When Jon Stewart announced it at the end of Indecision 2008 this evening, my heart stopped beating for a moment. And when Barack gave his speech tonight, there were tears in my eyes.
This is one of the greatest moments that I have ever lived to see. And I helped to get him elected. I can’t even express what an incredible and wonderful feeling that is.
I’m currently waiting for the tally on Prop 8, and it’s close right now, but I’m remaining hopeful that it will not pass.
When you asked if his name was associated with this address, you looked genuinely surprised when I signed for my husband’s envelope. Thank you, Random FedEx Guy, for brightening my day when you told me that I looked much too young to have a husband. You are awesome, and I hope all of your deliveries go well today. May traffic be light; may there be few potholes on the surface of the roads you travel upon, and may no unleashed dogs cross your righteous path.
Upon receiving the news that someone has less than a year to live, I find myself feeling absolutely nothing toward the situation. I have peered deeply into the darkest depths of my heart. I’ve explored every grand cliche that has ever been written about soul searching, and I’ve come away with nothing.
I am indifferent. This person is dying. As in, ceasing to live. And I am not bothered in the slightest by it.
That feels so fucking heartless, and foreign. Try as I might, I just can’t make myself feel anything. I’ve long since written off this person, in fact I had a very (very) long rant posted about him several months ago.
(That post is still in existence - btw. I removed it a while back because I was afraid that if it were to be read by the inappropriate party, it could make C’s life more difficult during her divorce. Granted, that would mean that said inappropriate party actually had half a brain and knew how to operate the internets. He can’t even check his email without having someone help. But just to err on the better side of caution, I opted to make that post private for a while. It will return soon.)
Now, I’m not jumping up and down for joy over his impending doom. I’m not ecstatic. I’m not particularly thrilled. I’m not sad. I’m not angry. I am a little gassy, but I think it’s from the dairy I had earlier.
I just do not care. And that honestly scares me a little bit - how I could completely write someone off to that point.
I’m being too much of a woman. I can feel the weight of it everywhere: in the pit of my stomach, in my chest, in my throat. It stings the delicate inner lining of my nose. It’s welling up behind my eyes.
And I have absolutely no right to feel the way I do. None. Rationally, I know it. And it makes me feel sick every single time I make that realization. I want to scream and cry and hit something soft until I feel better.
Ryan Adams and The Cardinals gave the greatest concert I’ve ever seen in my life. Hands down. I loved every second of it, even his Easy Plateau mid-song freak out. (If you’ve ever heard a live performance of that song, you’ll totally get what I’m talking about here.) Although, to me, as loud as it was and with all the reverberation it sounded like he was screaming “I really need a pencil!!!!” at the top of his lungs.
(I mean that with a lot of love, Ryan. You rock. I adore you.)
So, the concert started at 10:00. Doors opened at 9:00; we got there around 8:45 which was considerably later than we wanted. Huge ass line down the side of the building, sold out show. But I’m not complaining. Wanna know why?
Ryan walked right past us and into the parking lot that was just behind where we were standing in line before the show. No shit. Ryan Adams likes Taco Bell. So do I. Awesome.
Once we were inside the venue, we found ourselves in the center of the floor and about twenty feet from the stage. Pretty decent crowd, mostly. Couple of assholes who kept requesting Halloweenhead and 16 Days. Loudly. Ryan took it in stride and even made a couple of jokes before he politely explained why they like to choose their own set list; it sets the vibe for the whole concert, and those guys were welcome to go start their own band if they wanted to hear specific songs. At which many of us, including me, screamed and applauded. Shut those guys right the fuck up for the rest of the concert, too.
Speaking of which. The whole concert. Start to finish - 3 1/2 hours. Yes, you read that right. Toward the end, the band kinda seemed as though they were getting tired and were just waiting for Ryan to stop queuing up more songs. And just when you thought, “Okay, this is going to be the last one”, he’d play a few more chords and launch into another song. It was incredible.
His performance of Wonderwall was probably my favorite. It’s such a great live song anyway, but Saturday night’s version was fucking unreal. Beautiful. And they played four new songs, which was awesome. Go Easy (I’m assuming was the title) was great; the lyrics were amazing (as per usual for Ryan Adams).
The Fillmore poster for that concert is one of the best I’ve ever seen. I love the hell out of it. Or them, rather - Kev and I each got one so we have an extra. People are selling theirs on eBay. I want to hold on to both. Frame one for display, and keep the other safely stored. The Fillmore has the coolest concert posters ever, and they’re handed out for free as you leave the concert.
Isn’t that gorgeous???
Tom Petty was in attendance, along with the surviving members of The Grateful Dead - up in the balcony nearest to the stage. When I saw a few people finally take their seats up there just before the show started, I said to Kev, “I wonder who you have to blow to get those seats.” He lovingly replied that he’d find out and let me know for the next time we come up to San Francisco for a concert at The Fillmore.
Today’s musical YouTube offering is, of course, from Ryan Adams and The Cardinals. This is Goodnight Rose, and it’s fucking awesome. And yeah, it’s nearly eight minutes long, but I promise you it’s worthwhile to watch/listen to it all the way through with the sound turned up as loud as you can take it.
We’ll be watching Ryan Adams play live tomorrow night at The Fillmore in San Francisco. So excited. I’ve been a fan of his music for years, and we own all of his albums. And to see him at The Fillmore is an extra treat. It has a rich history of musical artists who’ve graced the stage, and it has a very intimate concert setting. It’s standing room only, with exception to a few tables along the side of the room and the balcony seats (of which there are few), but the venue capacity is 1,200. So no matter where you’re at, you’re never very far from the stage.
If you get there early enough, you can snag balcony seats (which is our goal for tomorrow night). But next best is actually toward the back of the room. It’s cooler, people are spread out a little more, plus you’re closer to the bar. When we saw Kate Nash perform a couple months back, we were right up near the stage for the first half of the concert, but migrated to the back to get a little more space.
We’re getting a hotel room for the night, and taking a cab to and from the concert. Parking around Fillmore Auditorium sucks, not even figuring in San Francisco on a Saturday night. Parking anywhere in SF is a bitch most of the time. That, and Ryan doesn’t come on until 10:00pm, so by the time we get out of there, it’ll be midnight or later, and driving back down to San Jose that late doesn’t seem very appealing.
And I’ll get to add another Fillmore concert poster to my collection! I have a goal of saving and framing my Fillmore concert posters. It just seemed like a cool thing to do. I love music. I love concerts. I love seeing shows at The Fillmore. So it all works out well, I think.
So today is the third anniversary of my radical hysterectomy. Radical, as in way cool, daddio. Okay, so maybe it was not really way cool at the time, but it was an experience, anyway.
It made me realize that I haven’t had a period in four years. July, 2004, to be exact. It was right before Jules’ 2nd birthday that we decided to have another child and on that *same* morning, we conceived. The result of a quickie before he left for work that day. I only know that for sure because we had family coming into town later that day, and they were staying with us, in our bedroom (we took the living room), for two sexless weeks; near the end of that two weeks, I peed on a fancy digital stick and got “Pregnant” as the reply.
Nine months later, I had Lore; two months after that, I had cancer. To be fair, I had cancer for most (if not all) of my pregnancy; we just didn’t know. I still can’t believe it’s been three years.
I celebrate my third Cancerfreeaversary™ tomorrow. Amazing. Two more to go and I can call myself completely cured. My check-ups are now every six months instead of every three, that makes me happy.
And life without menstrual periods? Well, that’s just fucking wonderful.
Today’s Lesson In Life™ has been brought to us by Baby Bird, the number “1″, and the letter “G”, for Gravity.
Sigh.
I knew it had to happen eventually. My “pet” mourning doves lost one of their babies today. They’re not really my pets because they live in a nest up in the rafters over my patio, butted up against the the corner of the house beneath a small area that’s sheltered by the roof. But I tend to think of them as “mine” in the sense that they essentially live in my house. Or on it. I get to watch them all the time from my living room or patio, which is nice because while I like birds, I could never own any because I refuse to cage an animal. And they’re pretty much mess-free; every round of babies that hatches (once a month or thereabouts), when they get big enough and really active in the nest they knock out droppings that need to be swept up, but it only lasts for a few days. They (all) fly away and the nest is empty for a couple of days until the parents come back to roost again.
So today I went outside to sweep the patio area around the kids’ pool because Jules wanted to swim. The leaves that fall out of the trees tend to stick to wet feet and then end up floating in the pool water because the girls step in and out of the pool often, so I try to keep the area free of debris as much as possible. I swept around the pool, and after that was done I thought I’d sweep off the rest of the patio, too. Walked around the back of their Dora The Explorer tent and saw a little, lifeless body laying on the cement.
I made the mistake of gasping loud enough for Jules to hear, and the next thing I knew she was standing next to me and looking down at the poor creature. I had just been out there not an hour before - watering my plants and putting my solar lights out in the sun to charge because some of them are in areas too shaded to get much of a charge during the day. So I knew it had happened sometime after that.
Jules actually handled it pretty well. She hugged me as she stared down at the dead baby bird. She’s had a bit of fascination with death now and again (when we caught Maurice II in the mouse trap earlier this year, for instance), and it doesn’t bother her one bit to know where the meat in her burger came from, although we’re eating a lot more vegetarian lately. My decision - not hers.
So when she asked me what happened, I told her it’s likely that the little bird accidentally fell out of the nest, or it might have been sick and the mother knocked it out herself. There was no way to know. And then I had to explain why she couldn’t keep it, and the reasons why she shouldn’t touch it. But I did let her study it for several minutes. Very much like I did with Maurice II. And when she was done, I disposed of the tiny body.
Jules and I keep glancing at the nest now and again to make sure everything is okay up there. My doves have always had two babies at a time; I can tell by the way the female is sitting in the nest that there’s still one more in it. And I know it’s probably trivial to most (they’re “just” birds in the wild, after all), but it’s still a little sad.
In other news, Jules turns six in less than a week. Six years old, geez. Kiddo’s growing up so fast. Going berserk with Hello Kitty this year. That’s her latest thing. “Mommy, I want Hello Kitty this, Hello Kitty that! Hello Kitty Hello Kitty Hello Kitty!!” So I bought her a new bedding set with Hello Kitty and strawberries all over it (she needed one, her Disney Princess set is beat all to hell now, she’s had it for two years), and I found her a matching wall clock because she’s been begging me for a Hello Kitty clock. Every time I turn around, she’s asking me for a Hello Kitty wall clock. Kiddo’s got a fascination with wall clocks.
So she’s going to have a very happy, Hello Kitty birthday.
Okay, so maybe it’s the second most fun thing ever.
I’ve always had a love for dancing, ever since I was a small girl. Never had a single lesson (my family couldn’t afford those), but I would watch television shows like Fame, Solid Gold (I *so* wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer when I grew up), and movies that featured a lot of choreographed dance. I’d mimic what I saw, and I actually picked up a lot that way. Dance always came very naturally.
In my early 20’s, I spent many a night hitting the “alternative lifestyle” clubs in Vegas - Freezone was my favorite. We’d take a cab down there around 10:00pm, and I’d spend the night on the floor dancing with anyone who’d join me. A place like that, I never had to ask for company - it just came. Before I knew it, it was 3 or 4 in the morning and the place would be nearly empty. We’d catch a cab home and sleep until noon. I never brought anyone home - it was not my intention to find someone to fuck. I only wanted to dance. (My roommate, on the other hand, was always on the prowl. We had a rule, though - we’d always go home together. If he wanted to meet up with someone after that, he would. And did. Although he had horrible taste in men.)
I haven’t gone out dancing like that since those days, but I don’t love it any less. I still dance at home, sometimes with my girls and sometimes by myself. It just feels good.
My new dance fetish? Belly dancing. It is so unbelievably fun!!! I want to do it forever. In fact, I think I might. (Yeah, picture me shaking my breasts and swaying my hips seductively at 80 years old. You know you want to.)
It’s feminine and expressive, and it physically feels *really* good. The movements come very easily (at least for me), it’s very natural. Amazing. Why had I never thought to try this before?? Just…. wow. You can do so much with it, too. It can be very slow and sensual, or spirited and wild and intense. It’s very much like sex in that respect.
I’m convinced that every woman should try it at least once. Preferably a lot more than that. There’s an element of confidence that comes with moving your body in such ways. It’s sexy, and very powerful. Exhilarating.
“She doesn’t have anything you want to steal… well, nothing you can touch.” Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink
Alright. What the fuck is up with all the cigarette spam comments? Seriously. I delete at least five spam comments per day, all trying sell me cigarettes (real ch3ap!! zomg! cheapest prices 3vr lolz!!!) online. Hooray for comment moderation queues; you never have to see that shit.
It’s kind of a shame, though. If I were still a smoker, I’d probably take them up on their numerous and kind offers.
And holy shit! I’m growing green things outside!!! Actual plants, that are *actually* alive. I’m like, stunned. Who knew it was possible?! I’m the girl who managed to kill a rubber tree plant and those things thrive on neglect. That happened while I was pregnant with Jules. When I realized it was dead, I freaked out because I was terrified by the thought that I couldn’t even keep a fucking plant alive when I was about to give birth to a living, breathing child. I was a wreck that week, lemme tell you.
(Nearly six years later, she’s still alive and well, btw. Water and sunshine, baby.)
My latest pin-up did fairly well; finished fourth in the contest. In my opinion, it’s my best illustration so far. My “style” is becoming more fixed, it just needs some refinement. You can view Nyx right here. She turned out well.
Eventually (and I know I keep saying this), I will get a gallery running again. My domain has just been renewed, so that’s taken care of. I’d be heartbroken if I lost ImagiCreation.com, it’s been my domain and my “thing” for years. Even before I bought the domain, “ImagiCreation” has been alive in some form or another for about eight years. Just need to find the time to breathe some life back into it.
C had the kids all afternoon yesterday, but before she took them I had a toenail painting party with my girls in the kitchen. Lore chose cherry red for her toes, and Jules (of course) used a bit of every color I brought out: pink, red, light purple, dark purple, blue and green. Finished her toes off with some stickers on her big toes (she loves those).
I did mine, too. Blue and purple, complete with stickers. (Yes, I have sandal tan lines on my feet. Dammit. My pristine porcelain skin is ruined!)
After they were gone, I dyed my hair. Not quite as flaming red/purple as I used to go, but for a semi-permanent dye, it’ll do.
And then I started work on another pin-up, this one for a contest a Worth. I’ve got another one that’s about 1/2 done, but it’s not one I can use for the “Mythological Figures” theme that’s up right now. One day, I’m going to have a completed series of pin-ups. I’ve really been into them lately.
Sunday was pretty much all about me. It was a nice, self-indulgent day.
