My mortal beloved.
The life expectancy for American women is just a fraction less than 80 years, twice what it was 100 years ago and 5 years higher than contemporary American men. Assuming I achieve that overripe old age, I'll have enjoyed 65 years of sex, 62 years of voting and 59 years of (legal) drinking. Not to mention 56 years of post-bac career achievements that I can only hope will merit the many nights of burnt dorm-lobby popcorn, exam-night fire alarms and ill-advised hookups between various campus affiliates. Should we even discuss my Masters degree?

I'm 36 now, technically middle-aged if we consider the fact that I've smoked since I was 13 and enjoy the odd glass of wine or three several nights a week. And so the mortality dance begins, with the ferocious pluck of a grey hair there and the furious examination of a new mole there. I don't feel any different than I did at 26--surprisingly (or perhaps not, to the aged among you), I don't think of myself or my life as having miraculously aged 10 years in the blink of an eye.

Truth be told, it's been more than a blink. In the last ten years I've managed to buy a house, amicably settle a divorce, work my way through two other serious relationships, advance my career both laterally and longitudinally, gain 30 pounds and find a whole host of new reasons to love and loathe myself in startling degrees. Astrology says that we reinvent ourselves every 7 years; I've always been an apt pupil.

But what does it all mean? Do I push through the mid-life crisis, having acknowledged my positions squarely in its midst? What does that mean for a woman? Maybe I'll write the new book on The New Cougar and keep a tool and chisel at the base of my headboard. Or adopt seven babies from six continents and subscribe to "People" magazine. Perhaps I'll sell everything I own and sail the Mediterranean with a flower in my hair and a knife in my teeth.

Probably, though, I'll light a cigarette to go with this glass of Chardonnay, give my pets a scratch, and see what happens next. I've got 36 more years to enjoy it, right?

Number nine.
The Man burned tonight. Saturday. I watched it on a fuzzy full-screen livecast in my friend's basement, idly fingering the playa dust surfacing on the thighs of my Levi's as I shifted on her black leather sofa, wondering whether I'd leave a mark and whether, if I did, she'd be glad of it. Three fingers wept blood, not from sharp rebar or pinching tent poles but from the clips holding pouches to an Army surplus utility belt I'd donned specifically for this, a local Burn Party full of pre-burners, ex-burners and folks who'd stayed home this year for reasons too various to recount. I was the weirdo, the odd woman out, the one who had gone Sunday and come Friday and now faced the inevitable question, "Why did you leave so early?"

My answers vary: "I wanted to decompress." "I missed my dog." "I didn't want to get stuck in Exodus." "I just wanted a short week."

I knew something would get between me and the burn, as it often does. I spent a lot of time alone this year, wandering, sitting, reading, thinking. It was a need for downtime (and a sunburn on my shins) that finally sent me packing at 12:40pm Friday and kept me going for the 11 hours it takes to get from 9:00 & Hummer (Black Rock City, NV) to NE 69th & Burnside (Portland, OR).

But here's the thing: I did it alone. No spare driver, no hotel reservation, nobody waiting for my call. Dinner alone at the Black Bear in Klamath Falls, pink hair and suspicious locals and all. If I had crawled aboard an alien craft, nobody would have known. If my car had caught fire by the roadside, it's only mildly likely that my iPhone and its ICE entry would have survived (and I've only just realized that my long-lost ex was still listed as my first contact--that has now been changed). I just needed to prove to myself that I could, in my 9th year, make it out there and back on my own. Truth be told, I doubt my friends even noticed; the hard fact is that I needed to prove it to myself. I never discussed it with them or with anyone, but it was there from the moment I decided to go. I needed to shack up with a few familiar demons, if only for a short time. I needed to know that those demons may still walk beside me, but they no longer cause me to run.

So I made it home. I unloaded my gear, took a shower, checked my email and crawled into bed with my dog and my comatose housesitter. I awoke early after a fitful sleep and re-acclimated to my life. I watched movies, petted the animals and reminded myself of all the reasons I love who and where I am. I thought about the people I'm proud to call family and friends. I went to a party and reveled in the parts of Burning Man that I missed.

More than that, though, I congratulated myself on the parts of my life that, in the desert and on the road, finally found their place behind me.

Craft(y) polyamory.
If I had any sense I'd keep my knitting needles far from my loom, my loom miles from my sewing machine and my sewing machine all the way across town from my paint brushes. But because I err on the side of openness, they all occupy small spaces on my crowded dining room table, competing for attention on weekends and random Wednesdays.

I vacillate between respecting my ability to learn and love so many hobbies, and regretting the lack of deep knowledge and experience I might have developed had I focused on any one of them for the last 20 years (okay, well, I can seriously rock a sewing machine but I'd never admit it in front of the rest of my tools). And this vacillation mirrors my larger fear about my personality, my career, my life: should I be a specialist instead of a generalist?

PRO: One craft inspires another. I'll never forget how the blocky divisions of Idaho agriculture (as seen from a Horizon jet) made me think about quilting which made me think about stained glass which made me think about...
CON: I fear I may never get deep enough into one craft to truly and deeply express its unique possibilities. Anybody can make a dress from a pattern. Can I drape or draft one and, more importantly, can I find the inspiration to WANT to?
PRO: One craft teaches another. My knowledge of fabric and clothing design feeds my instinct when designing weft and warp for the loom. The waterfall exists in craft much as it does in business or technology, as each step in the process necessarily informs the next.
CON: Knowledge sometimes equals constraint. One of my girlfriends likes to knit with strips of plastic sacks, a material that's nowhere to be found in traditional textile tomes or in the cubbies of today's craft supply shops. Does my acknowledgment of the forest sometimes preclude my relationships with the trees?

It's a moot question, really. I can't pick a favorite band, ice cream flavor or pair of shoes. I can't even stick with one hair color, and I have to look at that in the mirror every single day. Why would I limit myself to one craft when so many can offer so much?

You can ask me which one I love the most, but I'll never tell. Ask me again tomorrow.

I belong.
In preparation for my formal entrance in the world of part-time bicycle commuters, I took a "halfway to work and back" ride last weekend, to get a better sense of the blind commitment I'd made. I never wear skirts in real life but it seemed very Portlandish in that moment, the better to straddle the U-frame of my neo-post-retro-modern commuter bike (atop totally inappropriate footwear, of course). I reduced the route to four short lines on a paper scrap, filled an Aquafina bottle with tap water and grabbed my keys.

Seeing my helmeted & backpacked self in the mirror, the picture of a visible & responsible eco-commuter, I felt confident. Reflecting on all of the cyclists I know who've been hit by cars or know people who've been hit by cars, though, I got nervous. It was noon on a Saturday--I was completely visible in broad daylight, right? But people in cars do stupid things every hour of the day. Gabbing on their phone or to a passenger, distracted. Had that one-more-can't-hurt mimosa at brunch that makes every right turn a race against themselves. I gripped my keys too tightly, my imminent death expressed as merely a minor statistical uptick in next week's paper. Helmet on, off, on, off... In the end, though, the memory of my signed credit slip won out. I slipped the scribbled route into my left bra cup and locked the door behind me. To win or to lose, I was in it.

69th to Davis to Everett to 41st is a beautiful route, explicitly flagged for cyclists and full of shady trees. For the first 20 blocks I passed more cyclists than cars and I abandoned my fear to the rhythm of slippered feet pushing us (my bike and I) over blocks that in nine years of loving this neighborhood I'd never once driven. The slight downhill grade protected my armpits as it propelled us (me and my confidence) out of Mt. Tabor and into Laurelhurst and over Burnside, through that new bike crossing that I suddenly understood as more than just an occasional inconvenience to motorists on their way home from a long day at work.

Laurelhurst Park looks greener from a bicycle. Passing by at weekend speed, it's hard not to tuck into the moody, old-growth trees and sprawl out on the lawn with a book and a beer. Having neither and heeding the call of my mission, I borrowed an inch of new serenity and carried on, dodging a convertible whose driver was clearly as nature-drunk as I. And then I hit the hill.

4th gear. 3rd. 2nd. 1st, just as I was reaching the top and trying to act all cool and fit for a trio of older folks in a Benz who likely didn't care either way. But I cared. This was my debutante ball, my quincenera, and I was going to make it if it killed me (or barfed, whichever came first). I huffed it the last few blocks to 32nd, popped the kickstand under a massive shade tree and downed half of my water. A few other bikers sped by as I stood, heaving, sweating into the waistband of my cute little skirt, proud.

The ride home was damp and uneventful, save the few rest stops I made in welcoming shady spots when the slight but persistent uphill climb got the better of me. Peeling off my backpack, I admired the soggy blotches its straps had left on both shirt sleeves, short-lived battle scars of my first attempt at bike-commuterism. I smiled and took a shower.

The actual ride to Old Town and back still lies ahead, but I've been halfway there.

We are gathered here today.
I flew home from New York on Friday night and I noticed everything. At least for the first 20 minutes, anyway, every little bump and shudder registered in my conscious. The increasing speed of the plane's taxi woke me unexpectedly from my crossword slumber, the comfortingly distracted place I live (intellectually and emotionally) every time I'm in take-off. I'm not used to noticing.

I laid my right ear against the window, taking it in as both sound and vibration, not knowing whether any individual stimulus was good or bad or whether I had any reason to worry. With no frame of reference, hearing and feeling every tiny bit of it, I pulled myself out of the natural and necessary assumption I make that I will, in fact, *make it*. And so I started thinking about my death. Because it is that black and white in the air: you live, or you die.

In 1980, Dorothy Dietrich was the first woman ever to catch a bullet in her mouth and live. A magic trick, an illusion...? It was a trick that had killed 12 men before her and one that even Houdini had never dared. How does it feel to be the first, the one to challenge God, the Devil and everything in between, just to show that it can be done? How did Amelia Earhart feel on her trip across the Atlantic? The first. The only? I hold no such honor but the fear is still palpable.

So I started imagining my funeral, my memorial. Who would come? Who would cry? What music would be played? I started making my mix tape in my head, the one I'd ask my best friends to be sure was on the stereo during the service. Perhaps this is the part that's appealing for those who leave before their time, this vision of who would mourn their passing, this vision of a service that's SRO and full of tears. For me, though, it was enough to put me off my fear. Because the picture of myself touching down in PDX held so much more appeal, regardless of whether anyone greeted me at the gate.

So I lost myself in the inflight movie instead, and I made it home at 10:30pm only slightly groggy. The next mix tape I make will be for those who know me, not those who knew me. And I'm living to fly again.

We're too good for stupid angels.
Benicia: bedroom window, porches, cowpunk.
Alameda: dance floor, New Year's Eve, angry chairs.
NYC: Sticky Mike's Frog Bar, redhead, bathroom.
Headlands: hillside tents, fog, rocks in our shoes.
SF: Richmond, push-pull, coffee grounds.
SF: Cole Valley, push-pull, coffee grounds.
SF: Valencia, push-pull, coffee grounds.
SF: Castro, push-pull.
Parties and parties and parties and parties and parties.
Shaved head, naive girl, noose.

Songs of love and loss. Songs of forgiveness.
I made a muxtape recently. It felt perfectly natural to make it, assembling meaningful songs, poignant songs, songs that make me lock up and feel something. But when I listened to it the next day I caught the narrative... It's chock-full of people I've loved, lost, unloved, hated, unhated, forgiven, missed, miss. It's really fucking sad, this collection of songs that somehow floated to the surface of my conscious subconscious.

And they're not all current tunes; some have been dancing in my head for years and years. A few are from college. One is in the mix explicitly to honor someone I knew from 16 to 23 (he killed himself at 25, my best friend and lover, so give me some slack on this one). Some of them are so so so so old that way... And each of them is an ode to someone I know or have known, all of them songs I might sing to myself in someone's honor. Sometimes they're sung wholly for myself, but just as often they're not. Just as often, they're a tribute to someone you might think I'd be better off forgetting.

So what keeps me gripped to this story of my life? What is it about this monologue that continues to fascinate me after all this time? Me, this "oh so independent woman"? I don't forget. I do keep singing these songs. I do remember.

A ex questioned me about this very thing: why do I keep the pictures around? Why do I keep reminders so close to the surface? Why do I TALK about the PAST so MUCH? Did time stop for me somewhere along the way? I guess his real question was: Have you lived so much already that there's nothing left for anyone else?

No. The answer is no. But sometimes I need to wallow in it.


P.S. I lied. Two songs are for you, Don, and they always will be. I miss you.

If laundry falls on an empty floor, does it really need washing?
Sometimes being single is about giving myself permission NOT to do things. I DON'T need to get up for brunch. I DON'T need to put on make-up on Saturday. I can do the dishes TOMORROW instead of today. It's self-indulgent, yes, but it's also freeing. Relaxed. Left to its own devices, life paints an honest picture. Unimpeded by another's causes & effects, my life fulfills its own. I haven't washed my hair in two days because I've got nobody to impress but myself, and my self is pretty comfortable with oily sideburns on Sundays.

This gives way, of course, to the next logical question: "Am I myself when I'm in a relationship?" And the answer, of course, is "Yes. I'm my Relationship Self." And this self is not the same as my Single Self. And I can't possibly put them on a scale of 'better to worse' or 'sane to insane' or any other judgmental continuum that might veer me towards a relationship-for-its-own-sake or the opposite. That would be false, fake, pointless, gutless. I refuse to judge myself on the basis of my "relationship status".

But we all have scales on which we weigh ourselves. Artistic/creative expression is a big one for me, and if you put a gun to my head right now, on that merit alone I'd choose "Single" without hesitation. Go ahead, read back through this blog and correlate my written expression to my relationship status:

Dec 2002-Sept 2003: Single
Sept 2003-Jan 2008: In relationships
Jan 2008-Today: Single

Stick it all in an Excel sheet and graph it. I am far more prolific, post for post and word for word, when I'm single. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!? It's vexing, truthfully, and it's painful to admit. And that's just my writing. If I gave you stats on my costume design, music, knitting, weaving... if creative output is something you value in a partner, you'd write me off your dating dance card forever.

At the end of the day, though, it's my problem and not yours. If I'm to form appropriately territorial relationships with my muses, it's for me to manage and ultimately to judge. If you've read this far, I appreciate your interest but I don't (and can't) rely on it to keep me going. I write, both publicly and privately, to keep myself sane. As odd as it may read on a public (though unpublicized) blog, I write for me.

Thanks, though.

"So, what, he gets a medal for correctly identifying a feeling?"
What's an apology worth? When does "I'm sorry, and I learned something" give way to "I know better but I fucked things up anyway"? It depends on the recipient's particular flavor of co-dependency, their propensity to think, "This will be the last time; it will all change with me." Sometimes it's about a person's sense of self-worth: "I deserve [this or that type of treatment] because I'm [damaged in this or that way]." For me, often, it's about balance: "Everything has been good for awhile. I'm strong. I can handle this right now."

Mostly, though, I think it's about my propensity to behave the same way. To sympathize. To relate. I do, on some level, forgive behavior that I can see myself repeating in a reasonably short timeline (or have already manifested not long ago). And I can't be dishonest about who I am. Well, maybe I can to you, but not to myself. Not any more than I can wear a navy-blue suit and feel at home. But that doesn't mean I don't still behave in ways that I know are beyond me, beneath me. Ways that I know, at "my age," are bad/wrong/inappropriate/immature/whatever.

So, as messed up as it is, aren't I forgiving you in order to forgive myself? Isn't it all just a ruse to excuse myself for behavior that the better part of me can't abide? And what does that say about me, that I let both of us treat me this way?

Build it.
"I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's."
-William Blake

"...escape well-established patterns of behavior, especially the ones that are no damn good for you."
-Rob Breszny

"Always accept yourself the way you are."
-Fortune in a cookie from S. Dynasty, New York City, NY

"May you lead an interesting life."
-Chinese curse

What dreams may come (redux)
I don't know what we fought about that day or if we were always just fighting. I don't know why I left him alone in my house but I did, returning shortly after to find him at the end of a rampage that had gouged and bloodied walls in almost every room. Hammers, pipes and bats had left welts and holes and cracks. Columns and rows of wounds were eerily aligned. Windows were alternately spiderwebbed and shattered. Oddly, though, rooms that already bore gaping wounds by my own lazily ambitious hand were left untouched. Perhaps only those that I had naively considered "done" were deemed fit for destruction.

I screeched at full-volume, following him as he fled through the back door. Suddenly fearing for my safety, I doubled back, ran out the front door and banged the door of the neighbor's house. A man answered, and I introduced myself as someone who'd lived next door for my entire life, realizing as I glanced around that I was in the cul-de-sac where I grew up, next door to the house I'd inhabited with my family until I was 15. And though I feared he'd never recognize me, feared my ignorance of these people who were obviously keenly aware of me had made me equally invisible in their eyes, this man knew me. This man from my past was kind. He offered to help, to shield. He knew restitution was in order (or at least relief) even though he didn't have a specific plan to pursue.

I found him again later, the destroyer, and confronted him: "You owe me $100,000 to fix all of this damage! You've ruined my house! You're responsible for this!" I knew he was capable of helping if he chose to. I cried. He was cold.

And I looked around me, at the holes in my walls and the shards of my windows, and thought that it didn't seem so bad after all. An opportunity, perhaps, for a new way of decorating. In truth there was no way to go back anyway, no way to replicate things to be exactly as they'd been before.

And I thought, "Well, I guess it's up to me."

On staying in the game

"One of the most important of the rules that make improv possible...is the idea of agreement, the notion that a very simple way to create a story--or humor--is to have characters accept everything that happens to them."
-Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink"

Well, goddamn if I haven't been mulling over this very concept for the past three years, and some improv team (parsed by Gladwell) finally put it into words I failed to find. And it all started with text messages.

I have this friend. And this friend said to me, "You and [ex-boyfriend] have this really cool banter, always joking with each other. How come I can't do that with [boyfriend]?" She flipped open her cellphone to show me the latest text he'd sent: a silly come-on, something about her tits. And I said to my friend, "You've just gotta learn how to stay in the game. If he says something weird, respond with something weirder. If he's got a goofy idea, don't shrug it off... suggest the first step towards making it happen." I quickly narrated two or three potential responses; she thumbed her favorite into the phone and hit "Send". He replied in kind and they were off to the races.

What I was trying to communicate was the notion that you have to make the crazy shit real, if only for a few moments. So what stops us? What makes us giggle and wave our hand in a "Oh, you're just silly!" gesture? Why do we laugh and decide that that's it, that's the end of the story? Is it a self-confidence thing? Do we think that other people have already cornered the market on funny-smarts and there's just not enough left to go around? The funniest person you know wouldn't be funny if she didn't know how to play along. Or she'd be a modern-day Henny Youngman. The merit of either predicament is up for debate.

And sometimes that crazy shit morphs into something real: a piece of art, a trip around the world, a new way of looking at things. Sometimes, god bless it, it changes your life. At the very least it can make you belly-laugh, and that's good enough for me much of the time. Two of my greatest joys in life are laughing, and hearing someone else laugh at me.

It doesn't have to get any more complicated than that.

What you feel now*
Moving slower than normal
Loving instruments rarely played
Wearing really old shoes
Letting sane friends go crazy
Living with clean sofas and dirty bathrooms
Being happily alone
Drinking champagne straight from the bottle
Running towards and away, a little at a time
Letting my roots show
Choosing my dog over my friends
Embracing three-drink idealism AND three-drink realism
Wearing berets
Letting a mess be a mess


*An ode to Cheryl Lynn's "Got To Be Real"

Gum wrappers and old receipts.
This time, I'm really throwing it all away. My basement, my attic, and every room in between. It's literal and it's figurative but mostly it's just real. How did everything get so damn heavy? My house is heavy--I'm donating my stuff to charity. My body, heavy--I'm losing weight. Even my hair felt heavy, so I chopped it off. It's like cleaning out a pocket or a purse but on such a grand scale. Everything I remove vacates a space where something new can enter, inhabit and influence.

What does it look like to start from scratch? I'm not tossing the sofa to the wolves or putting my pets out by the roadside with a "Homeless, please help" sign. I'm not selling my house (especially in this market). I don't need new dishes to get a new lease on life, and I'm sure I'll still indulge in karaoke from time to time at the Candlelight Lounge. But I need to shed skins: clothes that don't fit, habits that hurt rather than help, so-called friends who feed off my energy without giving back, nostalgia for its own sake. Vampires, every one.

If I say I have psychic cobwebs, does that make me a hippie? If I still shave my armpits and legs, does shit even out?

I'm ready for the next challenger or champion. I believe that both will look an awful lot like me.

Maximum capacity.
When I was really young, maybe four, I saw a black-and-white version of Frankenstein, probably James Whales' 1931 rendition (kudos to Wikipedia for holding so much meaningful trivia at the ready). Unremarkably tame by today's standards, it nonetheless set my histrionic imagination on fire, causing me no end of nightmares and daydreams about gargoyles and giant flies tromping single-mindedly down my street, intent on stealing me from my bed and entombing me forever in their dungeons and feasting on me through time eternal. I was an overly-inventive child with a flair for the dramatic, well-suited to the snares of horror films' tactics and conceits.

I cringe at news stories about young kids so overstimulated by video games and horror movies that the interested industries up the ante constantly just to keep them engaged. I rent at Blockbuster (don't judge me), and it's getting harder and harder to find gore-free films in the New Releases section; scanning for pastel colors on the DVD jackets is no longer a fool-proof strategy. What's happened to us, to our innocence? Why are we so addicted to shock value? What happens to our individual sense of right and wrong, anesthetized as it is by popular culture that only costs $3.95 at the video store?

Don't misinterpret me; I'm not Tipper Gore, and I'm not going to pitch a hissy about back-masking and rap music. But it's true that messages ring true after we hear them for the hundredth time, because we stop noticing how different they are from what we used to believe. They creep up on us. We adjust. It's part of how we survive.

If I watched that movie now, I wouldn't think twice about it the next morning. I'd get up, have coffee, go about my day. You couldn't pay me to watch "Saw," though. Or "Saw II" or "Saw III." I have a little innocence left yet.