my two newest coworkers, I love.

tired of running the petite, bagless red vacuum cleaner over the same spot over and over to pick up a fraction of a dry leaf off the ikea carpet, I decided to try out one of the other vacuum cleaners hiding in the back closet. I went for the Hoover Decade80 (imagine 'Decade 80' in cool Atari font), a sharkish grey model with a sinewy blue dust bag hanging like a relaxed muscle and a long white cord reminiscent of epic walk around the house while you talk land line phone cables. now add like 30 pounds to that image and you will get my new, leaf and dust eating best friend. so long late 90's/early '00 technology, oh hello and welcome back 1980. same year my watch (a Casio calculator watch) was preset to when I pulled it out of it's shiny package. same year my other new best friend first blessed this world with his presence.

after answering all the questions that came of showing one of the renter's sound guy the equipment room (at my other job), he, new bff#2, did the unthinkable. a quick debriefing on his school status led to an unsolicited offer of free labor. not just any old volunteer, mind you, a skilled, head screwed on tight, person of quality and good humor indentured servant. egads! the universe has cracked a smile in my direction it has seemed. my jobs just got that much cooler. and easier.

hmmm. . . had my parents had the foresight to see my thoughts now in this moment and waited just one year, I would be tempted to announce to the world my new theory on how everything cool and hard working, yes including me, came into existence that year. as it were, I am forced to re-hypothesize: there was some pretty cool shit that came out of the year 1979, but it didn't end just there. in fact, there was soooo much cool shit, that 1979 couldn't even contain it all and it spilled right on into 1980. and get this 1980, bigger and better than the previous years, still wasn't enough to house all the coolness that just kept coming, building up more coolness like the past is a snowball heading down the endless time mountain of fresh snow (er, or whatever conditions are ideal for an avalanche), so it spilled into the 90's, the late 90's/early 00's and maybe because it's happening right now all the time, that we don't realize it, our backs to the wall of the coolness tsunami, but cool stuff keeps happening. and I'm only now realizing it? where oh where have I been? trapped in the land of not acknowledging awesomeness, that's for sure. so for my new besties, a hearty helping of thanks in the form of ban mi for one, dust bunnies for the other. it's the least I can do.

I have met my match

kinda. lucky for me he is like 61 and lives in Japan, so even if our paths did ever cross, I could surely out run him.
man in question is a self proclaimed HAIGA master. a haiga, for those not in the know, like me a few days ago, is basically a haiku + image. tho now that I am checking, Wiki seems to have a lot more to say on the topic. regardless, how cool is that! I love haikus, I love drawing. it seems I have found my life calling - to populate the world with non-cheesy short poems supported by equally non cheesy images. I have yet to do one, but I feel it looming in the distance.
and while I am on the topic, I think I might be caught in a lie. not a vicious one, but a subjective one. while researching haiku contests (I have a competitive streak), I discovered another form of Japanese poetry that is frighteningly similar to the HAIKU. it is called the . . .SENRYU. defined as: a poem, structurally similar to haiku, that highlights the foibles of human nature, usually in a humorous or satiric way. what? who knew? the Japanese, apparently. Something else I read online referred to SENRYUs as 'haikus with attitude.' I will leave that statement be for now.
but who is to say if a 5-7-5er qualifies as HAIKU or SENRYU? do I have to give up my HAIKU project over a formality? maybe. what I do know is that I have some more research to do. in the meanwhile, you should check out the first 100 "HAIKUs" I have on my other bloggy blog.
until next time, xo.

Village Idiom

I write (wrote) this from the comfort of my still standing home. safe, sitting in my underwear and sweater. contemplating children. not so much having them, but somehow figuring out where I fit in in the 'it takes a village' idiom, er, maxim sense.

exhibit a – on my walk to work, I glanced up once from my book to check that the kids' screaming and running was indeed fun based, my eyes taking note of random dude walking opposite direction on opposite side of the street who was also taking in the same scene. I looked back down to read a paragraph to glance up a second time as I passed the two kids to see exactly what could possibly be so fun and realized that had not their screams attracted my attention, the smell of burning would have for sure. the 2 kids (age 9?) were standing on the cement sidewalk in front of their front door around what looked to be a notebook (the paper loose leaf made of trees kind) all aflame. their gigantic smiles and laughter indicated to me that they A) were the ones to set it on fire, and B) probs no one was home. I took note of the 1/3 liquid remaining in the plastic soda bottle by the girl's feet and figured that would be enough to squelch any rouge flames and did not slow my pace down one bit. tho my brain got going. thought #1 was that I did not want to be the old fuddy duddy figure of authority ruining all the fun when things were obviously fine. thought #2: that other adult dude also walked by sans comment of concern, thereby making it permissible for me to do same. thought #3: their mom/parent/caretaker was probably inside and could see them (at least it wasn't in the house!). thought #4: what kind of community member/responsible adult walks past two kids playing with fire and says nothing? thought #5: where was I in my book?

hours have passed and I have heard no sirens. while this lays some concern to rest, I am left to contemplate what, exactly, is my role when it comes to accidental care taking. beyond the borderline negligent basics of sending out a passing hope that the neighbor kids don't burn the house down after school.

making dreams come true

a worm hole is the only explanation I can give for my grievous absence. that, and work. of both the paid and art variety. I performed at Bumbershoot! a new slide show! it was nerve wracking and awesome and a dream come true. and being the first act of the day, the green room was packed with snacks. bonus!

this is the first year in 5 years that I have not worked the event. odd, but it felt weird to be there and not be so physically exhausted and sleep deprived. but it is an odd that I can definitely get use to. I recall many a morning biking to work feeling the exact consequences of my actions: working 12+ hours days lifting stupidly large awkward things, sleeping not my preferred 7+ hours, washing, rinsing, repeating. for like 2 weeks straight. one particularly beautiful late summer morning, I, bleary eyed, tired, was stopped at a stop light on Denny and Fairview. I looked up to the billboard and as soon as I registered what it was about, I almost burst into tears. it was a freaking WA Lotto ad where a guy in a glider has strapped a chicken to his chest, to show the little fowl what it is like to fly. (ok, all I could find when I googled 'lotto ad chicken guy in glider' was the penguin version. but I think if I had seen this one, I would have totally lost it right there in the street. I love penguins.) I think it was the caption, I can't remember it off the top of my head, that pushed me over the edge. something about making dreams come true. on any other day (for reals, ANY OTHER day) I would have thought nothing more of the ad than it being super clever. but take away my sleep and suddenly I am unable to control my emoting.

so instead of an emotional breakdown, this year for Bumbershoot, I drove myself almost to the point of throwing up with nerves! ah well, it wouldn't be a festival without some type of physical or psychological strain. and yes, totally worth it. see you all next year.

all about love. kinda.

today, while dropping off a library book to the downtown library's automated drop box, I was approached by an older woman pulling an over stuffed tote. 'I don't normally do this...' was her lead for her request for money. she had bus tickets, wanted cash to buy food. I had 2 bucks. I had been thinking about taking the bus anyways. sure, I said, reaching for my money. I peeled two bills off my more then 2 dollars wad of money and pocketed the bus pass. an amicable exchange followed; she turned to leave, I turned to place my over due by one day book in the box (bell hook's 'all about love.' I loved it! I love you! read it! don't read it! I love you anyways!). also in my bag, I noticed while closing the latch, food items I did not get to at lunch today. specifically half a granola bar and one hard boiled egg. I put the egg in my pocket and walked after the lady. she hadn't gone far (stopping to offer up a barter with people as she walked slowed her down). I caught up and offered her my egg, leaving the opened granola bar to crumb around in my bag. as I handed it over, several unconcurrent thoughts ran thru my head. one - it feels good to give. I have 2 more hard boiled eggs at home. and two - the soy yogurt tupperware that housed said ova was one of my favorite tupperware pieces! it is a one of a kind and I just gave it away to a total stranger who might just throw it away and not reuse/recycle it!
this is my brain.
this is my brain trying to wrestle with the idea of attachment.
sigh, my perfect lightweight egg transporter, gone
there are enough reused soy yogurt containers for everyone. release the soy yogurt container into the universe. the universe shall provide all the soy yogurt containers you shall ever need. amen.

hair

I share a bathroom. This is not news. I live in a large house turned many little (well, mine at least) apartments. on my floor, there are three units and 2 banos down the hall for sharing purposes. (background info: the way the banos are situated, 3 units use 1, the apartment on the south side of the building uses the other one almost exclusively). there are many benefits to this: not having to clean the bathroom. ok, so that is the only one i can think of right now. but that counts for like 3 benefits. the down side, is that I have to share it. that in and of it self is not an issue as two bathrooms means rarely, if ever, having to wait for a vacancy. but it does destroy my illusion of living alone. and by destroy i mean obliterate. but only on occasion, like a land mine or a natural disaster. like the time my green wash cloth went missing. MISSING! I would leave it hanging in the bathroom for my personal use and one day it was gone. there are no other towels in there save for the drab dark green washcloth that has been there since hand towels inception, looks like. i left a kind, non passive aggressive note – more difficult than it seems! - and my washcloth was returned within 24hours. but with no explanation. no, 'oops, sorry I thought it was communal' or 'i dropped it so thought i'd wash it before returning it.' (to which i would have replied, 'oops, i thought your stomach was a target for my pointy, fast moving fist, you boundary-less freeloading user of shared bathroom!' or 'thank you, that's very sweet. can you turn your music down?' respectively.) needless to say, I was shaken by the unauthorized abduction and the subsequent return of my little green hand towel; my trust, it has been tarnished.

But the experience did nothing to prepare me for the epic hair saga that was to follow. Allow me to explain. on occasion, I would enter the bathroom at some undisclosed time after a certain someone had cut their hair. I am not opposed to haircutting, unless you are slovenly about it: short, coarse hairs clung to the now greasy with finger prints mirror, the empty towel rack resembled some kind of cyborg caterpillar, and the floor, oh the floor! it's like I walked into the beauty parlor set of some community theater mounting of steel magnolias! hair everywhere! tho, for realism sake, due to the drab color of the rug and the hardwood floors, the left behind follicles were only really noticeable tho upon closer inspection, sad to say, which is partially why it went over looked in the first place. still, not good enough excuse for whichever of the two out of three neighbors I had it narrowed down to as being the culprit.

speaking of culprits, the suspects really confounded me. I couldn't figure out who it was. one minute I was convinced it was inherently messy due to dude gene man next door or squirrelly hard to pin down but real nice when you do woman in the other next door to me. both had the same color hair. both were equally unapproachable for differing reasons, both were not me who has always been diligent with post hair cut clean up. and who in their right mind cuts their hair so much? almost as disturbing as the evidence of a sheering, was noting the frequency of it. last I had seen, both possible offenders still had a head of hair. there were no severe hair cuts or bald spots to account for it. I was baffled. and then I put the ordeal behind me and ran for more sacred ground. ie I started using the other bathroom exclusively.

days passed.

possibly weeks.

the problem persisted, to a lesser degree (partially due to my posting of a non passive aggressive note about cleaning up after hair cuts. or shaving as it turned out to be – I ran into man neighbor at On the Boards and he fessed up, generously appreciative of my self appointed neighborhood grime watch duties) (yes, I said grime watch) (but the longer hairs on the floor continued), as I noticed on my occasional 'hard to break a habit' trip to the multi multi use bathroom. and it was on one of these occasions that I had a sudden realization. mystery neighbor wasn't cutting their hair on an almost daily basis, they were losing it. dude neighbor is in his early 30's by my rough estimate. he didn't turn our bathroom into barbershop. he was balding. suddenly, the world made a little more sense. and this dense weave of a bathroom drama suddenly fell away in the face of simple biology. still, thought the neat freak as she wiped her feet after visiting the restroom she had all but given hope on, he could at least age responsibly.

what have I been up to?

1. not writing haikus.

I have been working on a 17 part collage self portrait-ish using photos my gramma took at christmas this past year. my room has been transformed into some kind of cut out paper scrap recycling factory. I showed up to yoga yesterday with bits of scrap paper stuck to the bottom of each of my feet.

2. dressing up like a blurry penguin and running thru the woods. see photo.

who knew that trail running could be so freaking awesome? I ran 5 miles the other weekend on a whim and (brag in 3...2...1...) came in 4th of the women in my age group. (I'm 31, for the record.) I got another one this weekend somewheres in issaqua. might have to bust out the little red shorts for that one.

3. learning to ask for what I want.

I have been going to acupuncture at this one particular place since september. she is good at what she does. she has a black belt in some martial arts and while it has no apparent relevance or influence on her knowledge and practice of oriental medicine, it sometimes feels like she's trying to karate chop my spine with her post puncture massagey rubdown. I had come to kind of dread that portion of my rehabilitation and daydreamed the day when my back and insurance declared me free and clear, relieving me of this now once every three weeks torture. today I was feeling a little more tired/sensitive than usual, my practitioner, a little more peppy than usual. at some point, whilst enduring muscular manipulation, the point in my glute a few inches below my hip bone to be exact, I kinda wanted to cry. my feeble moans provoked a friendly, 'lemme know if you want me to ease up' from my tormentor to which I quickly replied 'yes, could you ease up?' a wash of relief passed over me. 'yeah I'm a little heavy handed,' she laughingly confessed. 'I've been meaning to ask you that for months,' went my unsaid reply. it's like because it's good for me I didn't want to say anything, thinking that my chi wouldn't be activated without the 150 psi handy work. sigh. so as it stands, I have, lying prostrate, grined and beared 11 months minus half a session of unnecessary healing brutality. and to show for it? a lesson to last me a lifetime. or at the very least, the rest of my acupuncture sessions.