stretch your hand out the window against the force of the air listening to the gears move from 3^rd to 4^th to 5^th and notice that the vibration of the stud still purrs with power in your bones.

The Wilderness

I'm not sure where you go when you go there.

I'm not sure why you go when you do.
I can only think that it must be me.

Something I said or did, something between me and you.

The thoughts of you that cross my mind are both slender and long.

Well buffered and protected from the wide, deep and painful love that insists it must prolong.

I've been hurting for a while now and I know you like to heal,

So the question becomes what will you do with me when all your work prevails?

Will you still want me in the sunlight,

or do I only attract you when I am sullen in the rain?

Wet and covered in fallen leaf

shivering in pain.

The little hurt lost girl is being broken from her wooden shell and

all her morsely goodness is hovering in stasis, uninvited and overwhelmed.

Remind me what it means to you, the friendship that we've made

I'm afraid I've lost you out here in the wilderness, alone like the birds refrain.

Hollow

Torrential rains
Leave stagnant pools.
Mosquito festers in a
Spider web.
Girl can't clear her eyes
Of tears and memory dust.

Lost at sea is actually
Close to shore.
Figure ate's
Disproportionate
Waist.
Lost in old rituals

Recovering from
Uncovering
Truths.

Go away
And
Come back
To the same place
Again.

Same friends.
Nothing has changed.


Go away
And
Come back
Again.
Won't last forever.

Someday you come back
And they are all gone.
Why stay yourself she asks the old woman in the mirror.

She promised.
She says, she'd never leave
Like that.

Not a whole lotta reason to stay now though.

Even the old woman might agree. Not much left inside or out that's worth saving.

Don't even need to pack a bag. There's nothing where I'm going.

the up side of the down

Heart hurts.
Drain it out.
Wring whats left into the flower pots.

Grow something.
Make something useful.
Do something with yourself
you ridiculous dreaming little girl.

Create oxygen for others to breathe.
That's simple enough.

Seed babies and mothers in bloom.

Tear down the structure in a rampage
(Fuck that feels so good.)

Or dismantle it piece by piece.

The tedious ballerina on point
at the top of an upside down ladder.
Backwards and blindfolded, with
instructions for deconstruction written in a
foreign language.

Still looking perfectly pretty in pink.
And of course corseted.

There is no room for love here.
Not in my heart or in my belly
or in my body or my brain.


There's never enough room at the top.
Ladders aren't built for two.

Bomb the girl in the suburbs. She needs to escape.

Being attacked by memories.

The Scene:

May 2008

Sitting at Espresso Metro... girl about to start her period, moody feelings washing over her.
The girls face, posture and silhouette shift as the ballading of Ani DiFranco blasts out of the speakers...assaulting her. She appears in one moment euphoric and in the next deeply sad, even lost.


The Scene:

May 1996

The GOP is about to take over Congress and this same girl is living in the Mission several years before gentrification.

A MONTAGE shows her character and interests as follows:

Learning to bake her own bread from yeast. Rolling out the dough and watching the rain drip down the salty city windows as Ranchero music whistles through the cracked windows of her 3rd floor flat.

She has a rat named Stevie and then one named Maud-dib

She BBS's on her 4800 Baud modem from her Apple Powerbook and uses the IRC chat to talk politics with international types.

THE FOLLOWING SCENES WERE EDITED OUT.

She discovers her first kinky fetish, masturbating while eating Ben and Jerry's 'Cookie Dough' Ice Cream...and then several other flavours after that.

She writes short stories at the Bearded Lady and goes to 18 and over lesbian sex clubs South of Market until she can start getting into the Stud at 21.

END MONTAGE.


I feel embarrassed by how easy it is for me to fall back into my feelings at 19 years old.

Slightly sickened that I could be so easily manipulated by myself.

Shocked at looking with my 19 year old eyes -at my 32 year old self.

When did all this happen?

I pull at the soft skin of my inner elbow.
One of the voices says to me...

'I've got to get out of this place.'..

..Even though it's the very place I've manifested. Now I'm suddenly embarrassed by myself.

Here are some Sacramento secret-wishes I hide.

1
I want to crawl right back into my irreplaceable brown Dickies from Joe Sun, harvest a burrito from Pescados and settle into my notebook with a soy latte at Greta's.

But none of these places exist anymore.

What happened to my god damn town.
Where did she go?

I guess she's disappearing. Just like all those 1990's parts of me.

I know its cooler now. I know. I know. I know.
Maybe if I say it enough times... I'll actually believe it.

2
With Filibuster on stage at The Press Club..I want to be crammed in the back hallway along the dirty graffiti'ed walls with all the punk rockers and rockabilly types. Me thinking in saxophone riffs while the hipsters of the day shoot up. Ogling all the older tatoo'ed girls with my barely legal tortoise shell rims- my notebook almost always in tow ...or scribbles of rant on bar napkin edges.


I wonder what my 19 year old eyes would have made of me, a pretty little house wife who lives Up-town.. with all sorts of dirty secrets rattling around in her head.

I guess I'll never know.

32 isn't so bad.

* Hello sun. Where have you been? I've been missing you. Bring on the freckly girls and the sweaty biker boys....YO!

* I'm showing Mighty Quinn at 3'6 in the AA's and jumping him 4'0 at home. My 14'2 hand pony is miraculous (and a gnome).

* Becoming a part-time house-wife made me even hornier apparently...however I still don't get what sitting on the washing machine is gonna do for me.

* Ms. Frida Fresca had her 3rd digit amputated. No cancer. With the silver tooth and the peg-leg she is 2/3rds of the way to being a pirate.

* My mom might be a cold sometimes but she totally taught me how to garden. I can't believe how many plants I can name when at the nursery...our land is on the verge of blooming.

* Several new crushes on the horizon... one goes better with cafe the other with classic coke. Hello Spring!

* I am so glad the writer's strike is over!!! SNL and 30 Rock are back! I heart Tina Fey!!!!!!!

* This summer is going to be full of high waisted jeans and butt-rock...I can feel it already.

* DB makes the best springtime fires ever...

* 32 isn't so bad.

14 years old + 10 = 24 years old + 7= 31 years old. 31 + the formula below= Hipster Yuppie

1 Pim's Cup w/ extra cucumber.

1 Beat-up copy of "Historical Thinking" by Sam Wineburg.

1 Pair skinny black diesels.

1 Almost too tight Target Owl (IZOD) w/ popped color, black of course.

1 Pair of ginormous black & gold windshield sunglasses/1985 Japanese Grandma style, thrifted.

1 Pair beat up black low top converse..laces disheveled.

All my preppy hipster Yale fantasies have been doused out for this summer. No hanging with Souky Saperstein of Wesleyan stock. Or was it Bennington? No introducing myseslf as Stevie-Jo, the intriguingly sophisticated central-valley girl secretly living out her latent teenage Hotchkiss prep school wet dreams. Though Yale offered me a huge scholarship ($2,800.00), my school district would not match the money awarded. Apparently developing their teachers into experts on the Eastern Front of WWII is of minimal priority. I can only hope this didn't blow any future opportunities, as this was a real career break. The kind of thing that could have gotten me back in over at C.K.M in the H.I.S.P program. I'll save the Dead Poet's Society fantasy for another day.

Instead, this summer I am playing wifey/workhorse...packing boxes and arranging 75% of the details on our new move into our hipster/yuppie lifestyle. We finally move in on Sunday and I am hoping my body will recover from the physical labor its been under for the past two weeks. Hot-yoga helps. On similar sporty-spice news.. I interviewed with and got hired by Sugar Bowl last week as a ski instructor for this winter. I am thrilled about this and the possible connections it may provide in both the winter wonderland realm and the horse show world. It will also provide some additional income and cost-breaks to DB and I as I am going 4/5 time next year...only working to 12:30 each day I feel sorta like a 1950's house-wife.

Things have been tough with Pop and Mother. I feel really sad around them. I am thinking about returning to therapy. The general theme: It just hurts that I get so much love and appreciation for the whole of who I am from DB's parents but can't get an ounce from either of mine. It was hard enough when Mommy Dearest didn't give a hoot but now that Franklin has jumped ship I am occasionally a real mess. I thought this part of my work was done. For whatever reason it has resurfaced in a terrible ache at the pit of my stomach...maybe that is where a baby is supposed to go.

"I told you no wire hangers!!!!"

DB is loving and supportive which is fantastic. And I have made a handful of new friends who are loving... though I miss all my old girlfriends who have moved away. I do spend a good amount of time in a land of delusions and figments (or is it enchantments and joy) imagining the uber-cool boutique or sake bar I could open next to Espresso Metro and how I would be able to walk to work. Or.. how I will turn what I write-down into a best selling memoir...maybe totally honest...or maybe totally overly embellished. Maybe even a modern day antitheseis to Joan Didion's early works.

When not imagining my own possible greatness I am spending much of my internal life mourning my youth. Olympia. Evergreen. San Francisco. Coffee shops. Raves. Wicker Park. You know, riding public transportation with big ole' studio headphones on... trying to figure out how to make the world a better place. I still turn the idea of starting a Books to Prisoner's program over and over in my head. Needless to say, I'm in a minor identity crisis. I suppose it's natural to come into something like this when you make 100's of editing decisions on your past, present and future simply by deciding what to put in a moving box. Then watching the rest of your rubbish get picked through by random strangers at a massive hipster yardsale. Its quite intimate to watch people touch your things ...maybe even fondle them...and either take them in or leave them behind. Its subtley liberating and completely horrifying at the same time..to have all of ones ridiculous material possesions splayed about for a bunch of un-named onlookers.

Not much different than this blog I suppose.

Anyone want to watch reruns of Thirty Something with me?