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AussieAri's weblog
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last modified Dec 22, 2001 at 22:31
21 People Revealed released today.
Futch? Ok, so it’s probably a personal joke kind of things from the person I heard it from, or it’s equally likely that I just haven’t heard of it cuz I ain’t hip. It means when someone inherently femme dresses or puts on a butch demeanor. E.g.: Waitresses wearing their not so flattering waitress uniforms, female swat team members.
So does this make me Bemme? What a dumb word.
things I want in Austin and have here:
love
my cats
a home of our own
my motorcycle
Gongyo
Farmer’s Markets/local food
Roller derby
Friends who come to my dinner parties
Literature/Comics (even just reading them)
BJJ/other martial arts
My plants
Wilderness to hike/explore
Working Out (preferably some buddies to do this with)
Circus
Drag kings
Live music
Local oddities and curiosities
A great place to dance/be social
Local independent newspaper(s)
things I want in Austin and don’t have here:
rural living
a routine
a vegetable garden (fall and spring, maybe even mushrooms)
chickens
compost (maybe even human compost)
Maybe an enclosed workshop area
Warmer god damn weather
No drought
More young people
More activism
I got the bike back from the shop yesterday so I wouldn’t have to continue paying daily storage fees. It drives find but it feels wonky because the levers and handlebar are all warped. Very fixable. I’m still thrilled to have it back with me and see that it’s running. Even if it did just snow last night and today...
Team Gina played Backroads this Friday. Unlike most SF acts, they started on time. Choice line of the evening: “Uh, huh, you know what I like? The rough strong hands of a big butch dyke” They’re probably the most accessible band I’ve seen in Santa Fe in ages. They hung out afterwards and ate some pizza, talked with people. Afterwards I went to the local alternative dance party, Bent. I haven’t seen that kind of a mix of people shaking and enjoying themselves since the Paramount days. DJ Loco was on as usual and DJ Miss Ginger actually had it going without putting on that dance floor clearing soul funk. Frikkin’ fabulous.
I met someone named…ok…I’m not going to say it so as not to offend but I’ve met so many dykes in this town who have taken the name of various unattractive inanimate object. WTF? Examples of a good name: Hotrod. Example of a bad name: Stump. See what I mean? Anyway. The same could almost be said for the string of dance parties in this town: Lava Lips, Elixer, U-Haul, Bent. Sigh. With the exception of ‘Flirt’ these are all pretty ridiculous yet predictable names. Why don’t you just call it a night and say it’s hot?
Flexion was this weekend. It’s a performance by local artists on stilts and a 30 foot tress. Who would have thought of mixing the two? An aussie of course. It was very good, mesmerizing. It was like the love child of Mad Max and Cirque Du Soleil (what else do you expect from an aussie?). In fact, I really think there should be an actually love child from those two productions. Just like Morrissey and David Byrne should do an album.
I notice I get completely distracts me from the overall impression of such performances, from being swept up in what they are attempting to evoke because I single out the performers who are doing what I find most interesting and try to analyze exactly how they are doing their tricks and moves. Oh well. I’m no natural echo but I’d obviously like to be.
Also? Sunday to ABQ. Ate about 2 pounds of meat over 2 ½ hours at Tucanos. I even ended up getting a free desert! Oh my god I love that place <drool>. Complete stomach distension. Which was great for when we went to Buffalo Exchange to try and find Churl a pair of docs (she did find a sweet pair). I got distracted by a very puffy rabbit fur coat. Mmmm fur. In the end I got me some dress/button down shirts. The best of my lot is a 3/4 sleeve organic cotton rainbow country shirt, women's cut with little metal skull buttons. I’ve decided to wear less t-shirts and more of these type of shirts. Let’s face it- they look better and last longer. This does not mean, of course, I am getting rid of my undershirts.
Ah cramps. All I need to thwart you is a small dose of codeine. Otherwise? I’m in excruciating pass-out kinda pain. And because I’m on codeine? I’m happy go lucky, relaxed and couldn’t get upset if I tried. Downright pleasant- This is the sort of mood you want to be in when talking to family members.
I am reminded once again if I were a drugie my drug of choice would be any opiate.
Right now XTC’s River of Orchids is playing. It sounds amazing.
One of my friends thought it absurd I would be spending the next decade or so in one place. She contended that I had moved my whole life, never spent more than 4 years in one place, and certainly never consecutively.
I remember a guy who’s house I stayed at in Amarillo when headed back to Santa Fe on my bike. He had a great technical and artistic knowledge of photography, was non-pretentious, and laid back. When I asked him about living in Amarillo modestly in light of all his travels and photos from off the beaten track he said as long as he gets to go away for a month or two every year, he doesn’t care that he lives in a bland and boring place like Amarillo. He had people he cared about there, he’d made a home. But he sure as hell made sure he left it each year.
Oh Kazuo Koike I loved you before- Lone Wolf and Cub, Lady Snowblood, Samurai Executioner…the list goes on…but now that I’ve read Crying Freeman Vol 3 I am completely won over. He wrote about that mystery to me since childhood, The Walled City! Holey Shit!
"Sex is not an all you can eat buffet." - Churl
Woken at 5 am by kitty. Said fuck it and 5:30. Did three comics. Went back to bed at 8:30 to find it had been wee-ed on. Fixed it. Went to sleep on guest bed. Still terrorized by kitten. Kitten knocks down cactus from window sill above guest bed INTO bed. I am woken by kicking said cactus. Also, hairballs that almost left a stain. Good god. I’d forgotten what it was like to have a kitten after 14 years. She’s a determined little bugger that doesn’t understand ‘no’ (because she’s a frikkin’ Bengal right?).
My little kitty is a wild cat! Oh god the kitten proofing I must do- plants, desk, shjambok, sling, bowstring, laundry to name a few. She just took a play bat at Percy- she’s getting more comfortable with him by the day. I snapped these few stills of her but it proved too hard to get a non-blurry picture so I just took a video.
Hum. Jesusinahgstring. She’s currently trying to devastate my bedroom plant/climb all over my work desk and mewing all the while.
It may be very hard for me to get art stuff done at home now.
“Oh kitty, you’re going to really like it at Ari’s. It’s warm and soft there and she’ll feed you and love you. …And sometimes change your litter box.” – Cheryl to the new cat.
Shut up and listen to this story. Why should you listen? Because I am the only person I have been able to find who knows it. I am the only who bothered to ask, got him to talk, and listen.
He came to Santa Fe in the 80’s before a single international organization or multi million dollar art gallery had touched it. Apparently just headed out west and felt good about the place. Where he had come from? His family’s hog farm outside of Cleveland. The profits grew fatter and fatter like the hogs but like the hogs, most of the work was as heavy as they were. He was always skinny, even before he started doing his Albuquerque to Santa Fe and other momentous bicycle rides. This whole hog business had been promised to him and he worked day after day like a dog for it, lived and eating with his family. In his prime his mother died. His father grew ill. He tried to manage the place on his own, but once his father had to be put into a care home, chronically sick, and remained in that state for what could have been another life time, 20 years, the profits, everything from the farm were swallowed up in his long decline. He speaks of it almost as if his father, one tough son of a bitch, held on to life for the sake of spite. So he left it all. Threw it over his shoulder like so much slop. When R Crumb draws skinny older negro blues men, that’s what he looks like.
I got a kitty for Percy. She's 8 months, a bengal/tabby mix. Beeeaautiful. Her name at the moment is Tella but we'll see if something better comes up. She is getting use to Percy- still hissing at him when he comes close. He weathers all this well, doesn't flinch or act back. He just wants to be friends. He only reacts to her attacking his tail- he really hates having the tip of his tale fiddled with and shies away.
I must get an appropriate scratching thing and assorted kitty toys. I also realized how much i will have to kitten proof my house.
Otherwise? After over a year of compiling, begging, threatening, and down right stalking, I got the final page for the 21 People Revealed comic. Oh....My....God. I think i wet myself! Actually- that may just be my hangover. Jamie and Jill came over for a drink last night. Jamie and i proceeded to get drunk. In my alcohol addled brain I don't even f'ing remember. My hangover is so bad it hurts to type. This is also why i am not posting new pictures of the fabulous kitty or my comics. Do hangovers ever make you emotional? I watched Cabaret this morning and cried three times. I never cry at movies. The only reason i am in public is because someone called in a favor. That and the idea that i might one day have to sit down an' tell their child that because i did not overnight birth control to their mother on holies visiting gran, i am responsible for the conception.
I need more Kombutcha, some soft meat, and chocolate dipped orange peels.
Sandeep and I went to Shidoni. It was my first time walking around the grounds. We stopped to admire the glass for sale in the shop and watched a little while as a woman blew. At some point during this a cat we had met on the path around the statue garden crept along the open space between the wall and the roof that overhung it, ventilation for all the kilns that line that wall and the inevitable heat even in winter. On the tall chalkboard in an upper corner was this:
NOTE TO SELF: do not do drugs before blowing.
boyskout
the be good tanyas
Person A is going out with person B. Person A has mentioned she was going out with a ‘B’. Other people have confirmed that person A is, in fact, going out with someone named ‘B’. But, you know. There are a lot of ‘B’s in the world so despite the obvious simple answer that the ‘B’ is actually a ‘B’ I know and have seen in conjunction with A, instead of some mysterious other ‘B’, my little head is telling me that because of gender, age, and life stages, it can not possible be THAT ‘B’ that A is dating. That is not THE B. It can not B.
Damn my head is prejudiced sometimes.
The first relationship I ever had was with someone who has to be hospitalized and get medical help for their mental illness.
After that, looking back on all the girls I’ve ever dated seriously they have ALL at one time or another (though not when with me) faced their own personal demons, seriously questioned their own sanity, and looked at the substance of their souls. Maybe I’ve only done this vicariously, seen what it is like to have a mental disorder and to live with it, to get better, to reforge yourself, but it has become something crucial when i pick a partner. Why?
Because I don’t what someone who does not know what they are capable of. What possibilities are lurking around their dark blind corners, those who don’t know what rock bottom feels like, who don’t know their own strength. I don’t want someone who will one day think ‘Good god, I don’t know myself.’ instead of ‘Good god, am I doing the right thing with my life?’ The later is acceptable- bourgeois at worst. I’ll take it any day.
The major flaw in this house’s design is that the two bedrooms of the two apartments share a wall. The boys who share their lives together in the casita beside mine also share a place of employment together as bartenders. They stay up late. For the first time ever I am hearing furniture groaning from their bedroom. The boys also seem to have a third guest friend staying with them. The groaning is interspersed with insistant monologue. I dunno, maybe they’re just watching movies, maybe they’re shooting porn.
I settled on my motorcycle today. Salvage title because of the cosmetics costing more than the bike. The principals of how insurance works are one thing that’s ruining this world. I think I’ll be able to replace most of the parts by scrounging scrap shops and e-bay, then working on them myself, to have enough cash left over to add a few little bling bling bits. Nothing big- I like the shape and performance of the bike as is but chrome, well, it’s hard to know when enough chrome is enough.
I worry about my cat. I wised cats lived longer. I wish there were some other species on this plant that could actually compete with humans- put us in our place on this earth with the rest of the environment. Of course there isn’t a single species violent or ruthless enough to do so even if there are bigger and stronger animals.
I also worry about the details of my apprenticeship, in part due to restlessness. I begin to second guess how much my efforts, the impression I left- how far that could take me. If I can actually swing this all into place. Ah inertia. I want this. I want it because I have continued to want it for a long time, because it never bores me to think about, because I end up thinking about it a lot, and because I think it’s the last shot at a real career for myself before I throw away the stable paycheck gained from singular employment and forfit a solid answer to the question ‘what do you do for a living?’. I mean come on, my resume read like I’m a 6 year olds imaginary future self of ‘what I want to be when I grow up’. Ah yeah, I am only 23, true, but when I was 16 I wished I was out in the world figuring out things for myself instead of being stuck in a heard of indoctrination at school. I don’t fear not being able to do something. I never have; I’ve always been capable. I fear running it through and finding the spark that ignited my interest is dead on the other side of skill. Finding out that the shoot is not happy and beneath it, its soil is not healthy. I suppose I should also admit that after last year, I’d sort of like a few years of consistency and stability- even flow, progress, some peace. Mmm. And warmer weather.
Pre-Prohibition goodies
Read Five, Local Mag.
Handsome Family, Band.
Pueblo Balloon, Hot Air Baloon Tours.
Taos Photography, Photo Gallery.
Jimmy Stadler, Band.
Inferno, Book.
Been making 3x2 autobiographical comics like crazy all week. Scanned them but need to finish resizing, adjusting colour, then will post to my pic page.
T.I.A.I.L.W.: Annamirl
Jason Shiga
1) Go to Staple! Independent Media Expo on March 3rd at the Red Oak Ballroom, Austin, TX.
2) Find Jason Degroot of Repercussion Comics.
3) Tell him Bram and Monica sent me.
4) Get the glorious Austin comic hook-up.
5) Then, go see Reckless Kelly live.
Tiny Animals On Finger
Link thanks to Maia.
New Years
Totally stages but kinda dreamy.
Spiderman the grammarian
Did you know that Nazi soldiers were all hopped up on meth?
Social bookmark butterfly
Control-alt-delete.org
The Cradle Project
This guy does good art in SF.
Get Better, Try Harder- list 43 things.
icon kitty motorcycle gear for women. Mm Hum.
Annnnd…. T.I.A.I.L.W.: Josephine Baker
Howard Cook
MVSEVM- David Beck
Looking For The Mountain- Pat Steir
Electronic Superhighway Continental U.S. Alaska, Hawaii- Nam June Paik
After playing some pool at Exhale and getting fed up that the DJ had an utterly abhorrent play list for dancing we headed to the Pulse. Then we all got kicked out of Pulse. To be specific, Churl was resting horizontally on one of their many upholstered little booths lining the walls. She was not sleeping but resting with her eyes closed. The security guard just told her she had to leave, no explanations, in the classic guard en guard egoism style. This is funny because about a minute before I had gone over to her, asked her if she was ok and told her to tell security that when they come over to kick her out. I thought she might need help as the bouncer tailed her like a big fat blowfly to the door. Of course she did not. She was really doing quite a good job of verbally informing the guard he was (a total knob) mistaken. Sandeep was also helping her out with this. He’s had a lot of problems with the club too. And me? Fuck- I go there to dance and nothing else. I really do like their music and the number of people dancing. I don't like anything else there- people doing coke in the bathroom, the meat market of it all, the casual disregard the patrons have for each other, drinks in plastic cups, crappy bar service, a filthy floor, the gogo dancers. Whatever- you can take it all. Eh, their resident drag queen is cool though.
Phrases from the evening with was otherwise a grand time:
“A cat in the ass is worth two in the bush.” - churl
“...gonorrheused whores.” - me
and Sandeep's new fav. phrase, 'Cut a bitch!'
I just read the first few pages of Brad Leithauser’s intro to the new English edition of Haldor Laxness’ Independent People. It got me thinking of the book that is the story of my life. I’m thinking of why of all the great literature I’ve read and all the people who wouldn’t consider it great why it is to me.
I am not a fan girl. I really am not. I’ve felt awe and admiration for many great authors and have even met some of them. Of course there are the run of the mill stupid things you invariable end up saying at first, ‘Gee, I like your work.’, but I’ve always managed to recover myself from such initial trifling. Besides, I always remember the flaws of their pieces, or the flaws of their person and they do not endear themselves to me the more because of them. I’m telling you all this so that maybe it makes more sense that when I say I’m a fan girl for Jeanette Winterson.
I am. I’m stupid for her stuff, preoccupied most of the time when I think about literature I love and obsessive at worst. By the way, it’s not just the one book that is the story of my life, but when I read her books together it seems like the stage, the tone, the setting of each (for they each correspond to something evolving in her life) expresses clearly the deeper movements in my times. I did not discover her books in the order they were published. It doesn’t seem to matter though. There are some I love more than others and the weaknesses in those I don’t love as much I treasure. You see? I love them all.
No I never did fuck for pots and pans and I never have been in love with a man. I wasn’t raised by evangelical parents and I’ve never run away from home or been disowned. I’ve not yet had a career and I am as young as she was when she first published. Again, I do really feel that’s not what matters though- and that’s what is at the heart of her books.
Yeah, so, you reckon I should send her some words better than, ‘Golly, I love your stuff.’
How important is it to be able to reinvent yourself? Is that the newest and last freedom we have in this world?
To tell someone who does not know you your history in such a way that it is not exactly your history, or at least what your history used to be and to mean to you. I dunno. I guess if you can believe in it right?
The only crotch rockets I would ever EVER ride.
L.P. wrote 'Suburban Sprawl and Alcohol' and who's show i missed when she did play Santa Fe. Only just made the connection that she's the same person.
And Cheese On Bread who sings true with "Where have all the cowboys gone? They're off sucking cock and it's makin' me yawn."
Six months and last night in a dream I still expected her to be on the other end of the telephone, I reminded myself to tell her something, something that she would have liked to hear. Six months and in my dream I said to myself, “Six months! All that you’ve done since and have plans to do, and it still hasn’t sunk in.”
Other than that a good dream. Walking up a hill that looked like it might be a chic shopping district in London. Still warm enough to get away with wearing a sweater and there’s no black ice on the cobblestones for my feet to slide upon. People greeted each other as they opened shop doors that let out heat and delicious smells. Everything decorated but not a single gaudy Santa Clause in sight. I turned around to head back to whoever I was visiting- a grandparent who’s died. I see my cat Percy wandering about in a lime green collar- actually one of those wrist bands that Reagan gave me, it says ‘joy’. I scoop him up. What the hell was he doing wandering about town?! I continue back, see Velvet (Percy’s now dead companion) sniffing something in a hole in the sidewalk with trepidation. She’s wearing the other wrist band that’s pink and says ‘faith’. After she gives a frightened self conscious meow I scoop her up on my other shoulder. I can see the bay of the city as we walk down the hill, crisp and not over busy. I walk past a duo of cops, the 30ish blond female of which stops me for the sole purpose of hitting on me as she inquired about my cats. Her partner doesn’t seem too amused.
Yeah if only Christmas was like that. I’ve been in and out (but mostly in) a funk these past weeks. You can make fun of just about ever other holiday but not Christmas. Christmas ‘trick or treating’ instead of caroling is fun but it’s not that successfully. Seems like there’s no way around it and no way to avoid it. Everyone is so hell bent on celebrating this bitch.
Next year I resolve to not actually buy anything for anyone but instead to make it, if I’m going to give gifts. Otherwise, just want to spend time with people I love. That’s the point that’s become vague right? Christmas was downright magical when I was a child. Tree decorating, blinking lights and candles, leaning how to sing and play carols, getting to talk to Santa and his elves, the little customs like mistletoe, milk and cookies for Santa, holiday gatherings with other children, holiday deserts, Christmas dinner smells and the sheer excitement of presents in the morning. I can’t seem to find any real interest or enthrallment in any of that anymore. I guess the heart of this is at this stage in life I know what it is really want and need exclusive from all else and they are all far away or gone.
Lawyer
Park ranger
Fire outlook
Drag king
Slam poet
Marine biologist
Biologist
Sailor
Architect
Engineer
Consultant
Web programmer
Comp hardware specialist
Jeweler
Inker
FBI agent
CIA spy
Paleontologist
Sommelier/Brewster
Geologist
Anthropologist
Police officer
Mechanic
Pastry chef
Foreign affairs Journalist
Landscaper
Model/Actress
Since Churl's car was stuck in a ditch she rented and Impala and we desperately headed to ABQ with Jamie. It was the heaviest fog I’ve ever seen here and by far the more extraordinary weather for New Mexico. It was hard to tell that we’d actually gone anywhere.
After some ‘whore dwerves’ at Sandeep’s with his family we headed for the new years burlesque at the Atomic Cantina only to find it canceled. Where to go next? Exhale! Who do we find there? Jess and her friend Natalie!
The joy that some holiday was actually going right and in a somewhat traditional sense!
I was surrounded by friends, good food, dancing in an accepting environment in public and wearing the suit I wore to the burial. I hadn’t been able to put it on since. At 12:15 I turned to Jess on the dance floor and said “my mother died exactly six months ago” and hugging me, she knew exactly what it meant.
Later? More drunkenness at Sandeep’s house, mistaking incense for fire works, attempting to set off the lamest fireworks I’ve ever seen in the snow, drunk dialing churl’s friends and leaving lengthy silly messages, and growing drunk ball to call the old girlfriend to tell her how I felt about us not having talked in over 6 months. We ended up getting back into Santa Fe at 4 am.
Damn. I feel so optimistic about 2007 it’s ridiculous. Things feel right; even the things that will be difficult. If this past year has taught me anything it’s that I know who I am and I have the strength to survive.
Lea Delaria at the Lensic! YES!
oh and these gals too who i've never heard of but get props for titling and album, 'My Breast Are Out Of Control'
T.I.A.I.L.W.: Clownsnack of the TXRD Hellcats.
Yes I’ve been watching Season 1 of Rollergirls.
...What the hell's a 'clown snack' anyway?
The comic gang is headed to Phoenix Cactus Con again.
Pray Ganesh i have something to send with them!
B.T.W. Here are some photos from the last 24 hour comic day. I was 'working' the counter at the comic shop then. Actually all you'll see me doing is trying to scarf a whole tray of sopapillas and drawing.
La Boca:
They actually call it a Crème Cataline and bill it as a Spanish custard. It is lighter since its more custard like but since it has caramelized sugar on top I’ll take it as a sort of crème brulee. This one is well flavored with saffron and cardamom. Mmm.
Jinja:
I said previously they had my fav. crème brulee in town. I found out they actually rotate the flavor of their crème brulee regularly. This time I went it was mango and ginger. I still think the green tea and ginger was the best combo.
Pasqualls:
Has a crème brulee about once a fortnight- they change up the desert menu daily.
The Anasazi Inn Restaurant:
Supposed to be a bourbon vanilla crème brulee. It comes with a...um..well a moist muffin, and a loose cranberry compte (not actually that great a balance between the honey sauce and the cranberries) with raspberry sauce drizzled over the plate (yum). Probably the best balance of crème and egg in town. You can’t taste the bourbon. The only problem I had was that they burnt the sugar in the center of the pot making a large portion of the desert unpalitable.
Since the closing of Route 66 Sandwich Co. and the dramatic drop in Quality at the Brooklyn Deli I’ve been lamenting not being able to get a traditional Boar’s Head, big arse, not so expensive sandwich in town. True there are other places in town with good sandwiches but not a classic deli sandwich like that. Well thanks to Jill who I’m sure could sniff out a good NY style deli sandwich anywhere I found a perfect replacement.
The Marketplace! A half sandwich is about the size of my hands put together into two ‘c’s and stuffed about 1 ½” thick with good stuff. What’s it cost? $3.75 Lord almighty!
And for the record, the best burger in town is at Bobcat Bite. Forget The Cowgirl, Dave’s Not Here, and Rio Chama. Bah! They have not organic top quality meat and an old slow cooker to stick it in!
There’s been some debate and now I am in a quandary. I’d always said my eyes were green but recently when the topic came up people have been saying blue and those who don’t believe that green eyes exist say hazel.
Help me out people! What colour ARE my eyes? Blue, green or hazel?
The only thing that gets me through the rest of winter is knowing the fact that after Winter Solstice the days will only become longer. Just a few minutes a day more of sun is good enough for me.
I also now know why winter here tends to depress me so much. My life style has to completely change and I have nothing much or equivalent to replace it with. What can I say? Never learnt what the fuck to do with a real winter and I’m still not sure why people put up with them.
I love how the dykes here get around having very femmy given names. Par example:
Jennifer = Jeff
Jacquile = Jax
Marie = Murry
And let’s not forget yours truly.
Ariadne = Ari
It’s been about three weeks since that computer fiasco. It looks like I’ve actually lost all my old pictures and oh yeah- the new comic scripts I was working on. I’ve lost that amount of work once before- I’ve even had a break down over it. You know what though? It’s about the least of my loses from last year so really, I’m not as upset as perhaps I should or could be.
What a frikkin’ blizzard. You people on the east coast have it easy right now you hear me! EASY!
After getting that emergency lift and calling the guy an angel (I don’t even believe in angels!) I had prepared myself to open the door to my apartment and find my cat barely alive or worse, dead, after not receiving his insulin or food for over 24 hours. Remember he was so sick I’d had to hand feed him until just the day before the storm hit. I open the door and up bounces Percy, mewing and excited to see me. He’s better than I’ve seen him in months. His nose is clear as a bell and his glucose is stable. He’s happy even though I can’t possibly give him all the attention he desires, even if I stay at home all day.
When Holly asked me what I wanted for x-mas I joked I wanted my magna motorcycle fixed and my cat to not be sick anymore. This was the best x-mas present ever. Of course his recovery means all his bad habits are back. I’m thinking about getting him a kitten again.
T.I.A.I.L.W.: Chiyoko from the Akira Manga. Who you callin’ a COW boy?
Six months and last night in a dream I still expected her to be on the other end of the telephone, I reminded myself to tell her something, something that she would have liked to hear. Six months and in my dream I said to myself, “Six months! All that you’ve done since and have plans to do, and it still hasn’t sunk in.”
Other than that a good dream. Walking up a hill that looked like it might be a chic shopping district in London. Still warm enough to get away with wearing a sweater and there’s no black ice on the cobblestones for my feet to slide upon. People greeted each other as they opened shop doors that let out heat and delicious smells. Everything decorated but not a single gaudy santa clause in sight. I turned around to head back to whoever I was visiting- a grandparent who’s died. I see my cat percy wandering about in a lime green collar- actually one of those wrist bands that reagan gave me, it says ‘joy’. I scoop him up. What the hell was he doing wandering about town?! I continue back, see velvet (percy’s now dead companion) sniffing something in a hole in the sidewalk with trepidation. She’s wearing the other band, pink and says ‘faith’. After she gives a frightened self conscious meow I scoop her up on my other shoulder. I can see the bay of the city as we walk down the hill, crisp and not over busy. I walk past a duo of cops, the 30ish blond female of which stops me for the sole purpose of hitting on me as she inquired about my cats. Her partner doesn’t seem to amused.
Yeah if only Christmas was like that. I’ve been in and out (but mostly in) a funk these past weeks. You can make fun of just about ever other holiday but not Christmas. Christmas ‘trick or treating’ instead of caroling is fun but it’s not that successfully. Seems like there’s no way around it and no way to avoid it. Everyone is so hell bent on celebrating this bitch.
Next year I resolve to not actually buy anything for anyone but instead to make it, if I’m going to give gifts. Otherwise, just want to spend time with people I love. That’s the point that’s become vague right? I guess the heart of this is just that those I love are far away or gone.
wow. I affect a more Australian accent when talking with my aussie relatives. I can’t aspire to the levels of accent that they have (and they’re not even the bush grade sort of ‘Aaaayh’ that’s going to hit you like a tank rolling over) but I still feel self conscious of my obviously NOT complete Australian accent when talking with them.
Here is my proposal for the sustained mental and emotional well being of all NYC and surrounding borough residents:
Whipping Boys.
Think about it. Whipping Boys, Sin Eaters, and Scapegoats, on every major corner. This is a truly visceral thing that engages one’s intentions. It ain’t no video game folks. The rage level of all citizens would drop dramatically if NYC were to institute this custom of yore. If people can put the distaste and anger for their fellow humans upon one sole person- as a container that drains it- by the single act of publicly accepted corporal punishment, well think of the positive results to their psyche.
There could be a small fee and the Whipping Boys could also receive an hourly wage. The Whipping Boys could also chose which instruments will be used upon them and for how long. Hell let’s even give em’ a union.
Now maybe human rights activists would have problems with these Whipping Boys, wanting to save the poor souls who waiver their physical comfort for a living. I can even foresee people within the BDSM community not condoning these actions as malicious and not within the parameters of safe/sane/consensual- but look- they’re conscripted not subjugated. You KNOW there are PLENTY of people in NYC who would be more than willing Whipping Boys.
Headed up to the Espanola Wildlife Center with Jill. Met all sorts of birds of pray- bald eagle, pygmy owls, horned owls, golden eagle, red tail hawks, peregrine falcons and an osprey who’s apparently had her brains a little scrambled since she hit an electric fence. Her name’s Electra. There were a bunch of other I can’t recall the type of. How is it that I remember animals given names more than I do humans?
I fed and did some physical therapy with two porwills and a closely related night__. There guys were Jill’s favorite- they’re like the three stooges the way they perch and certainly the way the puff and wobble from side to side when they don’t want to eat or don’t want to be moved. Hilarious. You can see them going ‘Nyuck Nyuk Nyuk!’ They were very gentle, personable and personality filled birds.
Best of all was playing with the baby bobcat called Joanie. Her mother spontaneously gave birth to her and a sister after being shot by a farmer. She was the one that survived. They plan to use her as an ed animal. Wow does she need a playmate and/or constant attention to her play needs. I realize now that having worked at IEFS I absolutely have my foot in the door any time I’d like to put it there when it comes to wild cats and certain other wild animals. This is so even without the combined general laid back and trusting style that pervades NM.
At this point the bobcat is still a kitten but you can not play with her like a kitten using yourself as a toy. She’s just too strong and it’s a bad habit that will become dangerous later. Such a loud purr, so full of literal bounce off the walls energy. She seemed larger than the bobs we had at the sanctuary. Judging by her paws, she’ll be bigger than our largest. Her winter coat is so lush and soft compared to the bobs we had. I’ll have to look into regional differences in Bobcats. That or the fact almost all of ours were rescues may account for the differences in coat and size.
I also got to meet gray foxes for the first time ever. I’d seem foxes in Oz but never gotten up close to them. They’re considered incredibly undesirable vermin there and guys will go out on fox shoots at night just to try to keep the numbers down. Anyway- I really like them. Jill called to them, Weasel and Velcro, and they woke up like two little inquisitive alert darts ranging around the cage before finally coming to give us lots of kisses. I was struck by how the entirety of their body is focused towards the front. Their stance as they’re moving is always composed of a downwards sloping line from their hips right to the tip of their nose. This doesn’t make their step jerky at all; they’re absolutely stream lined. One showed its dominance after a while and tried to keep the other from getting our direct attention with growls and other forceful sounds directed at her.
There was another fox in the ICU that had had a big tumor removed from its foreleg. He’d been semi adopted by some people that have rural land. He seemed somewhat sad and cautious in his kennel.
The only undesirable work I had to do that day was help clean out about 20 feeder rat cages. Phew. The sulfur of the urine was making my eyes sting. With the cold the rat births are low or they’re being eaten. See rats are great moms if they don’t eat you first. After being in charge of the rodent section and doing this just about every day at a pet store for peanuts one summer it wasn’t so bad to do it again. Hell- if that’s what I do in a day that I play with a bobcat that’s fine with me.
And a funny quote of the day that made me feel right at home with what I was doing?
Over discussing X-mas Dinner: “You’re a cat lady- you can’t be a vegetarian.”, said one of the ICU Staff as she handed me a hunk of elk and a half a quail to feed Joanie.
Australia's version of a Pussy Willow, scroll down. (Yes we’re fucking savages.)
Also, motorcycle tours of the bush? Sounds interesting.
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