didn't I tell you that a cold november'd come?

the past few days have been wonderful,in the arms of my chosen family.I have been out every night since Wednesday and have gotten to spend time with the people that I love the most.

sing wide

much better now.Had to spend some time outside.It's a shame I missed the Leonids because we had cloud cover for about a week.However, I have seen several very serious shooting stars the past few nights when the clouds cleared.I am grateful to see the few I have seen and I wonder at people that don't even notice.But then not everyone dawdles aimlessly watching the sky.It's probably why I am always running around with skinned knees like a seven year old.In some ways I don't know that I will ever Grow Up. It's just not my style I suppose. I do try to retain my sense of wonder (to keep my sense of whimsy company)
I have been missing people lately. Nostalgia getting the best of me and sometimes it makes me a bit sentimental. It makes me a little crazy.I find that stepping outside helps immensely.I can usually get my head on straight after a few minutes.I have been a little strange ever since I hit the reset button last and I am thinking that I might need a little time before I can really process everything that I got from it.I think I shed some baggage, but I am still working to figure out exactly what has been left behind.

the last unicorn

So tonight I find myself hanging in my studio,I have all the windows open and the wind is rushing thru the house like a lover.It's a house built to catch a breeze.So southern in it's design.I think that I am content to be alone for a night and think things thru.So many astrological changes coming current right now and I have to think about the implications of many things to make informed decisions........and something outside smells divine.Smoke of some kind,but so sweet, and wet, and fragrant.Almost smells like aloeswood.It's riding the coming rain and I really could just breathe it in all night long.I don't think that there will be another warm night this year.This really is probably it.After this rain,it will be a long and cold one.I don't really look forward to the cold.I just want to drink in the rich, balmy wind until I drift off to sleep.The wind is picking up and making the trees speak so loudly.I think the golden ginko across the street has something to prove.I am glad I took photos of it a few days ago because this wind is liable to drop the leaves overnight.

Haiku du jour

too cold and wet out

antisocial behavior

writing and smoking

hold me down,I am floating away into the overcast skies over my home town

These days it seems I am caught constantly between the highs and lows.Most likely because two major planets are going direct right now and I feel like I am coming off hold.I don't know how else to explain it.

I had a wonderful night last night with my squirrels.I didn't feel like getting out.But once I got there and hung with Raven for a little while,I realized how much I have been missing her. She had a lot more energy than she sis the last time I saw her and I feel much more like she will make it.The show was actually really moving and it was a lovely thing to see so many people being so supportive.Exene was fucking amazing. Her music spoke to me hardcore and I hope to the gods that I will be that cool when I "grow up".She let me touch her guitar for good luck.Her smile is just infectious and I had the best time talking to her,mostly while I was getting her high in my car.I think I am also just so touched by the fact that she came to support Raven.They have known each other about 7 months.I have to say this, I think I have one my little friend crushes on her. I got to hang with so many of the people I really adore,and none of the ones who are giving me grief.I got to dance around with some of my favorite ladies, to tunes spit out of my favorite DJ in Memphis. I have renewed faith in the life force in a very precious person. So I am marking the night as a win.

Today I skinned my knee, so I feel like a seven year old.It was wet and slippery out and I wasn't paying attention. I was in good spirits until I got to work.I also made the mistake of trying to check up on one of my best friends while I was on my break.Turns out she really has gone round the bend, and is back on head meds, after all the struggle she went thru getting off of them. I can feel crazy radiating off of her thru the telephone. What is a girl to do. She is no longer accepting help from me. It seems as though the best thing would be to stand back, cause things are bound to get ugly soon. It fucking kills me.

I am ready for a sunny day. The sky has been leaking for days, and it has an effect on me after too many of them with no real amount of sunshine. Revelations have been coming hard and fast lately. I know that these are odd days, and that I should be paying more attention.

whispering in the hall,pointing your finger at me...

In a slow strange mood tonight.Hard to explain.I am supposed to be getting ready to go out and I am having a hard time of it.I kinda want to be alone,but I am going to a benefit show.Exene Cervenka came across the country to play this show for my friend Raven.It's a benefit to raise money for her because she lost her house and her job and she is going thru chemo and radiation after having sx for breast cancer.I know that I haven't been the most supportive friend during all this.I told Raven repeatedly if she needed anything to call me and I would do my best to get it taken care of.However,she is a very proud creature,and we haven't been in close contact most of the time that this has been going on.I will be the first to admit that I have a tendency to withdraw emotionally in these kind of situations.There have been several hospitalizations for up to three weeks,because her body is barely hanging in there during chemo.There have been times when I thought she was a goner.I have had other people die on me this way,so I prepare myself by going cold.I cannot help it.I have lost so many people.I pray that she recovers and I WILL get myself out into the night to go to this event.I love her dearly.I want her to know.I don't know any other way to let her know.

I have been stuck off in my head for days now and I don't know how to come back up to the surface.I don't have it in me to be very social.I can fake it,but I am not really feeling it.

I have been having one of those days where you just cannot get up the gumption for a damn thing.Too many days without sun,maybe,and the fact that it gets dark so early now and I was not ready for the winter.I am cold and all I want to do is get back into my bed and stay there. However,life is not about to let me do these things,and my appointment book has too many things going and thanksgiving is next week.The holidays have crept in on little ninja feet and will engulf me until the new year is here.

I still don't know what I feel about 2010.Many that I know have had a really rough year.I admit I have been kinda stressed out,but for the most part,it's been good to me.I still cannot believe how fast it all blew by.Hell I am amazed that November is already half over and it feels like it just started.I don't know where it all went.

to be alone with you...

My sleep schedule has been completely fucked since I come home from New Orleans,but then it was kinda getting hincty before I even left.I guess that I needed a change, but this isn't what I had in mind.I have been in a strange place in my head as well.That is what i get for reading Murakami again.I love his writing so much,but puts me in a very detached emotional state.Then again,I was feeling detached headspace before I started reading it,so there is a good chance it is more affect than cause.Sometimes getting high helps,sometimes it makes it worse,but at least then I don't care.I don't feel bad,just not altogether a part of anything at the moment.I know that I don't feel lonely because I don't have the slightest inclination to reach out to anyone.I feel like being alone.
However it is very cold tonight and I wish to god that I had a bedwarmer.Funny thing is that there is someone who fits that bill.He can warm a bed like a charm,but being around him is like being alone for me.Unfortunately he is several states away,and does me no good.I guess that I just have to be cold or get the gumption up to go on the search for another bedwarmer.I think I like being alone better than being warm tonight.

I am having a hell of a time adjusting to being back in Memphis.I am so intensely happy that I don't have to go to work tomorrow,just do a little hair and be done with it.Tonight after work I hung out with Korbet and I completely spilled my guts and I feel much better about everything.I miss having her in town.I only get to see her every few months.I cannot speak as freely to most people.She knows me inside out,because we are so very alike.She gave me another of her gorgeous pastels.The colors will be divine against the peacock blue of my bedroom walls.I am in love with it.I filled her in on everything that has been happening for me in the past few months.She never makes me feel like a monster,no matter how honest I am with her.I love her like my own soul.

So.I think that things got quite rearranged when I hit the reset button in New Orleans.I have been alot more right since.I have something new on my hands.

the reset button

I came to several odd realizations while I was home again.There are several situations that I have been involved with lately that, in all honesty, have nothing whatsoever to do with me.I don't know why in gods name I have been letting myself get dragged into them with shocking regularity.I guess it's to do with the rather erratic behavior of certain close friends,and my inability to recognize

the warning signs that would prompt extrication from the vicinity of said situations before things get ugly.It's been a fucking downer.

The realization is that I have to re-prioritize,to figure out what needs to be held at arms length for a while,and what bears closer examination.The season is changing and so am I. It was something I saw from the rooftop terrace of the hotel we stayed in.It was the tenth floor and I could see the river.Monday morning, as I was watching this blood red dawn climbing over the river, I realized who I am now is not who I was.I felt like a cicada climbing out of it's old shell. When I saw the new moon for the first time at sunset that evening, the world felt new, and unspeakably old at once. All I could do was feel the world turn for a moment and know it in the present so sharply and clearly.I felt every thing draw down to a point that I could only identify as illumination.I think it is something to do with being up so high in the air.I had been sitting with my feet in warm water up there,watching the sky wheel overhead, and having a heavy talk with a friend who knows my soul as well as I know his. I began to understand and see more clearly the nature of synchronicity and how many strange places that fate will take you. How you have to trust it, and continue to do what you are moved to do,to essentially be a catalyst.I realized that time can move with grace if you let it.

I feel so disoriented being back in Memphis.We made the drive in just under five hours.I really hated leaving,but home is nice now that I am here.I think that something in me got rearranged on the trip and I am pretty sure that it is a change for the better.Will write more when I am not so discombobulated.here is a haiku I wrote while I was out by Jackson Square yesterday...

wandering alone

free to dawdle,free to stare

and to meet strangers

drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes...

I am so wanting to move back home to New Orleans.I forgot how much I love this place.I guess that everytime I come back,I am usually in some huge hurry to have as much fun as possible,I drink and eat too much and can't wait to go home at the end of it.I have had time to stretch out and relax a bit and now I remember what I love about my home.There is nothing like it,that is simply it.

Last night I finally got to eat at Tujagues.I love that place because it reminds me of my father. He was nuts about the place and ate there as soon as he came into town.I think that we are supposed to go to the Court of theTwo Sisters as well,which always reminds me of my mother.I guess that really this city is filled with memories for me.The St Charles streetcar reminds me of running away from home.I cannot go anywhere in the Quarter without thinking of the way it was when I was a kid.I cannot deny that I belong here.I wish that I could live here again.

in which our heroine finds herself in a ridiculously oppulent hotel with rather large pupils....

I know I am late with my blog for the NaBloPoMo,however,yesterday was almost three days long.So I think it still counts.I am sitting in the business center at La Pavillion,which is to say that I am in a four diamond hotel that kinda blows my mind.Something about this place makes me feel like making outrageous demands.I know it's silly,but really.So Yeah.

It all started when Ramsay came over to get his hair cut the day before Pax and I were slated to come to NOLA.He was saying that e really wished that he could cme down and dig the city with us.On a whim he looked up House of Blues to see who was playing,and who is it???just my favorite DJ ever...DJ Shadow!!So I made him promise to meet us here for the show.When Pax got off work,we went to Red Bar to get dinner and visit B.He was looking a little down,so we told him that he needed to come to see DJ Shadow with us,since we all have a really personal connection with his music.It was the soundtrack for some of the most intense experiences that we have had.We figured that he could get back for work because he could go back to Memphis with Ramsay.So we tell him that we are coming for him in the morning and head home to pack.

Come morning I had a hell of a time getting Pax awake,a complete monster.Then we went to scoop up B.We had to bang on his door for ages and enlist the help of his cat to get him to answer.Apparently he had company,she was none too pleased with us.But we got him up and rolling.They snoozed on and off while I drove.I made incredible time,since we got such a late start.I got pulled over after Jackson for going 17 over,but at least he didn't catch me while I was ballin 110 while everyone was asleep.Pax's car just drives so smooth,I didn't notice that I was flying until I just happened to notice how easy it was to overtake everyone.I was happy to change drivers after that little experieince because I hadn't slept on saturday night (still haven't really)I got a halfway nap over the bridge.My mother used to put me in the car and drive me over that bridge when I was a baby to get me to go to sleep.I guess it still works.

We got into NOLA and tried to go for brunch,but apparetly there was a game going on (GEAUX SAINTS!!!)and there is some kind of Jewish conference going on and there were all the crazy protesters and cops out the wazoo everywhere,and we couldn't drive into the quarter,so we went in circles for a while.Eventually we checked into the hotel and made it out to the quarter for dinner,after which all involved felt increasingly more human.Then there was wandering and imbibing of open mind solvent up on the moonwalk.The river was amazing and so was the hot chocolate from Cafe Du Monde.Eventually we moseyed our way back to House of Blues and checked out the openeing band,Pidgeon John.I dug his sound and his lady DJ.

DJ Shadow was so fucking incredible.I don't even know how to explain.It was a very humbling experience.It seemed so intimate.There were maybe 300 people there,tops.It felt personal and I had this wonderful little perch to watch the visuals on the shadowsphere.At one point I felt so overwhelmed and grateful.I felt like things all were working exactly the way that they are supposed to,that I just have to trust the process and let things happen and do as I am moved to do and everything will be fine.The new material was part of that revelation.One of the new songs in particular made me feel so comforted and amazingly safe in the knowledge that things roll on the way that they must to keep life changing and keep us learning if we are open to it.It was just a bit overwhelming.

I started calling people because I needed them to know I was thinking of them,wishing that despite circumstances that they could be there with me.B and Ramsay ended up staying the night,and we ended up on the roof until the sun came up.I had some intense talks with B and sat with my feet in the heated pool,watching the stars wheel around until the bloody glow started over the river.It was very very special and I don't know that I can even begin to explain that. after that I gave B a reading and we sat up talking til it was light outside and then we all attempted sleep,some of us succeeded and some of us did not.I am getting delirious,and should probably stop here until later....get back out in the streets.Pax is sunning herself on the roof and the boys left about an hour ago,so I think I might wander alone for a while in my hometown.

One more thing.I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

holy shit

I am so damn excited about going to New Orleans.Shadow tells me that DJ Shadow is playing tomorrow night at the House of Blues.Deb and I are gonna go,cause how could we not.I had no clue.We decided that we were going for no reason at all,but this came out of the blue.If this is any indication how this trip is going to go,I am very excited indeed.I also remembered that I had put away some brownies for a rainy day.I am going to surprise Deb with them tomorrow.I am procrastinating badly.I really have to get my shit together and pack for this trip.I am a rotten creature.Shadow might follow us down.I would love to dig NOLA with him.He is chock full of adventure.I also want to go to the New Orleans Art House.Some artist co-op where they have built this massive tree house.I am also supremely glad that we are not taking any vegans with us,because it was a disaster last time that I went with one.New Orleans is not a very vegan friendly city.

I will admit that I am most excited about getting out on the highway.Deb had wanted to take the train,but my love is for the road.I get into a trance that I cannot get into anywhere else.I feel huge joy when I am hurtling through space,on my way to somewhere else.There is nothing like it.It makes me safe,because no one can get to me,I am a moving target.

twinkle...

I have been thinking about when he used to have me sing so softly,just beside his ear,said that he liked my voice best from there,where he could feel my breath on his neck.It's those little things that make me miss him. I guess that I have some residual feelings left over from that time of my life.I know that I cannot go back.I just have to find something that makes me forget.He's gone. Sometimes it feels like he's been dead forever.

the night in my veins...

It's crawling up on morning and the sky finally cleared and the stars are so sharp, and hard, and brilliant. Sometimes I think of this time as mine,the time when the world is asleep and dreaming.It makes me think of the intersection that I lived beside in my last apartment.It was actually the second time I had lived in that building,thirteen years to the day apart.Both times the intersection drew me out of my house in the wee hours.It's a three-way crossroad that dead ends into Overton Park.It was completely deserted and nothing looked real in the light of the traffic signal.It felt like the world had been emptied out.It contrasted so deeply with the heavy traffic and bustle at any other time of the day or night.But between three thirty and four thirty in the morning,it was my private playground.I got a profound sense of peace sitting out on the sidewalk,looking up into the oak trees.In my adult life I never felt more safe than I did during that magic hour,when I had the world to myself for a little while.It's amazing how we find little pieces of the city and make them our own for a time,then drift off into a different neighborhood,and suddenly it belongs to the world again...But the magic hour,it stays with me,no matter where I am.

cold rain

This light cold rain makes me ache to sit on the porch all day writing.The rain and the quality of the light make me think of this window seat that I had when I was living on the third floor of the Lowenstein-Long house.It was this massive room with dormers,and a little window seat in am alcove.I would sit and write songs and play guitar all day in there when it was raining.I would keep the window open no matter how cold it got and wrap up in blankets.I considered it a boon that my hands were so cold that I couldn't feel my fingers aching from playing too long.I wish I could remember all the songs that I wrote.I would meet so many people in such a short time.Sometimes I would have these deep intense friendships with people that would last only a few days.My songs were always heavily influenced by the stories that they brought from all over the world.These were my early days living at the youth hostel,so I was still incredibly interested in the people who came to stay,before most of them started to blur together after I moved into my apartment over the men 's dorm.I was still on the bed and breakfast floor and felt like I was on sabbatical.I painted in the attic for a lunatic at night and spent my days that winter curled up in that little alcove playing music and dreaming.My lunatic boss would have these little soirees every night to have the hostelers drink and revel in the attic while I was painting.He liked to think of me as his minstrel or something,and would call on me to play a song for the guests.It was a very surreal existance for a while there.

On days like today,though,I miss it all.It's been fifteen years past....a good safe distance.

in there with it..

GOd in heaven,the sound of the trains at night is intoxicating.Pair it with a chill wind that tells you it will rain tomorrow,and I am a nostalgia machine.I have been working on a new painting and writing all night since I got off work and my mind is going some odd places.I guess that it's a matter of sense memory that will always grab me by the throat whenever the air holds a certain edge and the sounds of the city are seducing me.
It was this night when I was about nineteen when you could still get up on this section of the interstate that never got built,we called it the bridge to nowhere,an overpass that began and ended in massive clover patches.I was drinking blackberry brandy(which was my drink at the time) from a pint bottle and laying around in the clover with my friend Jason,who had this uncanny knack of finding 4 leaf clover.He could even find them at night.It was like he had radar.We just lay up there killing the bottle and listening to the trains and the sound of the highway that sped under the bridge.The sky was that wild purple color it gets the night before violent weather,and the clouds were racing by.I sang songs to him while we lay out with our hands to the sky,tracing the shadows between the clouds.I felt like I was singing the sky down.

and with needles and thread you can plant them deep in your chest...

I am in love with this Low song right now.Some times I feel this way,like something inside my chest can see so much clearer than my eyes.I just have to follow my intuition and instincts and just wing it with that.Half the time I see it as a blessing.

Life lately has taken on an unfamiliar taste.The Fall has come in earnest and I am trying to thermo-assimilate and it's not easy.I have decided that I am going to compartmentalize my life again.Spending time with people one on one just fosters a deeper connection between people....and my squirrelfriends are fighting again.For a while there it was nice to have everyone all together again,with my newer sisters.But it's like jazz,always hit and miss,so I go back to putting people where I can deal with them best.I love so many people.I miss so many people,But finding people that you can really talk to is hard, like cold mornings.

The East coast seems to be eating the people that I love to talk to.I miss them in a way that I cannot even describe....and that is saying something,because (given the time) I can describe anything.I will see Korbet sometime this month when she comes to town.I am hoping that Patrik comes in for the holidays. The latest in this trend is my friend Charlie.I had originally thought he would be a good Gay Boyfriend facsimile since Patrik doesn't seem like he's gonna be coming back to Memphis any time soon.He just showed up on my radar one day and I found that I could talk to him as freely as I do my Geminis (though he missed that boat by a day) But, alas, He's been swept off to Baltimore.A shame really,but I understand, more than most, the importance of adventuring and traveling while you are young. So the hunt for another Gemini is underway.

Oh. I decided to do NaBloPoMo this year.I gotta start posting in this blog more and I decided that committing myself to the blogroll will make me do it.I am taking a suggestion from them,cause it seems the thing to do.

It ask what childhood toy you you still possess.I don't have any toys from childhood.I am not generally a holder-onto-of-things.But I do have one thing that came from my childhood.It's an antique rosary ring that belonged to my great grandmother that was given to me when I was little.I cannot really remember not having it.For years it was on a leather thong that I wrapped around my tarot cards.I have managed to keep up with it,which is an accomplishment with my gypsy past(I once moved 8 times in a year).Once it was lost in the coils of a radiator for almost two years. I keep it in a box on my altar now.I still use it for prayers from time to time,but they rarely come out as Ave Marias.That is the only thing that I have from my childhood.I didn't bring much when I moved here.

So I will go and light some candles for all saints and get on with my day.