happy solstice…belated

 i am at that point where i am feeling exceedingly blessed in and for my life.

spirituality has been something that, while not really lacking in my life, had been less prevalent than at other times in the past. i thought around samhain time "gee, i used to put a tremendous amount of energy into creating and putting on these elaborate rituals to help many people celebrate the solstice’s, now i do none of that…" this is true, but i also do things that bring people happiness (i hope) and joy on a more regular basis, and it’s all people, not just pagan people =) i mean, of course, the difference between fire performing and being an active pagan. the pagan beliefs have never gone away, they are just not practiced as intentionally or with as much purpose as in the past. in many ways this makes me happy, because what i am doing now is more physically active, and i enjoy it a TON. at any rate, the dichotomy had occurred to me periodically over the years, so i thought i would mention it =)

on wednesday of last week, my nephew came home from georgia for two weeks on leave from the army. i’ve been very domestic lately, cooking all his favorite foods and making sure he feels welcome and loved while he’s home. he’s enjoying things pretty well, i think =)

last week, at some point, i got an email from someone who is a casual friend, but not someone i know overly well. his son participates in our fire group, and he is recently divorced. he invited me to a solstice celebration at his house. i had previously been invited to a bar crawl, that i had thought of attending, but i am just SO not a bar person, normally. this was so much more in line with my values and what i wanted to do, i made a mental note to do so, knowing that i also had to go earlier in the day to a cookie exchange, which i knew would also be fun.

in essence, my solstice was perfect.

it started with the cookie exchange. i went boring and did snickerdoodles, but they are a good cookie and super easy to make, so that made life super good. the cool thing about the cookie exchange is that it was with friends that i made while being involved in the aforementioned pagan stuff, so it was like spending solstice eve as i have on several other occassions, sharing food, wine, and good conversation with good friends of a like mind. bliss. i stayed later than everyone else to visit with my friends i hadn’t been able to connect with for awhile, and timed it just perfectly so that i was heading south at exactly the right time to catch the solstice party.

i think it’s sometimes good to be around people you don’t know well. it forces you to remember what it’s like to be "the new person" and also allows you to interact with people you might not otherwise, if your friends were there. i did get to spend a decent amount of time with some folks also from the fire group who also showed up, getting to know them a bit better. i wasn’t sure, honestly, if i was going to last until midnight, when the invitation had said we would toast the welcoming of the sun again, and longer days. man, am i ready for longer days….i didn’t think it would ever get here! it’s especially poignant because it’s been really cold here lately, like bone-chilling, less than 10 degrees cold. burrr.

so this guy was having a solstice party, but he hadn’t heard many of the stories associated with the celebration of the solstice, so i was able to share some of this knowledge with him, which felt good…and right. some more people were exposed to religion that predates christianity! yay, for open-minds and open hearts!

sunday dawned clear and chilly, but it was going to be a good cooking day for me. i had promised my nephew mexican food and had done some of the prep work for it, but then gotten distracted by cookie making and put the prepared ingredients away, so sunday is generally a day i cook and have not a lot else to do, and so it was.

just as i was putting the finishing touches on dinner, my cell phone rang and it was that girl i have mentioned before. the one who likes to play around with me and kiss me when she’s drinking, but otherwise seems hot and cold (pun intended hehehe). things have changed between us. i appreciate her in my life, and honestly, i think she needs my friendship the most at this point in her life. she’s seeing a very nice man, and seems happy. i see her pretty often, and with her, i definitely think friendship is the safest course. at any rate, she called to say that she was having a small, private solstice celebration and she’d like me to be a part of it. I told her i’d be there and i went. she doesn’t live that far from me…

the ceremony was great. what we did was write down 5 things that we wanted to get rid of in our lives and 5 things we wanted to accept, grow, or harvest in our lives. then we shared the things we wanted to purge before throwing the pieces of paper in a fire that was in the back yard, then came inside, sat around a table and shared the five things we wanted to grow before placing them in a jar, to be buried with fertilizer tomorrow and buried, so they can "grow" this year. after the smallish ritual, we went christmas caroling! it was a lot of fun, and i feel like my holiday was perfect.

have any of you, with kids or on your own, ever played the game for x-box of wii called "rock band"? that is the FUNNEST game..we giggled for hours the other night, the kids and i, singing those songs and trying to figure things out.

today, is a great day, and i am SO ready for the days to begin to be longer.

here’s hoping everyone has awesome holidays!

peace….soon =)

the rest of the family drama….

okay.

so. i found a lot of stuff last week about my "family of origin". that there phrase is in quotes because they are only, in my mind, tangentially related to me. the two women i am talking about are the blood sisters of my mother. one full blood sister, one half sister, i believe. my mom and her older sister were raised by their grandparents, their younger sister, my aunt l, was raised by the mother, my grandmother.

i talked a long time to my cousin on the phone. it was good. i’ve always felt a kinship with him, like maybe he and i were aliens in this world of dysfunctional bullshit. i feel that even more now, and the phrase "family of choice" is even more important to me.

when i was little, for awhile, both my aunts lived in the bay area. the younger aunt, li, lived in hayward and the older (than my mom) aunt (lo…two initials because both first names begin with l) lived in fremont. my mom used to drive us there for holidays, but not all of them. it seems usually thanksgiving but rarely christmas. i have more christmas memories of home than of either of their houses. i do remember though, that my aunt li used to take us in to san francisco on the day after thanksgiving to see all the christmas displays in the city. they were always amazing, my favorite being neiman marcus. i think one of the things that sort of hurts the most about this is that my sister, who is small and cute, had always seemed to be the favorite child of all our relatives. except my aunt li, who seemed to love me more. i have many fond memories of me with her, in hayward. she taught me how to bake. i remember being in her kitchen and sifting flower, trying so hard to not screw anything up because i didn’t want to make my auntie mad or do anything that would take away her good favor. this got me through many childhood angst moments, because her and my aunt sue, i knew, loved me for who i was. i was wrong.

my cuz told me that my entire life, his parents have disliked me because of my size. i am a plus-size woman, but not overly so. he told me how his dad used to talk about me, the horrible things he would say. i knew he hated children, but didn’t realize he also hated large people. the funny thing about this is that HE WAS FAT!! he had big ‘ole jowels that made him look a lot like a cranky basset hound. he was not a nice man. i had sort of wondered why i hadn’t heard from my aunt since my moms death, but knew she had her own hands full…taking care of her older sister, and then with her husband, my uncle having brain cancer and dying within a year and a half or so of my mom, i was sure she had her hands full. she told my cuz that i was a lazy slob. please keep in mind that i have not been around this woman regularly for probably 30 years. how she would know this is beyond me. perhaps from my mom…she told my cuz that my mom used to talk about how miserable things were for her in reno when she would visit them. cuz says that she probably couldn’t have stayed positive about things, being around them and in that environment. i don’t know what to think about that.

will it be wrong of me not to be terribly sad when both these shallow people die? my other aunt, lo, also hates me now, but i am told that this is because she feels that if i had taken better care of my mother, she would still be alive. have i mentioned anywhere else that my aunt li is a "devout catholic"? that makes me laugh on a number of levels, but i should probably just leave the fact as having been recorded here. i am saddened that people who don’t even know me, or know who i am bear me ill will because of their own narrow-mindedness. and that i share blood with these people sort of makes my skin crawl. my cuz was all up in arms and ready to defend me to his mother, and i told him not to bother. life is too short for me to be worried or allow my self-esteem to be affected by two bitter old women who don’t know anything about me and have chosen to form negative opinions of me based on gossip and their own need to rationalize their sisters death. it doesn’t seem to matter to them that neither of them were around as she was getting more and more sick. that my one aunt works for the mayo clinic and has done everything for the older sister, but did nothing for my mother.

i’ve been struggling with this for the entire weekend. i am so thankful for what i have. i am thankful that i have raised children that take people at face value, and appreciate people for who they are, and are not, i don’t think, overly judgmental. they are good people. i am ashamed of what i’ve come from, but feel heartened in the fact that with me, this insanity stops. may it not carry to any more generations.

peace, fleeting.

the joy of thanksgiving…

so, now, about the good.

i hope that no one thinks i am overly verklempt about the whole family business. i am sad that there are shallow, bitter old ladies in the world, but aside from missing an inheritance who’s value would probably be minimal to me at any rate considering what it might cost me to my soul, i am not all that bothered by what occurred. it’s all stuff i had a sense about, i think, it’s just that to have that sense codified hurts a bit. it sort of makes one go "oh, wow" in the way of meeting a casual aquaintence you start to converse with only to realize part-way through the dialogue that they are very racist or something equally repugnant. ew.

so, in the normal course of grocery shopping for a number of grown people, i ended up getting a couple of free turkeys. these came as my local grocery store was giving away turkeys under 16lbs if one spent $100 at their store. this is really easy to do for a weeks worth of groceries, so i got one 16 lb turkey and one package of turkey breasts.

d actually decided he was going to help out with the holiday prep this year, so he cooked the pies the day before and also remembered to take the turkey out of the freezer. none of you can understand how epic this is in terms of him actually remembering to do something to help out, i’m here to tell you =) he tries, but he has A LOT of short term memory challenges, shall we say.

my son showed up early, like 10am or so, which was pretty surprising to me. i think he’s really hurting and wanting to have family time. i know there is a sense with him, told to me by my husband, that he is afraid of letting me down because he is doing something that goes against my values with the army thing. he really doesn’t see that he has much choice, and i think he has nothing but choice. regardless, he is my son and i will love and support him. i just wish he understood that he could come home damaged for the rest of his life because of this decision. or he could die or maimed or emotionally scarred for life. as much as he tries to hide it, he is a sensitive person and he will not be able to remove that from himself, i do not believe. at any rate, he was there early and i was glad. throughout the day, always there were people saying "is there anything i can do to help?" always believing that a collaborative effort is better than not, i took them up and one of the perfect moments of the holiday for me will be the memory of my son and sister peeling eggs for deviled eggs on one corner of the kitchen island while myself and our room mate ashley were on the other side of the island, her chopping artichokes for dip, and me chopping fresh fruit and veggies for home made salsa. my daughter was there, too, getting ready to take over for ashley so she could do something else. it seems so much more meaningful to me if everyone can help contribute to the meal or the food atmosphere. at one point, we were reminiscing about my mom fondly. the cool thing about that is that it was with laughter and good will, which i know is what she would have wanted. while i am sure that a couple of us got a tad bleary-eyed, i didn’t observe any tears actually breaking the barrier to cascade down cheeks.

my sis had pretty much spent the previous week cleaning up the house. she sort of started to make noises about needing help with this when i pointed out to her that her and three other people do ALL their living in that room, d and i do none of it, so it didn’t seem fair to me for us to clean something we never contribute to the mess for. she got motivated, and it was very, very nice, and they’ve mostly been keeping up with it too. it’s a huge relief!

so, that was the essence of my turkey day. the house smelled fabulous, it looked decent, and the rest of the weekend was spent being leisurely, reading, watching movies, and enjoying each others company. there truly is so very much to be thankful for. life is good.

peace. soon. i hope.

good lord….

 i just wrote the entire history of my mom’s illness and death. for a cousin. because his mom now thinks i am evil. i suppose some folks need people to blame. it took a lot out of me. you can’t write something like that out and not relive it.

maybe i will post it here as a fav’s only or a private entry. not that i will ever forget anything that happened. i don’t know. i feel raw. and my heart and chest feel constricted and heavy. my eyes are red from crying and my nose is still running.

i still miss my mom, and it’s been almost two years. this is the season, the season that marked her last.

grief never ends, it just becomes tolerable as time passes.

peace.

beauty is where you find it…

pasted from http://www.theroot.com/id/48726

it was posted on November 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people’s enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people’s spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

some days….

 just feel overwhelming. i am there today.

i am still reeling from the weekend with my son. he was home when i got home from a beautiful and soul-lifting violin recital saturday night, having just seen midori and spent some amazing one-on-one time with my daughter. i had asked him to come by our house because he’s using our truck while his car is in the shop and it has jumper cables in it, and my sisters battery on her car had died.

he was talking about having gotten screwed over at work again. he works harder than a lot of people, he knows all the jobs, but he’s still considered a part-time temporary person and he was up for a full-time position and they gave it to someone else who’s been there less time and made less money. precisely BECAUSE they made less money, so they knew it would cost less to promote this other person. also, the other guy doesn’t want to utilize the educational benefit that goes along with full-time employment, which my son does, which would ultimately cost the company more, also. that does truly suck, but sometimes life isn’t fair. i know he knows this. then he was saying how his company are hypocrites because they talk about how important their employees are, but they don’t treat them well, or not all of them, anyway. i told him he should tell his company they were hypocrites and he looked at me like i was a child and said something to the effect of "just what am i suppose to tell them, mom?" well, me, i would tell them that, but i live and work in a place where it’s okay to be somewhat idealistic and that’s sort of honored here. there are still disappointments and shitty things that happen, but as i’ve said before, there is also a tremendous amount of freedom here. i am free with my thoughts and ideals because i can be. that’s a very important distinction.

i am in a better place with my husband, but it’s still tenuous. i knew when i met him and fell in love with him that i was marrying a soldier. i can’t blame him for being what he is, most of the time i think it’s charming and endearing; it makes me feel safe. he’s almost NEVER soldier-like with me, i get the other side, the tender side. he’s a good man, and being a soldier is all he’s ever known. it’s as much a part of him now as me. he’s been married to the army longer than he’s been married to me. i have to keep reminding myself of that.  

that doesn’t mean i want my son to follow those footsteps. the soldiering ones, not the tender ones, i know he has that, i raised him =) we always hope for better for our children, and i had hoped he wouldn’t have to make a choice like this. part of me wants to take what equity i have out of my house and pay for my sons debts and for his college, to keep him safe, to keep him near me. but that won’t teach him anything about dealing with the consequences of his decisions, that only teaches him that parents will always bail ya out. or does it? where does responsibility end and compassion begin? is it right or proper for me to take on more debt that he might be debt free? i don’t know what these answers are….

my son has some friends that are already in the national guard, and he’s going in with them. they are in an mp company that already knows it’s deploying to afghanistan next fall. afghanistan is not a nice place to be at all, that’s probably why we never hear about things there. that’s where the friends that we’ve had killed have been killed, in the majority.

my nephew is doing well, i got to talk to him on saturday. he will graduate from boot camp this coming thursday, the 20th. he made it through. he was concerned about the run because he injured his foot. but he made it…he got the minimum number of points, but he passed, which was what we were worried about. i asked him if there was any way he could still not make it and he said pretty much only by getting into a fist fight would he not finish. he told me that he sort of wishes he had chosen national guard instead of active duty, but now, he’s there, and signed up for active duty. but, once he serves his time, he can transition to national guard. they’ve told him it’s hard, but that’s not strictly true, they just want him to think that.

it feels good to write.

there is some drama going on with the fire group, too, but that should be it’s own post. i think this is enough for now.

i am scared for my son, and feel powerless.

i wish i could make him understand. violence begets violence, and when it comes to violence and choosing to inflict it, in my mind, there is ALWAYS a choice.

i wish he thought so.

no peace.

feeling betrayed….

most of the time, it’s pretty easy for me to go through life knowing that some of the people that are closest to me don’t share some of the values i do. to me, it seems there is a decided lack of compassion on the other end of my marriage. this person lives in a very dog-eat-dog world, which is generally fine with me because it doesn’t effect me overly much.

my son is thinking of joining the national guard. he is being sent to oakland next week for his physical stuff. he’s an adult now, and the rational part of my brain knows that he now has to make his own decisions. but he has these romantic notions about what war and life are like that i know are not true. he wants the adventure, he wants to get out of our town. much of his current predicament is a result of his own poor choices. he had a 10,000 scholarship, in essence, and he blew it. he was more interested in partying than he was in doing well in college. he also owes the college a bunch of money from being careless with parking, so they won’t let him register for classes any more until he pays it and then he has to reapply for college as he’s not gone the last few semesters. he’s working full-time in a warehouse. he had to move after burning man, and he chose to get into a lease with a high-ish rent thinking he would have his girlfriend and two other people to help with rent. as they were moving the girlfriend broke up with him and said she wasn’t moving in, which essentially doubled his rent. he hates the warehouse because he used to work in an engineering firm and do stuff that he considers to be inifinitely more cerebral and important than stacking boxes. he has a second job at a mexican restaurant that’s been so slow he is often told not to come in….the economy. his work has screwed him over a few times, but the bitter part of me says "yeah, welcome to the real world, it happens". so he thinks he has no choice about joining the military. when he tried to get a car awhile ago, they told him he didn’t have any credit, so he went out and got a bunch, and now he has all that to pay off too. i tried to tell him that having credit is a double-edged sword….sometimes it’s better not to have, for having it means paying. i have always been a cash and carry sort of a gal, myself. i know my credit score has suffered for it, but i really don’t care because i don’t pay as much exorbiant interest and i keep more of my money than the average person.

the thing that has me feeling betrayed is that when i got home from a concert last night, my son was here talking to my husband. my husband is trying to talk him into going active duty rather than national guard. this seems like a huge deal to me. either way, if the boy joins, he’s going to war the way things are now. even with obama elected, people don’t understand that with the economy the way it is, he can’t bring all the troups home because there aren’t jobs for those men when they come home….it would cripple the american economy to have so many people home and unemployed. there are no jobs for them now, and it would make the market that much harder for those already here and unemployed also, having all those extra veterans in the market. besides, war isn’t something you just end, it’s been going on too long.

the hurt and angry and scared part of me says, of my husband "how could he?" all he’s ever known is the military, but it’s a different place now than it was when he was there, in active duty. he joined at a time when we had had over 20 years of relative peace. i saw a documentary called "the peace" recently that talked about the war, what led up to it and stuff. we have friends who’ve been over there and know how fucked up it is. we’ve had friends killed. it doesn’t help that my son has been speaking with some friends of his and is set to go into an MP unit they’ve already told him is deploying to afghanistan next fall. he is supposed to go to boot camp in february. he wants him to go active duty so that if he’s going to get blown up, at least he has a chance of seeing some other cool places in the world in between the times he is deployed to the war zones. hell of a theory, that. what’s a mother to do?

i told my son last night "there is always a choice when it comes to fighting or being a part of a war". he doesn’t see it that way. i am verklempt. he has to do what he sees as right, i just don’t want my son damaged forever for some idiotic sense of heroicism, some misguided sense of obligation or some false sense of "need". he does have choices, but to him all the other ones lead to misery. the largest misery could be the one he’s making.

i am unbelievably sad today.

there is no peace.

life, going on….

(Open Diary archive)

well, here i am.

no where near the entry a day, but am trying to write more often.

today is family day in georgia or where ever my nephew is and he has no family there to celebrate his accomplishment with him, but he made it, and for that, he should be exceedingly proud. i am proud that he stuck it out and was able to make it through despite aches and pains. i pointed out to him the last time i spoke to him that he’s pretty much spent the last twenty years of his life NOT being physically active. his body is bound to need some time to catch up with his increase in activity and motivation. i am sad that i can’t be there for him, but he knows we love him, so it’s all good. it would easily have cost 1K to go and see him, rent a car, a hotel, etc. i just can’t spare that right now. we talked about what he should do with the money he has now, i told him to get a laptop and wait until he comes home to get a phone, it would be less expensive for him to get a local phone, and he can ultimately do more with the laptop, i think. i hope he listens to me, and takes my advice when it comes time to order the laptop.

i haven’t spoken to my son since he was at our house on saturday night. i sort of commiserated with my husband last night and asked him why my son was mad at me, i haven’t done anything to him. he says he isn’t mad at me, he’s afraid of disappointing me because he knows he is doing something that goes against my values. what silly creatures men are….that doesn’t affect how i feel about him, he’s an adult, his own person, and can now make his own decisions. you don’t have to like what someone does, or the choices they have to make because of what they’ve done to keep loving them. i guess i want him to know that. i will probably send him a text message and let him know that. he has to go to oakland tomorrow to the medical in-processing center and get his paperwork done.

i am feeling more connected and close with my daughter lately. she went with me to a violin concert last weekend, and it was amazing. afterwards, i took her to a local place called the chocolate bar and we had some chocolate fondue with fruit for desert. it was a nice time. i love that kid. i love both my kids so amazingly much. it’s a lot of fun to be able to be friends with them as they go boldly into adulthood and not feel as much responsibility for them as when they were growing up. i’ll always both care and worry, but they are both beautiful people and i am proud.

i thought i probably ought to post something positive. today is a good day.

kinda peace.

worst president ever....

i love me a good protest song...

Worst President Ever

pretty much sums it up =)

tired…

these weeks are an adjustment. they say that the body takes 10 weeks to adjust to a new activity level or routine. by that time, it will change again =) while i am having a great time in welding class, i am also tired at the scheduling change and at getting the feeling that i don’t really have time for myself. that’s actually patently untrue, but it sort of feels that way. after i came back from burning man, i spent some time just sort of hanging out at home, and reading. that is a much easier life, i tell ya….and one could debate about it’s being more rewarding or not, but that time appears to be past, for the moment.

i stayed out too late last night. and this morning i am feeling odd.

there is a halloween party today at work. i have stuff to dress up like a pirate wench, not sure i am going to go there, but i’ve made soup, so i suppose i need to.

i have to go and train someone right now on how to do something.

i will try to write later.

peace.

blood moon weekend

friday i worked half a day. i mean, i was there. some work was actually accomplished, much to my chagrin, but motivation was not high, it was a blood moon weekend!

by noon, i was ready to head out, and my friend i was carpooling with was to get me at 2pm. a quick lunch and then home to pack. i hadn't packed previously, but the weather promised to be nice in sacramento, so i wasn't too worried about that. we headed out pretty much on time, and the drive was lovely. watching the fall foliage was amazing. it's so interesting to watch the trees turn their vibrant colors, some yellow, then interspersed with bright reds and oranges. fall is truly an enchanting time, hinting at the bareness of winter, but giving a colorful and grand show before we are left with nothing but stark, bare trees.

we checked into the hotel without incident, and our room was decent. i think i may explore different places to stay if we make the trip next year, the place we were was okay, but seemed sort of expensive for what we got. it seems we could maybe do better. being there, though, was familiar, and yet new. having been there before, but the experience was new with a new companion. we headed to dinner reasonably early, then back to change for the show and get all fancied up, and head to the venue. one thing for which i was incredibly grateful over the weekend was my husbands tomtom gps thing. that little thing is amazing. i had pre-programmed all our destinations into the unit, and just had to tell it where i wanted to go and it took us there. i wonder sometimes at the routes it chose, but it never failed to get us where we needed to be =)

once we arrived at the venue, we were almost immediately greeted with the other members of the group who had come down in a separate car. everyone was there, and it was on time. huge relief number one taken care of. erika was on her stilts, which was awesome. that woman can't seem to stay off them, but they seemed to enjoy that she was there, so that part was good. we went inside to get the lay of things, and they were pretty organized. i got to connect and say hello to the beautiful amy or unmata and her partner and the tech advisor for the show, raven. they were awesome to be around and we kind of just got to chill until close to time for the show. this is always an interesting show because the stage space is somewhat small and presents some logistical challenges. someone took video of our stuff, it should be posted soon, i will post a link, perhaps, when it's posted. the show went very well. we were third from the end, and that seemed to be good placement for us, within the context of the groups that were there. we got the theme award, apparently being the only group who paid attention to the theme, which made me proud. our crew was very small, we only had seven performers, but then managed to pick up three guests who had come to our burning man decompression party, so that left us with an even ten. the show was pretty amazing. technically, we had some challenges, but we pulled it off, and there was one duet i was especially proud of. this young girl i asked barely two weeks before the show to do a duet with a tall, lanky staff spinner and she said she would. they learned a really awesome lift in less than two weeks and their portion of the performance was stellar. me and cindi also did a non-traditional piece that i hope to keep and perform again later in the year.

there were a couple of groups we could totally learn things from, and i hope that we can work towards that. we have our own style, and the gradation of things being what it is, we did well, but i'd like to improve. one can always improve, no?

after the show, we headed back to our room quickly, then went to the blues bar that was right down the street from our hotel. we had asked a bunch of people to meet us there, but who knows who was going to show up, ya know? several did though, our guest fire breathers who performed with us, and they were super fun to hang out with, and rog and his lady showed up for a bit, but they left pretty early. after the bar closed, we headed to a late night restaurant for some snack food stuff and that left us back at the hotel about 3:30am. it's a good thing i am of the mindset that all late nights such as those are training for burning man, or i might have been tired the next day =P as it is, training is good, right?

cindi and i both being semi-morning people, we couldn't sleep past 9am. we headed out to forage for food and walk around the downtown area. it was really cool. the merchants along the area we were in sacramento were having like a safe merchants trick or treating event thing for local kids, so we had a great time getting to look at all the costumes on the littles. it was pretty fun. saw lots of really cool little shops with lots of really expensive clothing. wow. we had greasy spoon breakfast and thai food for dinner, then it was time to head to the theatre for the blood moon show, disease 101. the show was great, but the topic was sort of depressing. although there were humorous aspects of the show, it's hard to be uplifting talking about lice, cancer, parkinson's disease, mental illness, things like that. it was an interesting choice, one that took courage and which i admire by amy. all in all, it was a good show. we ended up sitting with and getting to visit kerry and her group, who had also come down for the fire show. it was great to see her and what she's doing with her group. they happened to have an extra ticket for the after party, so that meant we only had to buy one, so we did that and headed there after the blood moon show.

the after party was one of the best parts of the weekend, although the entire weekend was an experience in itself. i think by the after party, several of the dancers and volunteers are just so delirious after having worked so hard to put on the show, it's a little time for them to be silly. seeing raven polka was definitely a highlight. and talk about how boys are icky. can i get an amen sistah? hahahaha...it was in fun, but also very amusing and largely true, for me.

managed to get in some shopping, too, for family and for myself. found some jeans of a type i hadn't been able to find locall, so was very happy about that. sunday we headed home. we went through apple hill on the way home and MAN was it crowded! when i've been there before, it's after halloween and i now understand the wisdom of that choice! we actually turned around and did something different because just the road to GET to some of the places was backed up for miles and miles. the drive home on hwy 50, though, was very pretty, with more glorious fall colors.

i wanted to document this weekend, and tell about it, but i think i've lost the flavor of the weekend. perhaps i will make another post that is random snippets and images from the weekend.

that's it for now, anyway.

peace!

p.s. tonight i get to WELD for the first time! WOOO HOOOO!

thursday...

today, i am tired.

it's a long week, which i knew was going to happen, but now that it's here, boy is it long.

there is cool and interesting stuff happening in my life.

on tuesday, i began taking a welding class. this man who teaches this class is very awesome. a couple of people i know through the fire group have taken classes from him, and i went to speak to his class last year about participating in our fire arts festival. as it turned out, he didn't actually end up participating in the festival, but it was cool to talk to him, and there's something very primal about metal sculpture that appeals to me. so, some other friends from the fire group and myself decided to take the class. the class is called welding for art. although being with friends was the impetus to my follow through, i've wanted to take the class for awhile. the assignment this semester is to be instructed on oxacetalyne torch useage without supervision to create a non-representational metal sculpture. that makes me tingle just to think about. raaawr. i can't wait. i have class again tonight, at which i am hoping to remain embarassment-free from falling asleept due to pure exhaustion. i can do it! also, now i get to go and buy cool welding shit. i am going to own me some carhart overalls probably, and a welding shield with both a clear face plate and a #5 tint that folds down in the front, leather gloves, and a groovy half-bill welding hat and leather boots. it will be hawt. there might have to be a picture posted at some point if i can contain all this hawtness. heh. he said our sculptures could be functional as long as it remained non-representational....which means i can try to make it spit fire =) that might be too much to take on in sevent and a half weeks, not considering myself traditionally creative, but we will see. there will be welding and fire in my life at some point soon =)

yesterday, i worked half a day, then went and picked up a girlfriend, we ate a quick lunch, then drove to sacramento. she had another friend she was supposed to meet to attend a tina turner concert and this friend couldn't go at the last minute, so she invited me. she had already paid for the ticket, so if i drove and bought dinner, she said we'd call it even. sounded like a helluva deal to me =) we did a decent amount of shopping, we saw the venue for our show this weekend, i showed her the hotel, and then we headed to old town for more shopping. there's a really awesome costume shop down there that has lots of cool stuff. it's called evangeline's, which always gives me a little thrill because that's my mommy's name.

we ate at this amazing place on the river called joe's crab shack, which i gather is some sort of chain. The food was pretty good, we split a bunch of appetizers so we could get more tastes of things. one of the things we had that was absolutely amazing was a pomegranate mojito. that was all kinds of minty goodness. when we came out of the bathroom, there was this cute dancy song on, and all the employees were lined up and boogying, it was very cute and there was this delicious morsel of a bald man getting his groove on. i tried to order one of those in extra large, but they wouldn't let me. damn. nice eye-candy though. mmm mmmm.

this made us sort of late to the concert, but that seemed to be okay, at least half the rest of the people were late too, so we actually ended up being right on time =) tina turner was pretty amazing. i had a teary moment during "what's love got to do with it" because my mom loved that song. it just sort of hit me, but didn't last long. she would have also liked the concert. it was interesting. there was lots of dancing and lots of theatre in the production. she had some cool stage props, there was fire (yay!) and elevated platforms and even a crane that swung ms. tina out into the audience. not sure i would have initiated the $120 to go on my own, but it was a good opportunity and i am glad that i had the chance to take it. we did lose my car after the show, but approximately 1/4 of the rest of the people were in the same boat. everyone kept pressing their panic buttons on thier key clicker thingies to try to find which car belonged to whom. it was funny. the ONLY down side is that we didn't get home until 2am. four hours sleep is not enough!

but, today i am content, looking forward to more welding class, and thankful as ever that my life is what it is.

peace.

monday musings...

written 10/20/08

last thursday, i got an article in the paper that is pretty cool.

tinyurl.com/4co7eo(link opens in new window)

then, i had a great weekend.

friday, the fire group performed for the college homecoming. i had to ask if there was a special paper that i had to sign because they made everyone sign a "hold harmless" piece of paper saying none of us were employed by the university and if we got hurt spinning fire on university property, that we would not sue them or file a workers compensation claim. except i do work for the university. what a sad and litigious society we live in where that's a standard operating procedure. no, i didn't have to sign an extra form, and the telling of it made me giggle because they asked if i encountered or was expected to fire spin as part of my normal job functions, because that would be different, ya know. ummm, no. mild mannered database geek by day, fiery dancing goddess by night, yep that's me. heh. we had been asked to carry the torch into the bonfire circle and to light the bonfire. this was a big honor because in years past, it has always been done by the fire department themselves. i wonder if they were secretly pleased, or if they were secretly disappointed? i was proud the my fire group has enough "educated" people that we were able to send seven people to do this torch thing, myself included, who were all alum's or at least one degree from this university. we were very dramatic and hoped they would play the "chariots of fire" theme song as we jogged along, but kids these days...they probably don't even know what that is....we didn't get the music, so we made our own. it's probably a good thing no one was in hearing distance of our flight to fire, none of us can sing very well or make that "chhhhh" sound like on the song. it's funny that that sound is considered very inspirational and positive in that context, but the same sound in a "halloween" context denotes creepy psycho-killer people names jason. see, context really is everything =)

saturday evening was the local burning man decompression party. i was to organize our ranger presence, and i probably should or could have done a better job of it, but luckily everything went very well. the party was amazing...it was our largest yet, and this one was "official". this means that a portion of our proceeds went to the black rock arts foundation who continue to fund burning man and non-burning man art around the world.

there were enough rangers and aside from the usual battery of drunks, silly people indulging too much and then falling down, and random weirdness, it was good. i got to spin some fire, and i did it in khaki, which was pretty cool to me. we generally wear black when fire spinning, and khaki when rangering so rangering and getting to spin in the same night was pretty cool. it's interesting to know so many people. it was actually a pretty neat arrangement. there was this one club that has a front room, and a back room. out the back door of this club is an alley, and we had the entire alley backed off, and there were burning man theme camps and art placed back there. there were several burn barrels and other incindiary and neon and large-ish art back there, and that's also where the fire spinning was. on the west end of the alley, there's another back door to another club. we also had that club as part of the large party, which was way cool. they have a super expensive sound system that's so bad ass when you stand in front of the bass sub-woofer thingies, you can feel the beat move your hair and reverberate in your solar plexus.

i was very proud....my son rangered with us and he did a good job. it was the first time i have brought him to a party and felt like he had an amazing time. he's a good boy and i am proud.

i had a strange experience. the back room of the one club was very crowded and very hot. there was a burlesque show going on, and many of the burlesque lovelies are my friends so i wanted to be there to support them. about an hour or two before, i had had a jaegar bomb to drink. for those who might not know, this is red bull and jaegermeister. very tasty, but energy drinks are bad for people who don't do that stuff often. i don't know if it was that or the fact that i had had some to drink and not really eaten much during the day, but standing in that crowd, i hit a serious wall. i started to feel very woozy and light-headed. i thought i might either throw up or pass out, so i had to get out of the crowd. i sat on a couch for a few moments and once i was sure i was not going to puke or pass out, i knew i needed air. i headed outside and needed to leave within half an hour of that. i think no more red bull for me, or at the very least, i will get the sugar free kind. i think plain old shots are safer, though. i don't know that it was the red bull, but that's all i can think of.

sunday continued the "lazy" theme. i had begun a pot of beans cooking saturday and they were well-cooked in the crock pot by sunday. so, i endeavored to make home-made pinto bean chili and then added some noodles later in the day for what our family calls "ghoulash". it was totally yummy, and we had made home made bread to go with it. that and more reading and a lot of laundry and chillaxin' was had on sunday.

this will be a busy week. tomorrow i start a welding class, which i am excited about. will try to write more this week.

peace.

keeping on....

written 10/13/08

i am still here.

life goes on.

it's good, as always says the eternal optimist.

i was told recently that i was one of "those people". people that make things happen, make changes occur. i don't know if i want always to be one of those people. sometimes it feels like a really big responsibility. sometimes i can't help that. but then, i just want to hide. that's what i've been doing lately, hiding a lot.

it never ceases to amaze me how valuable escapism is sometimes. it's fall, and things begin to hibernate. mercury has been retrograde, it goes back direct in another two days, but i've been evaluating and trying to figure out how i want my life to continue.

i've also been reading. it's been a really long time since i read vociferously, but i found a series of books that had me completely enamored and now i am bereft because i have read them all and the next one isn't due out until sometime in the fall of 2009. i am pouting. i've been rereading, which is something that's beyond rare for me, it's virtually unheard of. how can i care so much about people who are the invention of an author? they are awesome characters, i must say.

i am going to france next year. i am looking forward to that at the same time that i recognize i need to stop spending money the way i have been in order to be able to afford this trip, to continue paying for it, to work towards something besides my immediate gratification. after france, the world is my oyster. if i can make this happen, and i will, there's nothing i can't do. but what i really NEED to do is find some more tax deductions, because my husband and i are ALMOST DINKS and it's going to be scary to think of not having many deductions in the future. i think "where does it all go?" and then know in the same breath that i live a very good life and pretty much spend money at will. that's probably not a long-term saving strategy that's going to get us very far =) this is a rambling entry of the miscellaneous stuff that's in my head.

my nephew is doing good at basic training. he called yesterday. i said hello to him and then handed the phone over so others in the house could also talk to him. he hurt his foot there, thought he had a stress fracture, but being almost 1/3 of the way done, he doesn't want them to make him stop or not finish, so i think he's just going to work through whatever is wrong. he says they keep jerking him around, but i think the most important thing is that he's working through it. he realizes, being there, how much he needs this in his life. he's learning things i would not want to know in a million years. i don't want to know how to bash down doors, throw tear gas, and shoot people. it goes against everything that i am, but i would do it if i had to. what a dichotomy.

do you ever wonder about that? how lazy and safe we are these days? our existences stopped being about survival a long time ago. even people going through hard times don't have to worry much about disease, hunger, clean water, basic education, oral hygiene, reprodutive choice. my brain is atwitter with all sorts of things.

but that's enough for now.

i want to get back in the habit of writing again, it's good for me.

peace.

Man redux, he's in the Army Now...

written 9/8/08

before i tell of my burning man tales, let me say that today is the day. my nephew leaves for the army today, to go to meps and do some more medical stuff and then he's off to basic training. i told him i loved him this morning, i gave him money yesterday to get his stuff because his mom wasn't available. i told him i believed in him, that i knew he could succeed at anything he put his mind to. I hope he knows that and remembers it. i think he will do fine, but this is something i wish he didn't think he had to do. at the same time, i feel guilty because now i will get my office room back. whatever he doesn't take, it goes in his mom's storage or in the trash. i can't say I am sorry about that. i went grocery shopping yesterday and thought about how i didn't have to buy the stuff he likes. i've not sent off one of my kids to the military before. it's scary.

now, to burning man....it was an eventful year, and one that more than anything else, forced me to count my blessings and realize all the things that i need to be grateful for in life. i went out early, a full week before the event started this year, and my husband was to follow on thursday, because of a stupid army thing. follow he did, and i am so glad he decided to wait for our campmate to caravan out with her! he had thought about leaving the evening before, but decided to go ahead and wait for her. he thought he would be there by noon. i was eating lunch in the commissary when i got a radio call to come back to the office immediately. i told them i would be there as soon as i finished lunch and they basically said "no, now." this annoyed me because i couldn't think of what could be so important as to force me to scarf my lunch down.

when i got to the office, there was my campmate, saying these words about my husband having crashed the motor home. he blew the passenger side tire and cascaded down the embankment, totalling our playa home in the process. i think the only words that registered at this point were "but he's okay, he was out walking around and surveying the damage." now, i don't talk a lot about what i do out at burning man, but i am a ranger. we are community members who use skills we are given in training to help people in black rock city. it's like any cohesive group of people, they talk about being family, brothers and sisters, and like any large family, it's dysfunctional at times and has it's share of drama. never have i been more glad to be a part of this group of people than i was at the moment i found out my husband had crashed the motor home! within half an hour of having been told of what happened, we were on our way out of the city with six pickup trucks full of rangers (man power) and empty truck beds, all had just said "of course" and made it happen to retrieve all our belongings from the side of the road. i swear, driving those 37 miles to get to him was the longest 37 miles anyone has driven EVER. every rolling hill we went down, i kept thinking to myself "we have to be there soon, i can't stand this!" finally, we crested a hill and off to the far side, i saw the motor home. at first site, i thought "oh, it's not that bad..." but after walking around the front to see the door mostly torn off, the battery hanging by two wires and obviously cracked, and the miscellaneous wreckage all about, my conclusion was, "okay, maybe not".

the bottom line, however, is that aside from some deep bruising on his tummy from a close encounter with the steering wheel, my honey seems to be fine. have i mentioned how blessed i feel at this news? we rushed back to the event so that we could get him checked out. all of us were very worried about him, what with how adrenalin can mask injuries and such, and especially with his having a bad back. i think the emotional aspect of the accident, however, will take him a long time to get over. he beat himself up over wrecking the motor home pretty often during the event, even though he was quiet about it, but i kept reminding him how herculean an effort it must have been just to keep the damn thing vertical. all the time, going out to or coming back from the event, we hear of fatalities on that two lane road, of serious injury from people encountering the same thing, but flipping the motor home, changing their lives forever.

i will write more about the rest of the event later, if at all. it seems right and appropriate to put the accident in it's own entry. it cost us $720 to tow the motor home 37 miles because of the amount of time that it took to winch it up the embankment and get it towable. we had to tear the door the rest of the way off, and one of the gas tanks had been torn completely off, among other things. i am actually surprised it didn't take a flatbed to tow it away. i am sure that would have cost more. i don't remember off hand if i just got liability insurance on the thing or if we had rv insurance on it. i owe money to my campmates now because they helped us out with cash and credit to pay for that after we'd already tapped out to get to the playa.

i will say, though, that we didn't let it ruin our event. we hadn't planned on tent camping, but that's what we did. it was dusty, and gross sometimes, and we added a daily ritual of shaking out our bed things of the dust. it took a long time to organize everything, i am still not sure that's done =) hubby says he doesn't want to own another motor home. we didn't realize how much shit we had stored in there until we had to take it all out and try to figure out where to put it when you had another vehicle and then it's just gone.

we still had a great time, and a great year. i feel like i accomplished a lot this year, got to experience some new things, and made a difference to the rangers. i am not sure i can ever pay them back for what they did for me this year. and they did it just to be nice, because i am one of them. truly warms the cockles of my cold, dead, heart =)

enough gushing for now! i am back, and have a bunch of reading to do to catch up!

(2026 note - remember when we all thought G.W. Bush was as bad as it could get?! Man, do I long for those days, with the orange menace in office now....) 

i love me some good protest song. gotta love young people…..and trust them to tell it like it is:

 

exposureroom.com/WorstPresidentEver

 oh yeah….edited to say this is not work friendly =) there are bad words in it.

enjoy!

times, they are a changin'...

as i prepare to make my yearly pilgrimage to burning man, it occurs to me as the wheel of the year continues to turn, that life is all about change. things will never be again the way that they are, right now.

in five days, i leave. there is much to do, things to do to prepare, packing, cooking, shopping. there is a "mode" that one goes into when preparing. this will be a unique year in many ways.

life at home is changing, too. within a short time after returning home, my nephew will be getting ready to embark on the next phase of his life. he joined the army. this makes me happy that it might give him direction in his life, and it makes me afraid and worried about him. i am a pacifist, and the thought of him engaging in this war is scary and disgusting, but he needs something.

i am looking at a new phase of my life. i turned 40 this year. my kids, for all intents and purposes are grown. one still lives at home, one does not. now, i begin to focus inward, outward, learning and have been developing the things that i like, that i want to live for, that i want to put my energy towards. it's been a loooong time.

but travel is a huge part of that. next year, in 2009, i am going to try to do burning man and paris in the same year. we will see how that goes =) at this point, paris is not optional, it may just mean less time at burning man. this is forcing me to do several things. get my passport is one thing. stop hiding. if i have my passport, there's no excuse not to use it =) 2009 is paris, but who knows what the future brings?!?!

Ack!

my nephew, that i periodically complain about? that i need to kick him out? that he needs to get a job and get a life? that nephew? who’s 20 years old?

 

yeah.

 

he joined the army.

 

i just wanted him to get a job.

 

i am kind of sad.

 

i hope he doesn’t get dead.

 

his mother, of course, is thrilled.

 

=(

 

no peace, today…

this past weekend...

was full of more interesting and exciting things.

friday night was a show by bassnectar that i went to. i had never seen him live before. he has beautiful long hair that he swung around while he was spinning. he threw down some awesome beats that had the entire audience hopping around on stage. is that the mark of a good dj? it's interesting to me to see the progression, and also see the difference between recorded stuff that gets sold, which to me seems more chill, or maybe it's just because i have it from a different stage in his progression, and the stuff he plays live which is very much seemingly focused on dancing. i hadn't seen him before and i am glad i went. it was a strange night. i got to meet a friends ex that i have heard a lot about over the last couple of years, but had never met him. i was also attacked by the glitter fairy, which is still causing my cats and family stress, and had an amazing hug that i actually felt like i was able to give something to someone friday night....share all the healing and positive energy i could muster in that hug. it was definitely felt =)

saturday i was double-booked, which caused me some stress. i had previously agreed to dance at the ghandi festival as part of artown, and then also agreed to do a fire gig for a cancer benefit in a neighboring town. the latest from the ghandifest said our sets were to be at 7:30 and 9:30, and the party bus/carpool was leaving for g-ville and the cancer benefit at 8. hrrrmmm. because i made the ghandi commitment first, i decided to do that. it seemed they had enough folks for the fire gig, so i don't think it was a big deal.

it was awesome to hang out with my dance sisters! i felt a little overwhelmed at the beginning of the summer and only showed for one or two of the summer classes, so this was the first time in a month i had seen many of them. have i mentioned lately how much i love and adore my dance sisters?!?! i do, i do, i heart them very much. i love dancing with them, it's very free, and i almost always learn stuff from them. i don't consider myself a very good girl, so i need all the help i can get! we showed up mid-afternoon to do a rehearsal, then were going to head to the ghandi fest. the rehearsal went well, despite my having to be reminded several times how the routines went, having focused on the faf for so long previously. not sure i got it 100% during rehearsal, but pretty sure i got it on stage. funny how you can make yourself do and remember stuff when it's important. i have to say that i am very glad that i took part in this. it was important for me philosophically. i wish more people would remember the commitment to non-violence that ghandi believed so strongly in. our world, and especially our country needs more of that!

we got to the river school, which is always awesome, and figured out where we would be dancing. turns out i probably could have made both gigs, we were only dancing the 7:30 set, but at this point, it seemed the most chill thing to do would be to take the relaxing way and just stick with ghandifest. the main fire folks would be fine without me.

the dance went fine. there were few of us, one had four people, the other five. it was fund and i always also enjoy watching asha dance. i heart all those girls, too. then one of the girls' husbands is a drummer and did this super cool drumming workshop. we had previously looked around the festival and knew there was yummy indian food to be had.

there were some aspect of our fire spinners there for a bit. it was very strange for me to see the spinners show up, setup, etc. and not be a part of it. it was sort of cool, but also just felt sort of...strange. they did a great job though, and then moved on to their next gig.

sunday was a lazy day. i watched some zombie movies with the kids, went to costco and did some shopping, and was generally pretty relaxed and useless =) got some things done for burning man, which felt good. i have a feeling this is going to be an intense weather year. this year, i think it's going to be all about the layers.

so that's my update, for now.

i have more to write about last night, but think i will make that it's own, separate post.

*whew*

peace!

heh....

so much for that whole "new blogs make you want to post more" theory eh? i think that, honestly, i might have forgotten i had this one =) oh, well.

life is awesome! i've spent about the last several months planning and working towards the creation of a fire arts festival in reno. it was last saturday and can i just say, it was awesome! i had a friend who asked me if i thought it could have gone any better and the answer is, no, i don't think so.

i am amazingly pleased with how well things went. i think it was a unifying experience for our group and it felt really awesome to be a part of. if you'd like to see an article that appeared in the paper the day before the event, check out this article: http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807180476

and here's a slideshow they did of us:

http://rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/SPECIAL03/80717045&rgj_description=&rgj_date=

they were very nice to us, and are glad we liked what they did.

now, for the actual festival, there were LOTS of pictures taken, here's a sampling:

Bill Kositzky:

http://www.photoworks.com/photo-sharing/shareSignin.jsp?shareCode=AEDB061C5E7&cp=ems_shr_alb_pml&cb=PW

Chris Munz:

http://www.hotshottherobot.com/pictures/Fire%20Arts%20Festival%202008/index.html

Pat Herz:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9705209@N08/sets/72157606309016879/

Tommy from Reno Passport

http://renopassport.com/test/compression-fire-arts-festival-controlled-burn/

good times!

that's what i've been up to...what have you been doing with your Summer?

peace.

the fire arts festival

 *whew*

just coming up for breath, here!

someone asked me near the end of the day…."do you think there’s anything that could have happened differently that would have made the festival go better?!?!"

the answer is…..no.

i am amazingly pleased with how well things went. i think it was a unifying experience for our group and it felt really awesome to be a part of. if you’d like to see an article that appeared in the paper the day before the event, check out this article: http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807180476

and here’s a slideshow they did of us:

http://rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/…=&rgj_date=

they were very nice to us, and are glad we liked what they did.

now, for the actual festival, there were LOTS of pictures taken, here’s a sampling:

Bill Kositzky:

http://www.photoworks.com/photo-sharing/sh…b_pml&cb=PW

Chris Munz:

http://www.hotshottherobot.com/pictures/Fi…2008/index.html

Pat Herz:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9705209@N08/s…57606309016879/

Tommy from Reno Passport

http://renopassport.com/test/compression-f…ontrolled-burn/

i am still riding this wave! don’t feel obligated to look at ALL the pictures. i am sure it’s just me, but i can’t seem to turn away from looking at them all! we estimate that we had about 3000 people there at one point, which for a little corner plaza in downtown, you can see was quite a lot! it was PACKED!

i will continue to look for awesome pictures of the dragon, because he was amazingly cool and his creator was pretty neat, too.

i trust all of you a lot….my real name is all over here, so much for anonymity! having also, however, met several of you in person, i guess the secrets out of the bag, as it were, anyway =)

that’s my update for now. i have to run, but wanted everyone to know how smashingly things went!

take care, and i will catch up as i can…less than a month, now, until burning man!

peace.

trying….

playing hooky from work today. the weather here is awful. it’s hot and clear, it should be beautiful and we should be happy in summertime bliss. the smoke from all the california fires is so thick, you can’t see the sun, it makes you hurt to breathe outside, it’s miserable. dry fire practice last night sucked because we couldn’t burn but it sucked worse that just getting even slightly winded with any of the pieces makes your chest hurt like you’ve just spent a night in a jazz club, chain-smoking cigarellos and inhaling the smoke from others doing the same listening to music of the soul….and none of the joy of having an experience like that. we had our own joy, in rehearsing, but man, it just hurt to breathe deep or hard.

nine days to fire arts festival. i can’t wait! now it’s trying to make sure we have all the money and stuff in place to make it all happen.

so, i should probably write about this experience i’ve been happening lately. i may even have mentioned it in here before. when i was young, starting in middle school and continuing through high school, there was this girl who was an out and proud dyke way back then. i admired her for being her own unique self, but we had good and bad times. we shared a kiss once, and it completely confused me because it was in a park, and she pulled away from the kiss. at the time, i just thought it meant she didn’t like me. i still wonder what happened at that moment, not even sure she remembers it. we will probably get drunk together some time and i will ask her about it =) at any rate, when i moved back to this town that i love, she was here, and we’ve seen each other periodically over the years, but for lack of better terminilogy, sort of seeme leery of each other. she married to a successful local attorney and having small children, me in a different place. but a few years ago, when i started dancing, we began encountering each other more often, as she lives down the street from one of the dancers i’d sort of become friends with.

at an event at this dancers house one time, she relayed to everyone there how i had taught her a good life lesson when we were in high school and then related a story when she had been two-faced and saying awful things about me at the time i walked up behind her in the lunch room in high school. i had thought we were friends. i remember looking at her and just turning around and walking away. i am glad she learned a lesson from that. i hadn’t even really remembered it until she brought it up, then i sort of went "yeah, that did happen".

in the last six months or so, we’ve gotten back more in touch with each other and have become friends again. we’ve shared a few more kisses, mostly drunken ones. now, she’s divorcing her husband for reasons unrelated to any of this, it’s just her time. she just had a birthday, i went to her party. we’ve had lunch a few times together, talk more often, email back and forth. i am interested to see what this friendship has in store for me. there’s undoubtedly sexual energy/tension between us, it’s just a matter of whether or not anything will come of it.

have also sort of been seeing the lady i was last year again. her health issues seem to have settled down a bit, so we will also see what happens with that.

aaahhhh…..variety is the spice of life =)

peace.

so much for that….

theory of writing more often.

i am living life and i am loving it. it’s kind of hard to remember to take the time to write here, but i should. i know this. there’s a part of my brain that feels unsettled when i don’t write often. it’s been that way for a long time now. i suppose i am over being mad at od for not like, gifting me a subscription or something the last time i expired and didn’t have the money to pay =) that was just me being a spoiled, petulant person.

in ten days, the culmination of a lot of work for me this year is coming to fruition. this year, i a) wrote my first grant and got the grant. although not 100% funded, i did get 80%, which is pretty good for a first effort, a flaky partner who volunteered to write the grant and then told me four days before it was due that he didn’t have time, b) got a bunch of really cool regional type folks who also like to play with fire to agree to come to this thing, c) created the schedule, the budget, made all the phone calls, got some cool sponsorships, and in conjunction with this festival i’ve done, also did a display of fire arts photography in a local gallery that i’m pretty proud of. if you’d like to see a "virtual gallery" tour, go here: compression.controlledburnreno.com/shutterfire_virtual.html

in addition to that, i have been working most of this year with burning man stuff. that’s been fun and eduational. i hope to be a part of this for a long time and am excited about how the event might go for me this year. i am looking forward to it =)

still dancing and having fun. that’s pretty much a constant.

my fire group was invited back to the super cool pre-event fire show for one of the most awesome bellydance troupe’s ever.

this last weekend i got to go to the black rock desert for training for the team i work for at burning man. it was really awesome. to be there, to feel such a part of things. we had some friends with us, and it turned out to be super fun, a great time. they camped with us in our motor home and i wasn’t sure how that was going to work out, but it was fun. sometimes i feel curmudgeonly about spending time with people i don’t know.

love life is still somewhat non-existent with my spouse. there’s some weirdness stuff happening with the lady i used to date, and a blast from the past is a good friend, but continues to confuse me.

that’s my life, today.

peace.

trying to write more….

wow. i am almost 40. i can’t believe it.

i really need to try to write here more. there’s so much stuff that’s in my head and in my brain, i know it needs to get out still, but i think i’ve been focusing on the physical in order to avoid focusing on the emotional, for the time being. with grief being what it is, sometimes it’s better not to think, but to stay busy and work through it slowly, privately.

preparations for the fire arts festival are progressing nicely. i do still need some vendors, but i am working on that. i met with someone this week who donated the cost of printing and mounting the art prints for my static art display. i think it’s going to be phenomenal. i want all the photographers we are featuring to come in and shoot the display, there seems something right about that to me, and something i will be proud of for a long time. at some point, perhaps i will post the photos, or i will let anyone know where they can see them =) the physical festival is going to be july 19, and should be cool, no matter what. monday i have a grant review hearing, it will be a new and interesting experience for me.

personally, i feel good. i am so busy, but i love it. this energy is amazing and fresh and always challenging.

i am heartened by the california supreme courts decision yesterday and hope that it remains….people should be able to marry who they choose to marry. i’ve never understood why the 14th amendment argument, which was also used when miscegenation was repealed in the sixties, is not also used as an argument for same sex marriage. perhaps the time just wasn’t right, but i believe that it is now.

i heart democracynow.org, it makes me feel more informed.

that’s all for now.

peace.