my rite to party

the morning before I left idaho to return home to LA, I was enjoying a delicious breakfast prepared by my lovely sister and her lovely boyfriend. halfway through the meal, my lovely mother quickly got up from the table and returned holding one bright pink birthday candle. she lit the candle and stuck it into a rosemary breakfast potato sitting on my half-finished plate. my family sang me happy birthday while we all laughed at this loving gesture. I made a wish and blew out the candle exactly one week before my birthday.

tomorrow is the last day of my 28th year. it feels monumental. many a birthdays have passed without me giving them much thought. but this one is different. this is the kind where I feel impelled to shave my head or climb a mountain or buy a really nice bottle of whiskey aged exactly as many years as me. I find myself craving a campfire wreathed in the smiles of my loved ones. an island getaway. a big dance party where everyone dresses up as their hero. a poolside lounge at a desert nudist colony. shit, I don't know? something special. I think the point is my desire for the ritual. fighting for my rite of passage to party. a ceremony of sorts to celebrate who I've become, because quite frankly, for the first time in a long time, I am really proud of me. I've worked hard for that feeling and I want to embrace it while it's here, sing it a song, take a picture of it to hang on my wall. I'm not sure yet what exactly I am going to do on the 30th, but something tells me it is only the beginning of what is going to be a celebratory year (and life to come). 

we all daho

sometimes you sit on a boat, budweiser tallboy in hand, laughing with your family, watching the sunset and you think to yourself, "boy howdy, I am lucky." then you remember luck has nothing to do with it. you deserve all the blessed moments you receive.

babies are cute

meet alistair wesley mcintire. he is a true delight. I had the privilege of kickin' it with him and his awesome mama michele while I was in idaho. in case you forgot, allow me to remind you, babies are cute. they are also incredibly wise -- they haven't forgotten yet what it's all about. eating, sleeping, pooping, laughing, loving, living -- the rest is just excess. do yourself a favor, spend some time with a baby and remind yourself of that fact.

desert dance party

sometimes you just need to drive out into the desert and dance. sometimes your friends, who don't live in the same town, drive out to meet you. sometimes you climb a mountain to watch the sunset together. sometimes you stay up late together in strange motel rooms drinking whiskey and talking about life and love and loss while eating potato chips and tootsie rolls. sometimes you take a walk in the dark together. sometimes you make each other laugh, really hard. sometimes you wish they didn't live so far away. sometimes you build an imaginary jet in your head, put all your loved ones in it and fly them to your side. sometimes you are perfectly content to look at pictures of them by your side. they make you laugh even from afar.

snot is slippery

I just ate shit. not literally. I mean to say, I fell. or rather, I slipped. upon inspection, I appear to have slipped on dog snot. wish it had been a banana peel. I'm always wishing for the real life experience of cartoon comedy. but alas, it was only a tiny globule of mucus that turned the otherwise safe terrain into a treacherous path. I made a GRAND entrance into the cafe. an accidental performance piece. I think everyone was expecting me to be extremely embarrassed about it, I mean, it was possessing of all the qualities that would make it so -- über hip coffee shop full of über hip people sitting quietly enjoying 6 dollar cups of coffee while staring at macbooks . . . and then enters in the girl on invisible roller skates. bags flying limps splayed. it was hilarious really. everyone was more embarrassed for me, than I was for myself. people sat stunned, silently waiting to see if the earth was going to slip out of orbit, if I was going to turn into a tomato face and run off never to return. but then I just got up, brushed myself off and laughed. here's the problem with "playing it cool" -- it means you're playing. you're not actually cool. to me, coolness lies in ones ability to be the real deal. the bumbling idiot who makes no apologies for their truth. I was super cool in my uncoolness this morning. for this I am proud of myself. the baristas were proud of me too. they told me that I fell very gracefully and gave me my coffee for free. I'm half tempted to slip on snot everyday.

flip flop

what do you do when you realize you are a character from the movies?
the older woman always wearing smudged coral lipstick.
the incessant dipshit always telling shit-for-brains jokes.
the sexy beast who lives upside down but longs for right side up.
lips pouted.
looooong gaze at the camera.

I know what I am doing.

this is my movie.
I am the star, the muse, the director, the perpetual entertainer.
I am the asshole laying out the mixed nuts, arranging the napkins in a fan.
I am the producer of this box office smash that wonders why it flopped?

will it flop?
has it flopped?
did it flop?

flip flop I am a fish out of water learning to swim.
time smoothing out the raisins of my fins turned fingers.
I can feel again.
who needs water when there is music?
I am a professionally untrained dancer.
my hips lead the way.
they’ve never done me wrong (I left that up to the men that loved them).
oh how they loved them.
oh how poorly.
no one loved me half as much as I loved them.

my hips, not the men.

the top of rock bottom

please excuse the mess, I am under construction. 

I am a mess. a beautiful, ravenous mess. I will have my way with this journey. I will carve out this path. I will make decisions that shock and horrify. I will betray others so as not to betray myself. I will not look back.

I will eat giant pieces of charred meat in the middle of the street. I will drink tall boys during the day. I will sing too loudly in quiet places. I will take long solitary walks up steep hills. I will laugh at inappropriate jokes and cry at silly things. I will forget to eat. I will struggle to sleep. I will embrace the cliche of a meltdown. I will melt and rise up, a microwaved marshmallow. some graham crackers and some chocolate and I will become s'more and s'more amazing each day. it may be sticky, but it is oh-so-delicious and well worth the mess.

I don't remember writing this last night

“oh the little things. well I’m relatively available for the making of magic or the scraping of the mundane. either way. it’s the little things.” ~me to a friend via text

holy shit, this is what it really looks like. drunk. alone. on a thursday night. life being a series of surprises, but not of the cupcake variety. not the surprise where a group of your favorite people jump out from behind a couch in the dark to wish you a happy birthday. surprise! you got what you wished for. you are drunk. and alone. and now what? sitting in the dark surrounded by blessings. scared of the implications. now what?

live. dance. sing = to yourself and no one else, for the time being. laugh, on the phone with friends even though it’s not as good as in person. pine for things. long for a shorter wait. this is what you asked for. embrace the melancholy. this. is. what. you. wished. for. don't be careful.

don't be careful.

embrace the crazy. the blissful indifference. the not knowing. the desire for something undefined yet somehow palpable. everything becomes unspeakable for the blabbermouth me. embrace it.
I am embracing the beautiful speechless me. what can I say?

this is what this birthday looks like. a cake with no candles. no light, but sweet just the same.

how I spent my easter

ostridge eggs are colossal. you need a chisel and hammer to break one open and about 20 people to eat the insides. for those curious, it tastes like a chicken egg, only milder. this was definitely the highlight of my easter weekend. gross and wonderful. practicing the religion of laughter. amen.

not a cry for help... just a cry

photo by anna groth-shive

if you must know, it feels sort of like I'm dying. of course, how am I to know what dying feels like? I am still alive. and quite frankly, I have a lot of nerve even speaking of such things when my heart is still beating, and my lungs are still supplying the oxygen it needs to do so.

I am not writing this for sympathy. I am writing this for sanity. I am full of question marks that poke at my ribs and tickle my toes. the writer in me thinks that perhaps, perhaps, writing about it will ease my tired mind. my weary body. my body wants a vacation from working. a bruise on my shin refuses to heal, a week later it is tender like the first blow. I ran into a coffee table made by a father and his sons. a giant tree flattened for magazines and beer bottles. rough edges left for smooth shins. my shin. still bruised.

I am trying to heal.

what I am asking of myself is courage, and I am finding stock piles of it under stacks of old books I am going through to divide between me and the love that once was. I am finding hope in between summer dresses I am pulling off hangers and putting into bags. I am finding patience in cluttered drawers full of too many little things to do anything with but throw away. I am finding love in the mirror when I finally give into brushing my dirty mouth and washing my long face. I want help. I want a 24 hour hot line. but I will not dial the phone.

I am doing this alone. not because I have to, but because it is the only honest thing.

that is not to say there are not countless blessings being bestowed upon my head. people making phone calls and leaving messages. feeding me when I have forgotten to do so myself. offering up a comfy couch. listening. making me laugh. sending me emails about people worshiping images of christ found in cheetos. cheesus.

I am ok, even though I am not. I am ok. I am looking forward to being better...

I am tired. I am worn out. I am reminded every 3.278 seconds why some people avoid love all together. it is painful, not always, but often. it ends. one way or another. but I am not going to avoid it. ever. I embrace this part of the exchange. the dividing of lives shared. I do not feel sorry for myself. it was all worth it. it is always worth it. always.

don't say ouch, it feels good

life's not supposed to be easy. I believe that. but I also believe that life is supposed to feel good despite the difficulty. I am currently in the practice of extracting joy and pleasure out of a painful situation.

people change as the trees do. we live. we love. we move on.

when I was younger and going through my first heartbreak, I adopted my own little mantra: don't say ouch, it feels good. when I was 11 and couldn't sleep from the pain of growing bones, I wanted the pain to stop. but I'm glad it didn't, because I would still have to use a chair to put the dishes away. the pain is part of letting us reach new heights. I am choosing to honor the hard parts while seeking the blissful ones in the process.

processing the process

"Trust your process." ~Anne Wilson Schaef

I remember when I wasn't this sure about "things" - you know, career paths, boyfriends, the circumference of my pant legs - things like that. I am here now, still unsure, but sure that's it's perfectly ok to be so.

I am my process.

lately I've been taking great comfort in that. loving who I am becoming who I will be. loving who I was in all my unknowing. loving who I am now in all my unknowing. embracing the great pulsating process that is me and everything that I see (and don't see).

it's been a process getting to this point of honoring the process.

I think it started with sara, who first got me to stop creating with an end result in mind. to let go of what I wanted to get out of it. to express simply because I can, and not because it will make me rich or famous or loved, but because it makes me happy. it was a very complicated process to arrive at that simple fact, but once I got over my idea of what something should be and instead just started making and doing, I felt something profound - freedom. freedom from myself standing in my own way. no longer afraid of if it "isn't good" or if it never "goes anywhere", I can write and draw and sing and dance just because it feels good to do so.

now this is not to say that I don't still get scared, or confused, or uninspired, or bored or frustrated to the point of wanting to just get married and have 10 babies at once to fill up my three story house of longing. the difference is that now I am choosing to try and honor all the rooms of my soul. the small cramped closets full of junk, the big white rooms with bare walls, the pretty little nooks painted in soft yellows and lit with afternoon light, the living rooms filled with stiff couches draped in squeaky vinyl. to be willing to sit in the spaces that are uncomfortable or terrifying, knowing that just past the hall is a room with a canopy bed covered in big fluffy pillows and filled with all my favorite people laughing and listening to music and dancing and eating cake.

it's all part of the process.

who am I to fight myself? I am not the enemy? I am a soldier in the process of learning to battle every fearful thought that barricades me from living my truth. and hot damn! if that doesn't get tiring. and good lord! if sometimes I don't feel like raising a white flag. but I will let the heart on my sleeve bleed dry before I give up on the endless process of me becoming me. because to me, the alternative of pleated khaki pants walking through an endless mall is not an option. not doing what is scary is the scariest idea of all.

baby steps with big feet

this is why I haven't written in a while. sxsw. mecca for my young heart. my band yearbook pictures will be playing there this year. ferkin a! this is something I have imagined happening before. small potatoes for some, but a mountain of golden mashed potaters for this gal. yum yum. it's no small feat to make cd's and buttons and find transportation (and the money to make the transportation possible). oh, and practicing, that's in there too. good news is an incredibly nice fella by the name of parry gripp is selling us his old nerf herder van for $1. for the price of a candy bar, we are getting a bonafide touring van that runs! the heavens doth shine down upon us.

let me say that this is one of those moments where you (I) need to realize that something you've wanted, imagined, dreamed of, etc. is actually taking place. a milestone if you will. the thing about milestones is we need to honor them and not rush by when we pass one. take a moment, perhaps stretch a little, look up at the sky, look back at the worn path, and then with all those things in mind, start walking again. one foot in front of the other. baby steps with big feet as my dear friend jamie would say. we are getting somewhere. even when it feels like we've been moving in tiny circles, we are moving forward. our only task is to move and look out for the milestones that may not come every mile, but are there when they see fit to show us that we're not standing still. have faith in physics and yourself and you will get there.

me, my valentine

long long ago, and far far away, I was in an empty airport late at night alone. the piercings, the streaked hair, the signs of those times. solitary me at 23. traveling to and from foreign places looking for someone. surrounded by foreign tongues.

I just stumbled across this picture and seeing it I remembered that night, and I remembered feverishly scribbling out a poem sitting on that polished floor under those inconsiderate lights. I went looking for that poem, and found it:

what's in it for me?
this separation.
this dislocation.
this lack of sleep in far away airports.
this longing.
this convincing myself that I don't, when every inch of me does.
this conversation in my head.
the thought that anyone who cares has no way of telling me.
the thought that what's in it for me is only the delusion that if I keep moving, I'll eventually forget you.
but no distance could escape you.
you are everywhere.

***

I am here now, only scars where metal once hung and I am able to look at that girl and say, look, it was only a phase. it's all only a phase. and now, the calm that has washed over me like a gift from the deep, I wish I could give it to the girl in the picture. but I know that each phase is necessary and leading to the next. I look at that girl and think of all the miserable valentine's days and realize today, on this day of love, in all her searching for love, she was learning through time and space, distance and long lonely nights, the miraculous art of learning how to love herself. I'm glad she stuck it out.

care bears on fire

it's never too early to start being yourself and it's never too late to start doing what you love. remember that my friends and remind yourselves everyday. there's no right time there's only time. make of it what you want.

too school for cool

ben "ladies man" pringle

jeremy "the stud" burgan

ry "party animal" sarmiento

bethany "the babe" toews


there is something so life affirming about yearbook pictures. it's like the first time you see someone cry, how can your heart not melt? a new bond is formed over the exchange of vulnerability. I don't care how much coolness one achieves over the course of their life, we ALL had an awkward phase (some lasting longer than others).

I remember when by some divine intervention I became "cool". 12-years-old and clueless-as-could-be, the first day of 7th grade ushered in a new group of friends -- the "cool" kids. what was I to know of this thing called cool? over the summer I decided to stop perming my hair and shed my splatter painted glasses in exchange for highly coveted contacts. and you should also know that my permed head donning over-sized glasses had sang its heart out at the talent show the last day of 6th grade. apparently my rendition of "the greatest love" made for a small fan base. all those things combined and before I knew it, I was catapulted from the safe terrain of the invisible nerd to the tumultuous life of a popular girl. truth be told, being popular consisted mostly of girls hating me and guys trying to feel me in places that weren't ready. so... I had to create my own brand of fame. I was still friends with the geeks and the freaks and handpicked the finer folks from the in crowd. in the end I learned a lot about being myself and accepting the consequence, and ultimately, the rewards of doing so.

why am I telling you all this? well my friends, I am telling you this because my band - Yearbook Pictures - recently collected our own yearbook pictures and shared them with each other. we had so much fun doing so that we decided to spread the fun with all of you wonderful peeps out there in cyberspace. we are currently asking for submissions of everyone's awkward pics. if you have a facebook page, why not become a fan and submit your own masterpiece. so far it's been a highly enjoyable exchange.

the coolest nerds in town

rock n' roll ain't easy, but that don't matter none 'cause you ain't got a choice. make music or turn to dust.

or something like that.

this is my band, yearbook pictures. we have been strumming and singing and banging on the drums together for a year now. my lord if you don't have some ups and downs and my lord if there ain't times when you consider throwing in the towel. but my lord if it ain't just the purdiest feeling to play together and love the sound that makes. we've been working hard lately to get things going, make things happen, that whole shpill. what with all the myspacin' to do, and the picture takin' to organize and the shows to line up and then play... speaking of which, those of you in the los angeles area, or those of you with a private jet or disposable income or a free ticket to ride, we will be playing this tuesday (january 27th) at 9 (that's pm, not am) at spaceland (1717 silverlake blvd. LA, CA 90027). JAM ON IT!

lifesavers in a sea of silence

sara saved my life. something tells me it won't be the last time.

yesterday sara was my flotation device. just as I was drowning in a hopeless mass of sloshing traffic, the phone rang - a fog horn that shook me from the haze. saved.

she talked me off the ledge in my head - the edge of ok.

to those who have never been stuck in los angeles traffic, let me give you a brief and insufficient taste of the exhaust. it is endless. like a ship at sea thinking it might fall off the earth once it reaches its destination/wondering if it ever will. it is relentless - it is not an anecdote or a cliche, it is a pressing reality that replaces a sense of peace with a raging case of impatience in a matter of moments. I pride myself on my usual achievement of zen while in said situation. as others honk and curse and swerve, I listen to music or public radio, I admire the silhouetted palms and ignore the cacophonous mess. sometimes I even sit there in silence satisfied with the simple task of thought. but yesterday, my friends, I was at a disadvantage for I was driving home from a particularly disturbing audition. you should know that another side affect of los angeles living other than the traffic, is that somehow, someway, eventually you end up involved in "the industry". one way or another, from the most intentional to the most unsuspecting, you become a part of it whether by proxy or by jumping headfirst into its blue. I jumped. living here, waitressing while hearing tales of the riches one could make by simply endorsing deodorant or somesuch... I got an agent. I went on auditions. I booked jobs. yes that is my face selling you sour cream. no I do not want to talk about it.

so here I am, a victim of my own devices - putting myself in these "situations". I sit in traffic to get to these auditions only to sit in traffic to play the whole thing over in my head hoping to eventually get home. anyway, as I was saying, this audition was particularly unsettling for reasons I am going to briefly explain. first off, it was an audition for a print job, as in still photos. print auditions generally consist of standing in a line waiting for your turn to hold a number in front of your chest and smile for a camera. when I explained this to sara, she said it sounded very similar to the process of incarceration. (she is an insightful one, that sara). so I went to this audition expecting the usual bovine activity, only to walk into the room to be met by 5 silent strangers sitting on a couch. the audition started out as expected, but then, I was asked by one of the 5 strangers to dance. naturally I thought, where's the music? then I realized there wasn't any. and then I had to learn the harsh lesson that dancing without music is much like swimming without water - it doesn't really work. so I moved in nonrhythmic movements trying to find a song in my head. nothing. the strangers sat silently, judging my performance. I resorted to a khaki pants dance, at one point actually churning butter. after what felt like far too many measures of non-music, I was relieved of my duties.

this is the point that I am somehow not making - friends are what matters. at the end of a difficult day, they are the flashing light leading us out of the storm back to dry and stable land. I have friends because unlike some people, they would never ask me to dance to the sound of silence. I have friends because they call me when I'm stuck in traffic simply because they know how awful that can be. I have friends because if I didn't I wouldn't laugh nearly enough, like when I read the email jamie sent me after my awkward audition:

(i wrote you a song)

girl dance dance dance to the sounds of silence
yeah dance dance dance to tha rhythm of nothin
dance dance dance
oh dance dance dance
shake ur booty to the elec-tri-city thats pulsin in the air
cuz
that's. all. you. got.
dance!

when life hands you limes, make margaritas

my skin's itching and my eye's been twitching and I've been having this dream where I need to run but my legs won't move.

I haven't known what to write for this hopeful little blog of mine, I've felt like a traitor in thought - an absence of hope is no time to post. this blog was the challenge - take the lime, well past its shelf life, hard as a rock, and squeeze it. don't give up because it's just when you thought it was bone dry, a droplet of juice is let loose and you know because it's stinging in your eye. there is always something to extract - even from the sourest, dourest, more barren of sources. squeeze hard enough and you've got yourself an f'in margarita. I can't remember a time I wasn't happy with a margarita in my hand. salted rim salvation. saving your own soul while the mariachi music papers the walls.

why can't life be like tonight all the time?

it's not often that you drive home from a long holiday road trip, only to be invited to a ranch in the nevada desert that happens to be right on the way. it happens even less that you are invited to said ranch on new year's eve, a night you were prepared to spend in the car, counting down the new year at 80 miles an hour. 2009, so far, so good.

sandy valley ranch is a magical place on its own, but add to that good friends, lots of whiskey and champagne, sparklers, hot tubs, taquitos, and illegal fireworks lit by dudes drunker than you, and you've got yourself a serious party.

out there, I only confirmed my deep unshakable desire for compound living. in the middle of nowhere dancing and laughing with friends, I wondered to myself, why can't life be like tonight all the time?