Journals 02.10.11

(MUNICH, Journals 02.10.11)

So today is the last day of Oktoberfest – closing night as it were. And what a night it is. I feel like I’m maintaining a good balance of being practical and realistic in how I’m seeing this whole ish. On the one hand it’s an interesting cultural tradition – who of us finds foreign the image of a great Hall filled with swarthy men in leather all splashing their great 3-litre steins about? Come on, we’re at Long tables. It’s pretty western. The crossroads of our baby steps into civilization and tribal war fools way up in the north. Of course, that’s if you’re centered in the Mediterranean, where the legwork was done in the first place. It’s funny considering the current climate and the super white culture thumbing their noses at modern Greece – in their defense, they’re making bank on the financial misfortunes of Greece, so I’m not sure why they’re complaining. I think it’s unkind to be an asshole when you have the clear power in a dynamic.

A couple of quotes re: Greece from today’s tents and festivities:

“We gave them too much money!!!!”
“Italy, Greece, eh! Same, yes? …What?!”
“Oh Greece? Greece is nice for your girlfriend. You take your girlfriend there. She likes Greece. Me, I don’t care.”

Scary! I can’t wait to open my lungs in Ελλάς again. Meteora views, mountains of gods, the greatest oldest gift of reprieve; the olive tree! The olive branch. Oh Αθήνα, no wonder we chose you. ‘I’ve felt the wind on my cheek coming down from the East and thought about how we are all as numerous as leaves on trees and maybe ours is the cause of all mankind: get loved, make more, try to stay alive!’ (JL/Rilo Kiley)

Whoops, train of thought interrupted by Jeff and brother.

Anyway – on balance and perspective in Munchen for the first time at the most touristy possible event (although, I guess it keeps out the more timid tourists):
So on the one hand, I played along and had fun – embodying ‘judgment-free’ as far as I could muster – and I do admit, I’ve seen a ton of brotherhood or fraternity and not a SINGLE fight… all tense moments were diffused almost instantly. Like a spell. A clap to the shoulder. These men really love each other I guess.
On the other hand, I hate beer and binge drinking when they’re put together. Why do I travel? I head out for adventure – not to keep my head in the clouds. Well, rather, in a beer haze with thousands of people I’ll never recall! I’d trade all of them for a single person or even other animal that I can connect with strongly and care for. And in the case where it’s “not that deep” (T.Sias) at least some levels of pleasantries need to overlap. Aesthetic, mental, spiritual, emotional… like, I want to hear news of other lands. I want to know the stories of what happened here! I need these borders to picture a narrative for this city and land. So I can imagine and feel. Oktoberfest is very unsettling. It’s like this crazy limbo realm. The rest of Munich is gorgeous and the people seem well-kept and like they have a ton of great stories to tell. It’s just unnerving to me when I feel like this massive volume of people have nothing to actually say to me, or to someone who I resemble enough to tell. To be fair – they do have things to say, I’m sure. Not now. And not like they’d remember. Time and place for these things.

‘I remember, I remember.’ – The Unicorn, TLU / PSB

To be fair – I guess for some, a story is still a story whether you remember it or not – the delivery, the content, the context, the audience, etc… Is it? Maybe not for me. I guess the default answer is: [Maybe It Is] For Some.

Someone must be out there or has been or will be who doesn’t live inside the narrative. What a terrifying, inhumane world. I mean, isn’t that all we are? Not ‘all’ in a diminishing way. Everything we are. It’s beautiful. Our big collective story? Isn’t it the one thing we consciously agree on by default? The day you turn your narrative off is the day you’re lost. Do you come back? That’s a fantastic story, if so. If not – same as so much dust and matter breakdown. No humanity doesn’t equal nothing, it simply leaves out the light in our heads.

Okay, enough. Always on the move. Thank god. I don’t exist to follow around aimlessly. Not for nothing. And I certainly don’t leave a career obligation behind (or spend a good chunk of money) for it!

Auf wiedersehen!

More Notes 12.11

BON IVER or THE BULGING EYES | There’s a bitch that lives near Akropoli. Two years pass and she thrives still as her houndsight declines. The fog that clouds her globes seems painted on as thick as a fired glaze when I see her. She whines, chuffing and smiling at the baguette I am sure to give to her. I play with her ears and can’t look her in the eye, cooing instead to her about snow globes and wish her a fine winter. Tomorrow I depart for the dark side of the earth.

NOT SO BAD AS SUFFERING GOES | The airbus captain is bleating about Scotland and my self-education in Klassische Musik on Kanal 4 – was that haunting song just now Debussy, Vivaldi or Beethoven? Did the Shangri-La’s sample it in ‘The Past, Present, Future’? – is interrupted by his sawing speech in three languages. He sounds distracted, like a man bored with an engagement but unable to stop explaining just how dull it is. My ears bleed as I become a ticking Alice fallen down a manhole of metal grates and now the things I considered important are becoming tinier in the distance.

MIRROR | A blonde German stands, flicking the long wolf mane out of his eyes. Pride becomes profanity when he turns to the overhead compartment. In his palm-sized bald spot I can read my reflection like text and it spells cold death.

SPANISH WINE | You handed me words like ‘jammy’ so I handed you a bottle.

THE EMERALD CITY | Our dreams have wisps of smoke escaping them as in a volcanic rock; some even give off the scent of sulfur. How long will you be your own wife?

A CHILD IS A CHOICE |

I don’t want to know, I think.

Then a boy with the gift of conversation pulls it hand over hand from my lips:
I’m not love.

A day after, fallen spell to ouzo and wind, wet hair and menstruation, the thought slithers up through the cracks in my brain:
You’re not my home.

Who can push away a gust of wind? What fool denies a tidal wave it stands in the shadow of? Any man with even thinnest faculty can’t deny fire as his skin pops in the flames devouring the stake.

We are never born impregnated with children but little winged seeds are sown inside us from thousands of years ago, hundreds, decades, months, today, right now.

SOMEONE ELSE’S WORDS |

“No, I can never regret. I can feel sorrow,” the Unicorn offered, “but it’s not the same thing.”

I remember flashing glinting blades. I recall torn muscle. I can hear the bowing of wood and the violent snapping. I recall obligations when they were wrong. I remember the work when it was right but I especially remember how it didn’t feel any less callous. The glory of duty was in a spirit or a mind, never in the flesh. But weren’t they bound? It was a mortal time when we knew how to feel properly and our gods loved us or didn’t, but it was not a joke. It was not cute. There was no metaphor. I remember whispers and feather light touches on my temples, smoothings of my brow, the love of a god. I remember the jubilation of piety.

from 12.11 notes (just one. a long one. not actually a milosz ‘note’)

A LOCKSMITH |

I feel the locks inside me that grate and grumble in metallic thunder when they are opened: city gates being rolled and absorbed into the heavy walls. Sometimes the key is in a lesson: when you learn it, a lock pops open and you discard the precious weight. Sometimes it’s a series of keys and they’re hidden in dreams or left behind in stories. Someone left you a trail of paper, a trail of bread crumbs, a trail of blood. A trail of themes or a code in an alphabet or in the accents on a language.
Some locks will only start groaning and creaking open when you stand in the exact spot you are meant to, at the exact time. If you listen, sometimes the locks will send you hints on a wind.

Some, bound by rust of millennia, don’t want to be unlocked now.

There are locks simply set for the future, as on a timer. When you pass the year, they go off like an alarm.

And some locks, from just this week or last year or 5 years ago, are not difficult to open but you neglect them because it’s easy to forget what has just happened.

Notebook dump 301011

(i ripped off the Notes format from Uncle C[zeslaw Milosz])

Notes from Delphi

AN INTERNET MUSEUM | Hurry, the future generations will remember only the Minoans.

LADYFRIEND AND TRAVEL | Of course I love you like a woman. Finding Mt.Parnassos parlays your eminence.

DELPHI | The temple builders would keen at our mournful pilgrimages.

ORACLE | How may I contibute best to what is Good? Not right, not just, not great

ΑΘΗΝΑ OVER ΠΟΣΕΙΔΩΝ | Keep your seas with its greed and tumult. When our eyes lay upon her silver and green we tremble at our place in eternity.

STRETCHING | From a mountain view of olive pastoral, the past and present tug at me without respite. I don’t mind.

TO A PAINTER WITH A POET HEART AND PHILOSOPHER MIND | There is something bittersweet about all the elderly climbing paros and marble steps all over Greece.

ADVENTURE | Terrain feels familiar, it’s mapless navigation without a tongue that requires hawk eyes. Sometimes courage, sometimes luck

NOT KNOWING | Denial can be good for us. Tell me that story again.

KIND OF LIKE THE BIBLE TRANSCRIPTION | The father reads to his sons who are busy looking around with wide eyes and only hear every seventh word.

BONE LONGING | Bury me with the others. Let these hills and rocks hold me forever after.

UNICORNS IN HELLAS | When mankind come with their gods and commune, humans are good enough.

Notes from Frankfurt

NEW SUN, FOG, LITTLE CITIES | I did not run away to the beach at an August dawn, but the view from above Frankfurt in October is orange magnificence.

28 October, Syntagma Sq again

Prime Mins told a lantern-jawed man ‘Oxi
Antigone told her bethroned uncle she could not abide
My tongue has always been perched upon by a little ‘No’.
Saying ‘yes’ is like taking from Atlas his world. A yes is almost always harder won.

29 October, 6 flights in 20 hours

My envy is desire is coating my insides until the howl in my throat is a single thread away from snapping and breaking the world again.

I’ve learned to train my screams to lie down but doing so has left a thousand ripped cords in my chest.

I suspect those fleeting moments of animal purity –
Ragged breath is a reliable indicator –
Muscles and blood and hot flesh – keening in the sun, gulping sweet silver water – grips on wrists and manes being steered – the biting and any or all fighting – views of expanses on high that tan your soul like a hide – the praise of your imagined or truer tribe/s – being or having birthed –
all blood and all passions that are not simple bastards –
are not unlike the final death a body receives. Mankind had embraced the eternal calm, chiselled away a Heaven for themselves where the peace of stillness could remain a wall around their souls forever.

My dualism begs the opposite.

In my life, those moments are the winged freedom which must be tamed at all costs – and still they pierce my veil often enough that I am positive I am alive.

We have elevated our story by the grace of the right words and imagination. Haven’t we?
There are scales and moderation and halves of wholes.
But when we can teach our machines to do as we do, when our dream scape is charted by metals and rubbers, when nothing is sacred, we are not more than masters of robots. Overseers of our most abstract, reproduceable variables. And honestly, who wants to be the same as everyone else? Who wants to be a machine?

To be human and not an animal is to deny our mother and father. Why bother rising above other species and claiming a throne just to die? Just to bleed all our sweet sick vibrant blood away?

No. For humans, the struggle to contain the burst of noise from your throat is our finest gift. We love our screams. We will never be only screams as long as we live. I maintain that my imagined/projected epilogue is like one grand return to that old, wild song.

The chittering, the wailing, the crowing and the braying. The baying and the thunder of the purr; the thunderclap of the snarl. The shrieking and the echoes and our ringing out in eternal howling is our dearest reward.

If I am a blade of grass and last long enough to sun, drink and be whipped into bending by a wind I’ve known a hundred times before, my every fiber will lift its singing to join the choir of the field, lawn, or clump.

For me, this prize is enough.

For me, no joy and calm and peace in an embossed stele, that is someone else’s relief.

For me, the joy and calm and peace live every day in the tender release of your sigh – in using my hands to see colors – in the first few bars of almost every song I know – in an alphabet that knows me and cares for the world I love so dearly.

Blood and soil

Blood and soil, wood and bones.

God it’s been forever since I recalled this ole blog!

Much has happened in the interim. Puppies come and gone, plants seeded, birthed, and cut back already. I mean, it’s fall. Today especially, it’s fall. I tasted it two days ago and now everyone else can smell it. Mmm.

Time to burn things and relax – we have nowhere to rush to: everything always dies.

(So that everything always is born, right?)

Oh glorious world. Forgive me for waxing poetic and typing like a tool, but if you know me in person, then you know I talk and think like this too. I can’t help the feelings! You can’t stop the beat!

This summer passed in its usual fever dream, but new experiences and revelations appeared underneath my feet. Stories and stretching into another new, closer version of myself were pricked all into my soles.

Work has been hilarious – but very beneficial and I feel finally like I’m starting to learn things I want to learn. I’m in my last year before I hit 25 — which is my year to begin my “five year” – which ends in London for a few years. Also the year where I begin doing finances like an adult and investing some of my earnings, etc. So it’s good now.

Another huuuge thing for me this summer was biking. I fell in love with my new bike and have almost died a hundred times but am so direly happy for it. Before biking from work everyday over that ole Manhattan bridge, I had no access to water. I was unable to fly because my feet are slow and clodding, even when I’m walking upright with grace and speed. On wheels, I felt a hint of what horse people must feel. Flying. The wind in your hair, the sun on your shoulders, your blood moving and your lungs working.. Senses keened up because of the constant possibility of an accident, even (especially!!) in the bike lanes.
I’ve gotten to piece together visually (well, with all my senses) the geography of our ridiculous old islands here. To me, that meant really falling in love with New York. I’ve loved it for less mature reasons and for more noble ones, but never have I loved it so solidly. It’s like year 2 of a relationship, you know? You’re past the ego and the excitement, past the gratification and the vanity, and you really start to look at the body that’s been sharing your bed for the past year. You notice how that area is always so tender, or how quickly bruises form there, or how when they get cut it’s always right there that the muscle lines appear, or how when they put on weight that area always gains first. And then you look at their eyes or the curve atop their lip or smell their shampoo when they get close and you’re like… oh, oh, you’re mine.
That’s what biking and connecting the geographical dots between neighborhoods did for me. I love New York so differently now, now that I’ve been inside so many other crannies of hers.

I had a few days where I thought I felt something close to love, and rediscovered how desperately I love and need to be around people who are as inspired as I am. On paper it’s silly and pedestrian, but I promise it was epic for me. You see, I’ve been focusing on work and sanity.

The main shift was caused by transitioning off the night shift from the past 2 years. It’s hard to get your shit together beyond staying afloat when you never see the light of day.

I’ve dated some. I’ve revisited some. I’ve laughed and been glad.

I realized I’m ready to move on from this past portion of my life. Time to grow up more. I’m heading back to Europe in 2 weeks! A week for Oktoberfest in Munich, a week for biking and things in Amsterdam, and a month in Greece.

Life beckons… glad to do the summary update.

to the lady at city hall who was on the 6 also. we both could have gotten off at canal but we were too lazy.

How did you get that bruise?
If the subway station were not polka dotted like a homeless dalmatian (with gum and grime) I would lay myself at your glowing miles of skin and kiss all its malice away.
I’m a unicorn too, you know. And we can do that, we can leech the impurity into ourselves to process what can be undone.
For you, I would kneel, flat shins against the dirty cement. On months of chewed spit and crusty shoe soles pushed down like houses.
For you my horn could blaze, my seashell light could shiver.
Oh touch. Lay your creamy hand on my head and I will take away your sins.

O Wind! If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Hello blog! It’s been so long.

First things first: Flash hound pup got adopted out in Pennsylvania, where there are… trees and things. A great ending.
Dorus the weed plant cycled into her flowering phase and got bigger than anyone could imagine! Alas, with my lack of financial dedication to her.. mm.. production, she won’t be bursting with buds. She IS a she, though! She’s staying alive instead. The lights I have for her are not big enough to support her whole body in this final phase… so… she’s retired and happily a houseplant with the others.
The others! I have 3 trees now. My room is a jungle and I love it.
In October, Jeffrey and I are taking off on a trip (Munich to Lux to Ams to ATHENS! Greecetrip and back to NYC) and because no one will care for our plants (whether it’s roommates or subletters or whatever..) we are going to have a Great Migration of our houseplants combined. The loose plan is to drive the truck and maybe Eric’s jeep in a sort of plant caravan.
Jeffrey’s really excited about that. I’m not sure why, but more power to him.

So, what else? Hmm. I’m about to wrap at a show at Postworks – the building is wonderful, AND the SoHo location /aka A C E trains mean that I can easily stop at the gym after work on my way home. That’s been nice. I haven’t worked out in ages. It’s kind of an awesome feeling to sneak off in the night and sweat out all my feelings before heading home. Plus the music .. it’s pretty dead at the hours I go in, but I wish it were camera-free and totally empty sometimes so I could really dance-run .. haha. Goofy, yes. True, yes. There’s something really fun about getting wicked stoked on (mostly the upbeat Glee) songs and tiring yourself out running. I sometimes forget I’m not the character singing and end up embarrassing myself with some ripped off Sam ripping off Justin Beiber moves. I mouth the words like it’s my last chance for romance. It’s.. SO fun. Anyway. Then a quick hop back onto the G and I’m home. Fuck the J M Z. A man’s brains got scattered into the intersection when he was run over by a garbage truck there. I’ve been sketched out ever since. Plus the only violence and severe harrassment I’ve seen/experienced is always around that stop. Fuuuuck that! G train, Me train.

I recently endured/am still dealing with the after effects of a horrible coworker. Long story short, he can’t even do the most basic of Avid/TV workflow work, and had an awful attitude to boot. While getting paid the same as me, while I did all of our work. And when I didn’t, I would have to go back and fix the work he did (wrong). He denied and made excuses all night long. A superiority complex. Let that be a lesson – confidence is good but superiority scrapes away at your integrity. And CERTAINLY your work ethic. I didn’t say anything about it because it was pretty temporary and I don’t want to make excuses, myself. After the mess he left that I did not fix (his last night was my night off), it created a snowball effect in slowing down everyone else’s deadlines, including my friend who works on the show. Which sucks. Because he ended up having to fix the terrible kid’s mistakes, that I should’ve had the foresight to fix instead of trusting. But if YOU weren’t sure about your work, wouldn’t you at least mention it, instead of pretending it was done correctly?
Well, it’s over now.
Jeffrey told me I should have punched the guy and covered by making celebratory punching gestures at random, because of the America-Wins-At-Bin-Laden headlines the other week. A good idea, but not my style.

In other news, I sat across from a homeless old lady on the A, heading towards Hoyt-Scherm (which is where the gym is/where I transfer to the G to get home) and was eating a protein-y Odwalla bar. I wasn’t really hungry for the whole thing and wasn’t gonna be doing anything CRAZY workout-wise, so I didn’t really need the whole bar… I thought over and over how hungry she might be, and of all things you could give someone (unless she had like.. a soy allergy..) that half a bar was probably the best for her nutrition. I thought maybe I was too shy to give it to her because it was half eaten, and didn’t want to insult her. But I realized even if it was a wholly wrapped bar, I’d still feel too awkward to offer. Not because of the rejection, but because I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings or trigger any embarrassment etc on her part.
It was bizarre. A long ride. We kept peeking at each other. I slowly ate the whole thing, hyper aware of our situation.

Back to work, exports are done!

I hope I can tell you more things, blog. I notice so much and forget it so quickly. Love ya, mean it!

Organizing

I forget what a blessing words are sometimes. Oh, the wonder is always there and my mind is always grinning about some letters or others, but when I say ‘blessing’ tonight, I mean it in that deep-rooted grand-scale way. The same way a mature Eros between two souls staves off death and loss and the chaos. Mystery, terror. The real kind – where you realize at 23 that your parents were your age before and chose to be together to stave off the loss of their parents. Where you see them standing between their own youth, their children, and their parents dying. It seems like just yesterday..
So you realize that your soul’s mate (or if you have none [since/yet], the closest thing you can find) is your home. Your causes and your blood and your pleasures are always with you and are not a phase. They are the dailies. Breath.
But deliberately surrendering to the force of Eros, deciding you will in fact grow it, that sacrifice is a growing pain you’re privileged to be endowed with… well, this is the turning point.

I’ve always felt pretty aware and pride myself on values. My internal life is spent almost entirely on weighing values and making sure the integrity of mine add up. In this way, nothing really surprises me, only interests me, or draws me near, sometimes just to watch. Sometimes to bear witness, because I have to. And because no one else wants to.
But as I keep stretching into a woman’s maturity, it occurs to me how long the growth and the cycle will take. I can sort of make out the beginnings of a path that feels, to my soles, endless. Prior to this, I’d intuited this hard length, but it came from that simple knowledge – the kind where you’re not sure why, but you’re certain nonetheless.
Most of the feelings about the long path are still intuitive. But I’m beginning to see it where I hadn’t before, and it looks nothing like the conceptualized blurry hint I had.

Words and flags both stir another knowing inside of me. Eros-importance knowing. Thanks words. Thanks flags.

On the train tonight I wrote to myself and it felt so nice. I’d stopped for a good amount of years in hopes that the clouds around my head would clear and make way for more muscle and blood type endeavors. That I would learn to communicate and assert myself externally in a more timely, efficient fashion.

Thankfully, it still helps organize. I don’t think writing to myself has ever done me ill.

Flash the Child is gone.

“I have lost unformed children, I have killed my own dreams and choked myself mid-howl. I’ve stood and watched silently to survive, ignoring the strength of red blood boiling in my limbs and the strife in my heart.
But until today I have been a woman-child still, mothering without the loss which defines a mother’s real strength. It’s easy to say no and hold on fiercely. Antigone. My soul. But I am also human. And as a real mother, I let my son, my CHILD, be sacrificed for the sake of The Pack. To maintain a family strucure I’ve only begun to believe in working on.
My wildness has led my paws for quite some time. I’ve been trying to reconcile. Pay penance for being who I am and living where I do. I try to adapt. Still, I am ever the finned woman whose legs chafe and keen inside the mind song. She tried to walk upright but her legs wobbled in thin, poor imitation. She would never be like them. My fate has me here. I adapt. Not well, sometimes, but I don’t give in. The easy part. “No.”
Today I sent away my son. No one told me about this part of motherhood – the grace and dignity required for loss. I didn’t ‘lose’ him. Today, after I broke all of his trust in me to maintain integrity of the Pack, the People, I wept and crated myself in a weave of disappointment, anger, shame.
The part to reconcile alongside/beneath the personal (what ELSE IS THERE) is the act. The reality. He’s gone. Now I have to gather my parts up. My hound. He’s gone. It was… it is my fault. He’s gone. He was only a pup. He was only a pup. A child could look to my path of Democracy and be proud of her mother’s vision of humanity. My pup cannot. Today I chose one over the other. The choice was made, the kick delivered.
(SOMEWHERE WHERE THE ORCHIDS GROW
I CAN’T FIND THOSE CHURCH BELLS)
Growing is a privilege. It is painful and sometimes I think of being a girl. And then I recall the rest of the story.
For any part of me worthy of standing up, of my mind and eyesight and critical strength, For any wildness and power of earth in my flesh, I pray for a single grace — May he be able to reform after breaking and love whoever he ends up with. In the country. I will love him forever. I will think of his fear with my heart for all time. May he find comfort in a gentle moment and strength in what little he got of me, and in all he will always have of me. Our bones are the same, and his soul is the same as mine.”

The Children

Hello friends,

“the Children”

If you’ve spent much time with me in the past year or so you would know this loose phrase in my vernacular. ‘the Children’ is basically an interchangeable singular/plural noun referring to creative, mental, emotional or physical offspring of mine. However, it’s not necessary for the subject/s to be “offspring” in the sense that they came from my womb, symbolic or otherwise. See, they may be derivative of their own birthplaces and have come into my life at random. Occasionally the term refers to friends, housemates, strangers never to be passed again … because, at the heart of the term is a sense of nurturing. The desire to nurture, the desire to care for and connect with an object or a person, a living animal or plant. An idea, even. A prayer. Either way – the main requirement is the feeling of connection and relation.

By this definition, just about everything can be referred to as the Children. Maybe it’s something feminine, maybe it’s something for a 23 year old female, maybe it’s an earth sign thing, maybe it’s from being raised in a primarily Matriarchal family, with a strong mother figure who came from another strong mother figure, etc… Who knows? I suppose the origin is not as important as the satisfaction one receives from identifying what would otherwise be ‘separate’ components of our world as newly baptized children. We’re mothers. Men, you can be too. Or perhaps someone can school me on what it means to be a Father. I really am in the dark on that one — but I’m always up for some sensible dualism, and love putting separates together. (I adore the rift; I adore the seams)

I will update this with photos later – but for now, I’m merrily marinating in mothering two very wonderful Children.

— the Children —

A 2 month old maybe-maybe-not-marijuana plant (cross your fingers that she’s a girl) who was conceived in a relatively miraculous fashion. There were no stars or mangers, but a hand of a god and a delicious fate plate served up to me (by means outside of my control, of course) gave me this Child.
Here’s the brief scoop: I’d been maybe-or-maybe-not on a fun run with marijuana (thanks to the wonder of city living and Delivery options .. strains and briefcases, vac-sealed and labeled for easy visual decision making) … so a few strains into this run, I’d rediscovered my taste for marijuana. Not just the juvenile “aww shit, let’s get STONEed!!L1.rh” — but the “Wow, this high is a body high and lasts ___ hours, and I peak at ___(timesomething) and seamlessly transition into sobriety around ____(timesomething)” .. I’m no sommelier so I won’t compare the pleasure-smoker’s notes with a wine-taster’s language as far as body and top notes and all that jangle, but there is a distinct hedonist joy one can have in the age old practice of ingesting plant material with fire and breath. Of course, it’s a very privileged pleasure. I recognize this. All the more reason not to take it for granted, you know?
At the risk of sounding like a yappy douche, I’ll bring it back to the story. So I’d had a lot of Weeds watching, and was rather embroiled in Nancy Botwin’s growing endeavor with Conrad. I was ensconced in the little details of their grow storyline that addressed simple botany. I go through phases and am mildly embarrassed but honest in admitting that many of my interests stem from video media that first affect me emotionally (can I see myself in the strong-female-hero-role? do her flaws make my heart break with compassion? does her strength make me sit up straighter?) — and later, effect my interests.

Brief examples:
Buffy:SupernaturalLoreMedievalHistory-Redemption-Sacrifice
Xena:SwordsAncientWarfareAncientGeographyAncientAnything-Soulmates-Redemption-Sacrifice
Weeds:MarijuanaBotanyFamilyAffairsFinancesPracticalDomesticity-ThirdWaveFeminism-FamilialLove-Redemption-Sacrifice

So you see, I began turning to my old knowledgeable friend Google and poring over how-to-grow sites, watching timelapse videos of plants, scouring the online stores to compare grow equipment prices, learning about lumens and watts and ph testing and indoor-growing cycles. Did you know that you induce a growing season when you grow inside? The daylight-to-night-time ratio simulates seasonal daylight levels. So you begin separate from that natural light structure during dark damp germination, then move into the first seedling week or so, then on into vegetative state (the bulk of the grow time), rounding off into what would be autumn/harvest time — the Flowering phase …
Cool, huh? Anyway. Here’s where I got lucky/winked at by some god somewhere. After doing my light research and getting excited, I turned to purchasing seeds. This is where my minor dream melted back into reality. To purchase seeds online (my only option, really, ’cause who wants to request seeds from a distributor you barely know? bad etiquette!) I would have to spend about 300Euro to get a female guaranteed strain. Even the sales were expensive!! So that sent the whole idea back over to Morpheus for safekeeping in my subconcious in the Dream World. He was like, “Girl, I’ll hold this for now.”

As I’m packing a particularly virile and stony bowl of Green Viper and yapping all this to my roommate, I find a seed. Wait for it – a totally healthy looking seed! In my buds! These are quaaaality buds, super strains, ultra healthy and perfectly cultivated. No seeds. Ya know? But lo and behold, at the exact moment my lament is pouring from my lips, between my thumb and finger sat a little seed. The Child.
Long story short – I soaked her and found she was healthy enough to sink and hold water, I germinated her, began her growth, bought a light-timer for her daylight-nighttime-cycles, and moved forward. She’s had some trips and falls since then, considering my ultra novice level of grow experience, but it’s been the nicest thing to see her grow and grow. The girl. I’ve named her Dorus.

The other Child is the coonhound I’m fostering. A more complicated story, but less to tell. He was pulled from a shelter before being euthanized, down in Tennessee. The rescue I foster him for brought him up here in hopes of finding him a good home. He’s a little over 1 year old, and has some serious ticks and issues as far as anxiety/fear aggression go, but with a firm hand, a stable pack life, and a kind and loving Alpha such as myself, he’s already making serious strides. My hope with him is to get him on a solid feet and an acceptable, well-rounded attitude toward the world at large. He needs to go to a home in the country, I think. He should be getting tracking training and hunting or hiking with someone who has the time and car and land for it, and some acreage of his own to call home. His natural distrust would be great to protect a family’s farm and greater property — in the city, the sheer volume of strangers is too overwhelming for him, and even though he tries and listens to me, it’s not fair to him that there are just so many weirdos walking around all the time. He’s just trying to let us all know that there are a ton of people all over the place. I appreciate it, but I doubt it makes anyone else comfortable – considering his deep coonhound bark. Have you ever heard one? If not – imagine this: the purpose of the coonhound baying was generally to let you know he/she’d treed the animals.. So say you’re a mile away and running after his trail, and he’s way up ahead, holding it down at a big oak tree with the animal in it… you’d need a pretty deep timbre in a dog’s bark to be able to hear and find them as quickly as possible.

So speaking of – I have to get Flash (the coonhound, the Child) off to the park for his daily dog run play date. Then I’ve got to mix up some weekly fertilizer water for all the Children in our house. Some vacuuming will follow. These Children don’t take care of themselves, you know

Lovingly,
Karen (and the Children!)

Bloggin’ break from work.

So… I forgot about this blog. Forgot to update it, anyway. I was over at AWAKENTHETITANS2010 for awhile, chronicling my adventures in Greece, and haven’t finished that either. I guess it’s about time to get it together and put it to bed.

In other news, a nice blizzard came and forgave everyone for this week in January. Friends are having birthdays. I’m fostering a coonhound. My insides are blazing. My energy is out of control, I think I need to start working out. It’s sizzling behind my flesh and I’m lucky I’m patient and letting it build up graciously. It’s fine – like a coil, ya know? Let it build, let it spring.

Spring. Too soon to think about, but tempting nonetheless.

I’m replanning next year’s trip – I really desperately want to work into the trip the following:

Learning new skills
Working and refining skills
Volunteering/helping with any skills, newly acquired or old.

I need to connect with the right people to ask about these things – I’m not a student so I’m not going to do something for ‘credit’ (what a horrendous way of phrasing a trip) … and most of the skills I want to acquire are less academic and more hands-on. Volunteering websites generally suck- they take your money and give a small percentage to the actual organization. (GoEco is one of the laundering bastards, fuck them. Don’t do it.)
I guess I just need to network my way into some new friends’ hearts, who know someone who knows someone who will teach me something I care about, because they care about the same thing.

Passions. Yikes. You know what they say about being led by them.. On the other hand, I more often than not quell my passions and try to follow a relative sensibility in my life, so it’s only fair to open wide the other parts.

This time last year I was up at the farm and it was like -15F with windchill. I was up before the sun, surrounded by people who sacrificed trivial pursuits to care for hundreds of animals (of souls) that would have been abandoned by the wayside. Waste from our culture. I was braving the wicked cold to do menial and less menial (healthcare is so fun) tasks to keep things running smoothly, and trying to make everyone smile in the leftover time. Physical strength, mental decisiveness, emotional relief.
I NEED to get away from the city and my slow solid grasp on my life here, at least a few times a year.

Welp. It’s good to be working in the mean time.

Hopefully I’ll have an update with some new plans at some point soon!