absolute trust keeps me moving in the Right Di-rec-tion

**since getting back from my road trip i've been getting back into the postcard writing groove. i wrote this while sitting outside Kaldi coffee in Atwater Village. when i walked in to order my drink, "The Good Thing" by Talking Heads was playing. Made me smile.
below is a card i wrote to my friends stacey & harlan in texas. the picture on the p-card is of a quilt sewn by Annie Mae Young. it's from the photos of quilts from Gee's Bend.**

5.14.10 Thurs
Things Rad & Not So Rad (NSR): talked myself into riding my bike to this cafe (Rad). On the way mailed 2 bills, 4 postcards & 1 letter (Rad). All the patio umbrellas have gone missing from the cafe (NSR), but it is cool & breezy enough to sit in the direct sun (Rad!). was served a stellar cappuccino (rad). Decided to try a Japanese drink b/c it's clear & carbonated. turned out to be soda pop (NSR) alas. A Eurythmics song from 1988 or so just came up on the shufle (Rad). For a few boyfriends between 1988 - 1997 this served as my record to listen to upon breaking up. Now, I just love it. :) (neat) Im in week 3 of what I hope will turn out to be hiatus (not just unemployment) (Rad). Grant-Lee Phillips played Largo last night for the first time in many months (super rad). The old casket store/funeral service shop has moved up the street. in its place: some kind of medical marijuana UNIVERSITY. (just plain odd). for the first time since my job ended i have nowhere i have to be tonight (fucking awesome). took a week long solo road trip (rad). saw 2 minor league b-ball games (OH, SC) & 5 concerts in 5 states (rad). Brilliant way to leave my old gig behind. :)

**follow up: i sat in the sun writing p-cards and knitting long enough to get a sun burn on my shoulders. sigh. amateur hour, i tell you! also: it's official, the show i worked on last season was cancelled. so: we call it unemployment, not hiatus.**

also, after typing this it took me 15 min of jumping through log in & transfer links and pages to post it b/c blogger switched something around. i wasn't notified BEFORE i typed it. pain.in.my.ass. grr.

why i didn't see grant-lee phillips on saturday.

saturday morning i drove up to the greek theatre to buy some tix for a show. turns out the box office there is closed for the season. so. decided to use the out and about early on a saturday momentum to visit the DMV to replace my stolen (grr) car registration sticker. had to stop by the apt to look up the saturday hours. the information i found on their website stated that saturday DMV hours have been discontinued b/c of california's budget, which has yet to be set.

now. i remember that i can get this DMV service at AAA, so i head out. from the time i pulled out of my drive way, to the time i was pulling out of the AAA driveway: 45 min. done! easy!

back at the homestead i worked on a few things including the Never Ending Screen Door Project.

yes! (for those of you familiar with said screen door, it is, at present, lying on the floor of my dining room, torn screen and moldings removed, fresh coats of paint covering the scratches and dings from The Incident {sigh})

decided to walk to kaldi cafe in atwater. it's a great walk that takes me around the reservoir on rowena, over hwy 5 and the los angeles river. i really wanted to see the state of the river after two days of heavy rain.

armchair birder note: no birds on the reservoir. hmm. there was a flock of what looked like geese on the bank of the river. it was a bit far from the hyperion overpass to see.

at kaldi i had a rich americano, sat outside and read some roy blount. it was cool, but not raining and the sky was full of dramatic cloud formations. when it got too cold to stay out i got another americano and headed to the little knittery. .

i hung out there, did some knitting, chatting. when i got up to leave it was about 6:30. as i put on my sweater i looked out the window: downpour. i reflected on the decision i'd made hours before to wear a fleece jacket, instead of a rain jacket. to carry a wool bag, not a nylon backpack. to wear hiking shoes instead of my impervious muck boots. to bring my dinner-plate sized travel umbrella instead of my full sized, morton's salt girl umbrella.

when i headed home from atwater on foot, it was pouring rain. this was the heaviest rain i've ever walked in. and i lived for six years in humboldt county without a car. i've logged a lot of time walking in the rain. as i was walking over the hyperion bridge back to los feliz huddled under my umbrella, a car drove by, through the rain running down the gutter of the overpass and DRENCHED me. instantly. it felt like someone threw a bucket of water at my back. i turned to look down the road and saw the traffic light change, and watched two lanes of traffic headed my way.

it felt like someone was hurling buckets of water at my back in 2 second intervals for the next 2 minutes. a couple times, i put my umbrella down to cover my back, but it was raining so hard my head was getting soaked.

i was able to keep my head, and therefore headphones dry, so at least i could listen to music as squished home. there is never a bad time to hear ray charles.

when i got home i went straight into a hot shower. just out of the shower: lightning. decided to stay in, listen to some sarah vowell's "partly cloudy patriot" and continue on my crafting jag.

beer of note: mendocino brewery's eye of the hawk
snack of note: trader joe's mini dark choc. covered graham crackers.

i did miss grant-lee's little room show. again. dammit.

photo is of me during happier rainy times: june 2004, bonnaroo. pic taken by suzie. :)

11.26.08-post hal hartley, al wazir, eye of the hawk

am feeling a drive to consolidate.

don't know if it's the movie i just watched, the dinner i ate or the prospect of having the next four days off from work: i'm motivated to shed stuff. to pull out 150 cds, 30 t-shirts, the unused cafe table wedged between the filing cabinet and the wall in my sewing room, all the bits gathering dust from lack of use in my apt, and haul them out to the goodwill, cd trade in, wherever someone might find a use for them...

i struggle against my pack-rat tendencies: i don't want to save every scrap and clipping, just the odd ticket stub or note from a friend that will rocket me back to that time and place. last week during some deep apt. cleaning i looked through a collection of bits in a box on my bookshelf. i've had this box since 1985 and filled it with things when it was still a new thing in my life. most of the time i forget it's there. every couple of years or so i open it up and there it is: some of 1987. grateful dead ticket stubs, a nyc subway token, sea shells collected on long island, cat whiskers from a tom cat who moved into my apt, stones from some gem shop in los gatos.

i don't want to go through my life dragging trunks of relics from all my years, but i do like a few small things here and there. the polaroids on my fridge, a photobutton of a grade school friend, a mug sent to me by my sister the summer of 1990 when i was desperate to know someone was in my corner-even from hundreds of miles away...

it's the nature of acquistion that one has to make space for all this stuff. i don't want to make more room. and i don't want to out grow this apt. i'm tired of having to move things to clean under them.

so.

got to thin this stuff out. i'm also reluctant to put anything in a landfill. so, if it's at all of use, i want to find a home for it.

i know how this goes: i am swept up in the excitement of a new endeavor, try to tackle it from too many angles at once, get sleepy and never quite accomplish what it is i'd set out to do. i've got four days off. step one: establish a clean slate. start with the laundry. that will have me focused on cleaning out the closets. (is it too much to want all my clothes to fit into drawers and closets and not have ever revolving piles of shirts and sweaters that i move from place to place?)

and i'm going to play the piano this weekend. all that potential music in there. and my memories of playing that piano are directly tied to family holidays. i don't remember they were thanksgiving or christmas holidays: i just remember loading rolls in the piano in the basement of my grandparents' house while my brother, sisters and cousins played pool there. oh! i am just realizing now: this piano is the biggest artifact that i am toting around. and it is so heavy i can't even move it to clean under. ha!

man, i am a sentimental bugger. blindsides me sometimes. :)

a friend of mine used the word savor in a converstion we were having. (i've been trying to figure a way to relate the context, but it just gets too weedy). the minute she said it i could tell it was the idea i'd been looking for: i've got too much dross. (now this started as a writing about objects, possessions, stuff and clutter but one may apply it liberally to broader concepts as well. ;) )

ok. when i sat down to write this i put on grant-lee phillips nineteen-eighties album. it's done and the fab mix from my pal john in central fla. has just come on. laundry sorting music if ever there was!

feeding into this: tomorrow is thanksgiving. it's been raining off and on all day. hands down my favorite time of year. and how can a girl even think of sewing when she has to move stuff off the desk to even get to the sewing machine? honestly.

for the record: mentioned at the top of the letter: movie viewed: unbelievable truth, hal hartley, dir; dinner eaten: al wazir, shwarma plate; days off: thanksgiving holiday weekend :) woo!

and this is how it starts! good night!