Dear Brazil

My familiarity with you stems from an 8th grade involvement with Mormon kids and their "ward" dances. Interviewing to go, because I wasn't formally, well, Mormon. I had moments alone and behind closed doors with the "Bishop", assured him I would behave appropriately and dress modestly, and having met his approval, would be able to accompany my best friend and her sister/s to dances within the church's inner gymnasium, amongst church elders. Having chosen my outfit for its both stylish and chaste features, I would embark on this sub-culture and its many puritanical and ironic policies and procedures. However, it was at one of the aforementioned dances where I met one of the most impressive 17-year-olds that 14-year-old me had ever met. He brushed bleached locks back from his eyes and I saw he was wearing eyeliner, this one feature riveted the pre-sexual prowess that pulsated in my every fiber and reverberated in the echos of The Cure swimming around my head, swimming around the church gymnasium. He spoke of Vespas and hair gel, music I'd yet to hear as we made ourselves part of the shadows along the building smoking his cigarettes, then, back inside, dancing far too closely. Later he would send me semi-nude photos, mixed tapes and endless lists of "musts", included was the Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil", which gave me the beginnings of a decade long love affair with Robert DeNiro.

Furthermore, as a miserable girl working mistakenly in advertising in San Francisco during the "dot.com.dom" I began silently screaming for personal creative freedom. I took lots of classes through the Berkeley Extension program at locations throughout the city. In the face of the internet boom I focused on graphic design, and in one such class I met Jackson Puff, the only Brazilian I've ever known I've known. Jackson showed me a glimpse of Brazil, it is the only information about your home that I, to date, have. Jackson Puff, whose name was great, and grin, infectious, was pale and small and had pointy features, I would have called him Irish, British, almost anything but Brazilian, whatever that means to me. When the class project was to convey "love" as a graphic visual, Jackson prepared a presentation board of his passion through a time lapse collage of one girl dancing on a parade float during carnival... this girl, this barely dressed, dimpled cheeked, smiling, beautiful girl, Jackson's girl, as it turned out, was radiant and sensual. Still photos mounted in a lively array and posted at the blackboard, somewhere in a classroom in South San Francisco defines my idea of your Brazil.

Yes, it is

There are those moments of clarity you experience while completely unsuspecting, caught off guard... when you haven't time to doubt it, when it just simply is. I have had one of those moments, actually several, in the past few days.

I wish there were something impartible here, some advice at how to reach out for such information, an anecdote or ironic quip, but I feel dull with its matter-of-fact nature. It just is. It just is, and if it isn't, well, it still is, because for now and in this moment it is 100% accurate. The heaviness of it weighs on my heart which beats contentedly in knowing this. It is.

death & dying

In the last few weeks my dearest friend has lost two of her family members, neither of whom could assure her they were going to a better place, neither could comfort her with whispers of love... one was her cat, and one, her grandmother, a Parkinson's sufferer, unable to speak for some time, unable to move for too long now.

My friend is of no religious persuasion, and has no particular affiliation, no particular faith, no particular belief, religiously. She is, however, pregnant, non-related. Non of this has much to do with anything except the human continuum. There is life, there is death. Death is arbitrary until it is, truly, and without option, upon you. None of this has prophetic tone, simple steps in a line, one, two, three, dead.

I stiffened sharply in my veterinarians office recently when reviewing the human to animal age chart. I got my cat when I was in college, the first time. So my cat is 14... she is virtually unchanged since reaching adulthood; she's put on a little weight, lost some teeth, but we live in Reno, it's just what you do here. Anyhow, the chart gauges your animals age, like I said mine is 14, which brought me to the stunning realization that my little vintage beastie is in her "human" eighties! 80-years-old, that is just plain old, there is older, and younger, but, even 70 has an old ring to it. I understand that 60 is the new 40 (possibly 80 is the new 60) but where is the chart to explain that in cat years?

Happy New Year, mmmmmm good!

For such a chatty mouth, I've been relatively blog mute... here's to my second degree and graduation in December, hopefully I'll be able to devote more time to lots of things I have missed and enjoy.

It seems there's so much to say, and yet, I can't shake the sheer brilliance of a situation facing me tonight. Back story: I'm from a large Italian family from the Owens Valley, California, a family that at any given time in the last 100 years has owned a majority of the share of the commerce property in our small hometown in the High Sierra (Big Pine, if your curiosity has you reeling). Resisting further tangent, my story leads us to a group project of sorts taken on by the women of our family in the early 1980's, a 100 year family reunion warranted such a project, such an heirloom for which we could all be proud... the proverbial small-town family cookbook, complete with 3 rings and card stock Pip printed covers. In 1984 I was 11-years-old and deemed old enough to be granted the opportunity to submit my favorite recipe to the book. At eleven I was unaware of the subtle plagiarism rampant in cookbook production. I thought a recipe was original and unique to the writer... a pure concoction! Little did I know that recipe simply means a way of preparation, a list of instructions... and apparently anyone is free to sign their name, or was the case in our families cookbook. Excepting that of the 11-year-old me, who thought a recipe must be achieved after several failed attempts over a hot stove, or, as was my experience in inventing my own recipe. I am happy and proud to report that I did concoct a recipe that was, if not completely original, unique to my house, and I was certain that I was its inventor: the pizza quesadilla. Before Boboli, in fact, before I enjoyed a microwave (VCR, dishwasher or washer/dryer) I enjoyed cheese quesadillas adorned with pepperoni's and pizza sauce, a recipe I thought I invented.

Which brings me to tonight, after approaching my refrigerator with the fervor of someone about to embark on a 3 day cleansing fast (as I am). Tonight, although based loosely on a meal I remember my stepfather (a Basque/Italian) making, I invented a meal, unique to me, delicious in every way (as is, I assure you, the pizza quesadilla).

old maid

It's weird being a mid-30s kinda girl... in Reno, NV.

My core group of friends live in San Francisco, where I have no interest in living, anymore. Living in SF meant 5 car break-ins in 5 months, meant my car insurance dropping me. Living in SF meant being cold all of the time, meant finding Summer happened anywhere over the bridge and vacation time could be spent in places like Pleasanton. Living in SF meant bad vibes, bad finances and bad memories... blech, basically, F-SF. Nice place to visit, visit those missed friends.

So, I'm lonely... sort of. Not entirely.

Lately I've been pressed to join the "It's Just Lunch" dating program by well-meaning friends. As I broach my 35th year I am reminded of child bearing possibilities by well-meaning female relatives. As I put on weight, stay out late, or drink too much, I am reminded of how much better I could look by a well-meaning mother.

Most of my peer group is married, many of which have successfully reached child rearing years... others have reached it rather unsuccessfully. I have some healthy plants, some struggling plants and one fairly elderly cat, whom I have reared since infancy.

So far, I call that success.
I may be quick, but, I'm not fast.

Burning The Man

I've never attended the Burning Man festival that happens 2+ hours from my home. I do admit to a strange fascination with it, but, the same kind of intrigue I have with folks who tattoo and pierce every inch of their skin... a dirty kind of interest. That is probably the biggest turn-off the festival conjures in my mind.... dirty, dirty, dirt and dirtiness. For the past several days I have witnessed through Reno a mass exodus of dust colored vehicles, strapped with dust colored bikes and driven by dust colored people. I might have already made the festival had it been held in a large meadow. However, I don't even understand the deconstructivism that The Burning Man is an icon for... what does it all mean? But, enough of the Burning Man regurgitated speculation.

What I propose is another kind of festival entirely, one I could back with 100% of my being. I propose we not just burn a man, but, burn "the man". I would love to have a camp of those of us frazzled and trampled by corporate takeover and governmental power. A festival dedicated to all that is evil and money grubbing in our society. Burning those monolithic entities so high above the rest of us, as if perched at the right hand of God and weilding his power with his consent. Haliburton, Bechtel, Philip Morris, Wal Mart and etc... I would revel in the flames engulfing the lot.

ps. I love the movie The Smartest Guys in the Room, it's the vision I have for them all.

Love Stinks, Yeah Yeah...

Tonight I performed the "Dear John" monologue in person... no fun, and never easy, because it's not easy at all to be picky and self destructive and snobby and nice and even tempered all at once, especially in the face of adversity, of any kind, really. Something about plain old honesty comes pretty easy to me, though. It is both a blessing and a curse to be unabashedly honest, especially when I meet those people like me, I do not always appreciate their "candidness"... nor do I find that my own is universally pleasing, either.

I recently had to face the possibility that I don't know what love is, and have yet to experience it. This strikes me as a complex brain twister, as I have certainly felt "in love". However, were my pangs of, often simultaneous, heart and groin palpatations purely animal passion and immature attempts at love-like behavior witnessed from countless books, magazines and movies stretched over screens everywhere across our horribly romantic western culture? I have certainly never truly felt the urge to spend "the rest of my life" with anyone whom I've spent some of my life with. And, luckily, no big mistakes, life mistakes, have been made on my watch. A little, possibly, premature heartbreak and drama... but, no scars, no visible baggage, it's possible, too, that my heart may have only been being dramatic. Is it possible that this heart has yet to know what love feels like and has only mourned for what was disguised and misguided?