The Dream Machine

   

   Many years have found me, in all of them I've had the same reoccurring dream. Of a bus, on a road filled with friends. Filled with dresses and things made of my hands, barreling towards somewhere important and nowhere in particular at the same time. Stopping along the way to sell my wares as we need gas and have grand adventures in new places Ive never seen. 

   This dream started shortly after I stopped traveling the world. Go figure. That wanderlust that follows never leaves. Sitting at my kitchen table one morning, staring idly into my computer at my online teacher of accounting. A whisper crosses my mind "what happened to your bus?" Some unknown center of my being voice wafting through the mundane teachers accounting chant about organizing values.  At that moment my entire mind lit up with this fantasy picture, the reoccurring dream of the road. This time I could really see it. In its entire arch. The people I would meet, the maps I would trace with pencils. The places I would be. Right down to the dresses I would stock my bus with to sell. 

     In my mind the whisper said "Perfect. Time to get started" and disappeared. Leaving space for the planning of how to execute this fantasy into my reality. Snapping shut my laptop muting the account teachers torturous lecture I turned to the calendar hanging on the wall. Staring into the calendar looking for clues, the boxes started to take shape. I estimated I would look for a month, find for a month and hopefully come up with an actual running vehicle in not to bad shape for renovating by my 40th birthday end of August. 

  The looking was fun, but a bit saddened by the prices and general disrepair most of the buses were in I was quickly beginning to wonder if I was in fact just crazy and hearing voices or if this was actually something I could make a reality.  The first few weeks I attempted to get my husband excited to help look, and like a good sport he did.  We found some box trucks and not quite rights and no call backs that fit our price range. Id about given up, after another week of waiting on a call back from a shop in the midwest that had a grundman delivery van from the 40s that would have been amazing.  Deciding to give it one last shot I looked again, this time forgoing any notion of something extremely antique for a more reasonable vintage era 60s-70s mini bus. A schoolie is what you'd call it.... quite a popular genre of vehicles actually i found.  Combing through online car ads, old motorhomes and long lost vehicles in fields with must pick up on a flat bed listings I came across my bus. I knew instantly it was my bus because the voice came back and said "thats it" the instant the image crossed the screen. Coincidentally this mini bus was in California only 5 hours away in Bigfoot country farther north from where I live.  We emailed immediately.  After a few days with no answer I was starting to get antsy. Finally we got a response, saying the bus was still available and we could come test drive it and check it out. Of course I wanted to go right away, but work and time wouldn't have it so I had to wait two weeks until my husband could come with me into the hills to check it out. 

  Finally the day arrived, I packed nothing of course assuming we would be back at the end of the day or late night with the bus best case or towing the bus and back late night worst case. We headed out with nothing but the guys email, and instructions to call him when we arrived in the small lonely town of Hayfork in the trinity alps. Driving through the trinity wilderness, over passes that pioneers and gold miners traveled is a certain kind of out there. The beauty is immense but also so harsh its frightening at times. Extreme heat, altitudes and weather issues are commonplace, including a huge rockslide that had cut off most of the road we were on through the mountain at one point. 

  Arriving in hayfork around sundown we promptly parked by the town bar to try and get service to make a call to the guy we were seeing about the bus. Having come all this way the silence was unbearable, one minute felt like an hour. Finally the response came but it was not what we were hoping. "We don't do business after dark now. So come by in the morning and we will take her out for a test drive." looking at each other and then the forlorn town with tumble weeds and stark rocks baking in the sun we had to now formulate our new plan of attack. Driving slowly out of town after confirming we would in fact be back for the test drive in the morning we watched the sun slowly descending behind the looming mountain range.  30 miles later we ended our day in Weaverville a small unassuming town deep in the emerald triangle famous for its well preserved historic downtown district. Complete with wooden wild west era buildings, and a fight between rival asian gangs in the 1900's in which the locals helped the asians sharpen pitchforks into weapons and cheered on a 600 person battle between said rival gangs while onlooking towns folk watched just out of town.  This is real theres a pile of rocks at the place of the battle, pitchforks emblazoned on it an everything. We checked into a shabby "victorian" style hotel, which really had very few victorian elements to it other than creepy paintings of young maidens and an old pair of shoes left under our bed. The evening turned to night and crept by painfully slow, finally the dawn and light spured us out of town and towards our goal. 

   The yard we ended up in was filled with neatly organized piles of everything from antique stoves to reclaimed wood. Sun baked rocks and random ferrel cats were speckled about the piles and a organized but dark double wide prefab home awaited us. From the front door rolled a curious man in a wheelchair missing his legs but not short in arm strength as he approached us mastering the treacherous terrain of this yard.  He had missing teeth, hair and a beer belly covered in mechanics grease dust and mountain grime. Sporting a smile and a nod he said "welcome" " bus is right over here" and we made our way to the mini bus parked off to the side of the yard.  He immediately began telling us the story of the bus, which started with the story of his missing legs. I could tell and Im sure he could too that my husband wanted to ask just how he ended up in hayfork and how he lost his legs being far to polite to ask this man just started the bus story with the most obvious. 

   Our hero lost his legs hiking up Mt Shasta in April after having drank the night before, and then some more the day of.  Half way up the mountain with his two friends and two guides he started feeling sick and decided to take a rest and head back down after he felt a bit better. His friends packed him in snow (it was still snowing up there in April) and left him with his down jacket promising to come back and get him on their way back down if he wasn't already gone.  Having been drinking themselves they ended up separating and going back down the mountain different directions, also completely forgetting they had left someone on the side of the mountain in the snow in questionable health. Three days later his work wondering where he had gone called the police. The police sent out a cadaver dog and our hero was found, heart beat down to six beats a minute covered in snow, frostbitten from head to toe but alive. When asked if he remembered any of the three days on the mountain he replied "not a second". He woke up at UC Davis days later missing his legs and being advised he needed a psych exam to get released from the hospital.  Apparently our hero told his doctor he had to get to the rainbow gathering in the midwest soon so he needed to be leaving and the doctor told him he was insane. Having realized he needed to escape as quickly as possible from the hospital he pretended to have no interest in his party and claimed to have come to his senses and was quickly released. After leaving the hospital his first stop was a convenient store for a pepperoni stick, one of those long large plastic covered deals which he strapped to his leg as a make shift prosthetic. He then purchased a car and drove across country to the Rainbow Gathering.  Leaving the mountain, his legs and the doctors orders in the rear view. 

    The bus came into his life shortly after that rainbow gathering, in which he animatedly told us of how his wife and children had traveled to festivals and states for years in the bus. The bus is filled with all kinds of gadgets and additions he had crafted himself.  A bed that stowed away on the wall and rolled down using old ship rigging. An airplane bathroom ripped from an old captains cabin in a vintage plane. Hot and cold water taps installed outside for festival goers to fill their bottles with water or hot water for tea. Fridge, hanging crystals the whole nine yards. I was in awe. This man shaped like a jelly bean, animatedly telling us about his incredibly full and glorious adventures.  Two wives later and grown children moved away the bus had been away from the festival life for a time and our hero was ready to sell her to the right people.  As he plucked away at the engine showing us all the new parts and recent work he had done I caught him glimpse me out the corner of his eye and smile.  

   The bus itself's history was no less colorful than the man that owned it as it turned out.  Originally a prison transport bus used to take prisoners from jail to the bus stop once released to parole. 1976 found it in mint condition until the policemen driving it ran it over a curb going 60 and took it out of commission with the department of corrections.  Front end in need of repair the bus ended up in hayfork close by with the only mechanic employed by the department of justice that could work on these buses. His last job on his last month before retirement this man rebuilt the buses front end and then promptly retired. The bus went to auction and found its way to our hero. After which time it toured with the bands, Phish, The Grateful Dead, and saw many rainbow gathering summers and festival days. 

   As we turned the key and the engine roared to life I clapped my hands together and I heard that voice again "its happening" inside my head.  I made it known I was sold. He looked at me a long kind but also hard look and said " I knew when you got out of the car I was going to have to sell her today. Your the right people"  We exchanged some more stories and cash and with a puff of exhaust and some dirt spewing from under the wheels we pulled out of the yard and onto the highway. Waving our goodbyes to a real hero, pioneer minded type of individual that truly inspired us both with his life story. 

  Winding down through the mountains driving behind my husband in the bus watching and listening to the engine for any signs of trouble. 170 miles later, out of the mountains, onto the highway and just over the Mendocino county line on 101 a puff of smoke left the exhaust and I could see the bus loosing steam. At the off ramp she died, just off the road on a quiet offramp. Crushed but not defeated we checked the engine for clues. Id only had a bus for a few hours at this point, so little to know experience in this department at this time. After getting her off the road and poking around in the engine for a while we decided to get her towed. I was already planning on driving her to our mechanic at home anyway so this wasn't that much of an issue. For some reason when my husband drove away leaving me in the bus to go find service on his phone and call a tow. The voice gone and my images of fantastic adventures now stalled on the side of the road I panicked. All of the bad things came rushing in, thoughts of how stupid this was, how dumb it had been to try something like this. How it would've been easier to just stay home and what a mess id made with my stupid ideas.  My fathers voice had replaced my happy whisper in my head with the tried and true "I told ya kid your always a fuck up" by the time my husband returned I was in tears. Id done a fantastic job of convincing myself Id made the biggest mistake no one would ever forgive me for and ruined my life.  My husband, seeing my tears twisted up his face and asked me "why the hell are you crying? We don't need that right now, so your gonna need to get it together babe."   

  Stifling my sobs like a small child I knew he was right. Sitting there in the stalled bus had snapped me into a place we all go when we are out of our comfort zone for long enough. Trying something new and at the first hiccup it seems so much easier to just not have come. Completely losing the upside, or the other-side or any-side other than it must've been the wrong choice.  In the end the sun faded, a truck laden with chains and wood straight out of mad max pulled up and a mechanic by trade Marvin and his teen daughter who lived near by ended up testing our battery and alternator. We determined the alternator was the problem and having arranged a tow already we wrote a note for the window indicating the bus was not abandon and would be picked up and had to leave her there and continued on our way home. 

   My disappointment soon faded as I thought about all the other possible scenarios there could have been. The bus got us 170 + miles out of some of the hardest highest terrain in the world to a safe place she could be picked up easily. I was already planning on the tune up so really what was there to be worried or sad about? the minor change in plans? The money for the tow that I had planned into the cost of the bus and saved over one year to cover anyway?  Despite the current situation things were actually going exactly as planned.  As we drove home talking excitedly about the new project bus and our plans for it I asked my husband if he was mad at the extra time we had had to take in Weaverville, if he cared the bus needed a tow if he was mad at me for dragging us out into the wilderness on a wild ride for a bus? My husband the amazing man that he is looked at me and said "No, this is a journey its all part of the adventure. You of all people already know this. Im here for it all. Its all just part of the ride isn't it? What would we be doing if not pursuing our dreams to the ends of the earth together? Today was perfect."  

Wood Chip

Sundays are like the day your supposed to do something really awesome but most of the time your so burnt from the week it just seems like everything is a hassle.

This Sunday started out slow, with indecision on what to do from the boyfriend as per usual. Eventually he left to go work on some handy man gigs around town and I was left to my own devices.

I put on my favorite blue vynl record Pinback's Blue screen life and listen to some sunday morning tunes while I make my matte drink and down smoothie juices.

I end up moving a mountain of wood chips that have been sitting in front of my house for a month. I landscaped under our lone palm tree and around our drive through driveway. Things ended up looking much nicer when I was done.

Nothing much else of note happened on this day....the fog continues and the wood chips have made their way around the yard. 

Shop Girl Revisited

Friday Evening I received a call that my friend who owns a flower/gift shop in town needs someone to staff the store on Saturdays. I took the job, having been recently fired.

Saturday morning arrives and I am supposed to open the shop at 11am. I make my way to the store and open, its a relatively simple day. Filled with simple customers shopping for out of town gadgets and townies shopping for birthdays.

 I am visited by my boyfriend and our friend from the ridge, who both sit in a rope chair and ponder getting food and beverages at the local establishments.

I sell an unusual number of pitcher plants, and the day is done. 

Fired.

Thursday was a total loss, I cant even remember what I did but most likely some combination of working for the internet company we worked for and being at my studio trying to get the gift bags back together.

Friday however was a bit more interesting, Michael my boyfriend and I are fired from said internet company we previously worked for. Well kinda of fired, fired with a 1000 bonus and "keep all of the tools you have" statement...so loosely fired. In any event I am elated I never have to help another customer for Further Reach again.

I am working on finishing dresses for two girls who work at the coffee shop, I want to deliver them before 3pm.  I finish them both and we head to the coffee shop, talking about our recent firing and the strange terms.

I deliver my dresses to the coffee shop, and enjoy the usual flirty banter with the waitstaff. Everything is terrible there on this day however as the one odd woman out is working and she cant make sandwiches or matte lattes to save her life. I am adding honey and cinnamon to my latte over and over again to make it drinkable.

Lines in the sand

The morning breaks.

I am still under the giant sequoia tree and things are still and calm as a morning in the redwood forest always seems to be.

I awake and break camp, which basically just means I washed down with a baby wipe, combed my hair, brushed my teeth at the camp faucet and called it good.  The camp toilets had doors on the bathroom stalls that were oddly shaped and didnt allow you to actually open the door and get out. You had to wedge yourself beside the toilet to let the door open so you could escape. I found this frightening and didnt want to take any chances birdbathing in the sink in there.

I drank some smoothie and ate some yogurt and awaited 8am, which seemed a reasonable time to depart the campground back to Rays... to meet my work placement coordinator with a problem picking people up. Now I had been told that arriving early in the morning was essential remember. So I cruised back to Garberville figuring that I would be seeing her text any moment.  I decided to park behind the Rays this time as I exited the freeway and that same cop was yet again cruising around the main street.

I park, and watch a round bleach blonde 40 something standing over her pitbull that is shitting in the rays food mart poorly landscaped 2 ft area of planter.  She stares back and me and chews her lip, and flips her flip phone back and forth. She passes my car window dog shit bag in hand, as if to show me shes not leaving turds at Rays. A few minutes later I look up from South sea tales to see her running down the other side of the street with the pitbull, dog shit bag waggling bottle bleached pony tail whipping from side to side as she limp runs into her house with the blue tarp on the roof. Some invisible hurry she was in all of a sudden? Or perhaps this constitutes her daily excersice routine. I am left to wonder.  Still no sign of my employer, I send a text at 9:30am stating that I am hoping are paths cross shortly. I give her till 10am before I am leaving this dump and never looking back.

The round blonde remerges from the house, dodging toys and garbage on her front lawn she proceeds with the pitbull back to the Rays planter for round two of her dog shitting haplessly on things. Again she passes my window with the dog shit bag becoming ever more filled with her dogs droppings. I wonder exactly where the bag went when she went inside? Why would you not just get another bag?

10am rolls around and I cant wait for this lady any longer, I draw a line in the sand in my mind and fire up my jeep spin the wheel back towards the redwoods and my 3 hour drive home.  I stop by the side of the road somewhere between bendbow and westport park and walk over a tiny wooden bridge. Onto a fire road leading to no where. I walk and smoke a joint and think about my adventure into the woods. The wind picks up just as I notice a pile of bear scat and decide to turn around and head back to the car. I eat figgies and jammies and watch as the wind begins to blow tiny birch leaves into the air. All around me they twirl and twist to the ground in an endless cascade of beauty. I again think to myself "this wasnt so bad" and continue walking back to the car. A butterfly swoops over my shoulder and lands on a giant thistle that is seconds away from blooming. I stop and watch the butterfly on this amazing plant for quite some time. I am stoned and I need more cookies now, I make my way back to the car.

The rest of the drive was scenic and smooth, sailing back into Manchester around 1pm just in time to finish the laundry I had left the day before at the Mormons house and get a text from the garberville lady telling me she had just gotten down into service and was coming to Rays. I laugh and throw my phone back into the cup holder. No response needed, I think to myself. I drew a line in the sand and you crossed it even though you will never know. Who sits and waits for 16 hours for someone....

Just over the Hill

Tuesday arrives, slowly. Things take shape, a last minute cleaning request from one of my house cleaning clients puts things into warp speed. I now must pack and clean a house before I can get on the road.

This job has already told me to arrive early in the morning or I will not be able to work until the following day of my arrival as I will need to "placed" at one of her many properties.  She had also described her approach to taking care of her workers with this sentence "I come by every few days with water, but thats about it." So I knew the job was going to be strange before I ever started out. Now Im a day late already and trying to get on the road and I have to stop everything and go clean for my mormon clients with a stockpile of end of the world rations in their basement.

 I pack my car in a rush, snapping the sheets onto my peice of foam smashed into the back of my jeep which will serve as my bed. Piling my backpack of clothes and babywipes in on top of that. All the water I can obtain is bottled into various plastic jugs and put in the car and I leave out for the day.

I clean the house and wonder at how anyone could possibly smear so much black soot or whatever it is thats oozing all over the walls and doors around in one two day period.  I stare blankly at the "god is good" poster in the childs room and shut the door. The only thing interesting about these people is the end of the world rations in thier basement ordered direct from the Mormon run proccessing plant in Utah. For mormons by mormons, they are the FUBU of religions.

With the laundry finally finished spinning and the beds all perfectly made and every crumb vaccumed I am free to hit the open road finally around 3pm. Not to bad I think to myself I missed the morning "placement" anyway so Ill be hitting town around 6pm just in time for dinner and sleep. Start the day fresh ready to get placed.

I make the drive up the coast, hitting Ft. Bragg around 4pm. My favorite place to eat is closed, I look from one side of the small town street to the other. There's a sushi place on the other side of the street down the block, I dont mind eating there and they are relatively quick which meets my current criteria for places I will eat right now.  Sushi is closed. Next door is a hot dog shop, which is always open and always strangely empty. I decide to take my chances.  Oddly the hot dog shop serves wraps, and all kinds of other Mexican foods despite its sign and decorations. Two giggling Mexican guys make me a veggie wrap and I cant help but wonder if they arent giggling at me stoned out of my gourd as I make my way to the bathroom.

 The wrap turns out to be delicious, including croutons instead of tofu which I thought was clever of them. I stop at a coffee shop on my way back to the car to get a treat, a mocha. Raspberry of course. Back in the car I learn that I no longer enjoy raspberry mocha's as I once did as the taste of refined sugar after not eating it for weeks is actually not as awesome as you would think.  The drive winds along the ocean. Sea birds are flying around and a light fog has been enveloping the day so far. I hit a small town of Westport and cant help but starting to day dream about living in the now for sale Westport Mansion.

The road winds up into the mountains and I start my climb over the hill to 101 north, and Garberville. The trees get bigger and the sides of the roads become littered with "sasquatch sightings" signs and knick knack stores selling redwood burls, hanging baskets and tickets to the "drive through tree".  It is beautiful here, and my mood is high.  Coming out the other side of the forest I pass Davidson campground and think what a nice time it wouldve been to drive out here and camp for my birthday instead of getting so shit faced on tequila like I do every year. Alas some things have not changed.

 I reach Garberville, and the scenery has turned ugly. Garberville is a tiny town, just a drive through really at the base of the kings range foot hills. Inhabited by scraggly looking hippy types and the people who work for them. Weed rules the industries here and it is obvious. Trimigrints (people who come from out of town to trim weed) litter the streets, in cars, on foot with back-backs and dogs. People picking them up and meeting with other growers litter the parking lots staring at phones and sketchily looking around. The person I am working for has asked me to meet them at the Rays food market right on the main street in town. I park and text her to let her know I have finally arrived. She will be there in a minute, I go inside the store to procure groceries. I am followed by an older man covered in dirt smears and unruly hair that sniffs the air and announces "you sure do smell nice" to me.  I know I must make my time in town short. I quickly run through the grocery store dodging other trimmigrints like myself and locals getting booze trying desperately not to forget anything I may need during the next week or so.

I spot another guy staring at me and also looking for foods. He seems to be talking to a lady who sounds strikingly like the person I have been talking to on the phone. I swing around the corner of the deli and make eye contact. Smile and then proceed to finish my shopping. I return to my car, to find my phone ringing. I answer and find that my pick up has left the parking lot without me to take the other guy up to her place and she asks me to "sit tight" while she does this and she will be back for me.

I wait in my car, texting and surveying the scene in the Rays food parking lot. A black man across the street at the gas station is yelling at people to help him. Two police cars arrive on the scene to assist with whatever his issue is. I glance back at my clock, I arrived at 6 and its now 7.... The gas station issue is resolved and the police hang around their cars parked on the street across from Rays. I watch them over my phone as I text my boyfriend. The police cars disappear down the street, only to reappear quickly in the rays food store parking lot two parking spaces over from me.  The police get out of thier cars and hang out in the parking lot, loosely staring at me in my car and trying to get my attention, or possibly spook me into doing something dumb. I check the time again as the police cars leave the parking lot. 7:45. As 8 rolls around the police cars appear again in the parking lot and this time they park directly in front of my car. They joke and stand outside their cars...but clearly I am in the sights now. I avoid eye contact, and start looking for that campground I passed on google maps. The police go into Rays, aparently something warranting their attentions more than myself mustve been in there. I text my contact and tell her I cant stay at Rays anymore and Im going to camp. We decide she will text me in the morning and come get me to start work.

I drive the 9 minutes back to Davidson campground, the light is leaving the sky and I know I will have to do the self check in at a state park routine once I arrive, in the dark. Somehow I am not the only person checking into a mostly deserted campground on a tuesday night afterdark as I am followed by another car with two restless looking occupants trying to figure out the self check in.
I drop my cash into the envelope and proceed to pick my campsite in the dark. I cruise the campground looking for the authoritarian looking trailer that signifies the park rangers area, then strategically choose my site based on this trailer location.
I then gather wood as the sign says not to and make myself a small fire to heat up water for sleepy time tea. I am camped under a giant sequoia tree, or what I like to call an oracle tree. The firelight lights up the bottom 8 feet of the tree and I can just see the bottom branches dancing in and out of the firelight while I drink my tea and wonder what kind of animals target white jeep Cherokees in the forest for food. All in all the day is not to bad, I have groceries, I have my Jeep all decked out for camping anyway and Im sipping a nice cup of tea and looking forward to reading Jack Londons South Sea Tales and slipping off to sleep.

I crawl into my jeep to sleep, lock the doors and then promptly set off the car alarm by attempting to put my key in the ignition to turn on the music. The car alarm breaks the silence of the forest and I feel like a complete human idiot among magestic forest spirits.  I sleep the sleep of a single women in the forest curled up between my spare tire and the back wheel well. All is right with the world once more. 

A case of the Mondaze

I was supposed to leave for a trimming job in Garberville today, unfortunately due to the birthday party session that was unplanned I am once again back at my studio. In a twirling fervor to finish an alteration to a wedding dress.  Hemming the six layers of tulle and satin and funky smelling weirdness off of the internet this person has purchased. In all my time never was there a more terrible smelling dress than this one.  The bride to be was short, and wanted everything shortened for dancing, this was her second wedding gown by the way. This was her gown for the afterparty, her beach sand dwelling dancing in the air dress.

I finish just in time for the 6pm pick up, collect my cash out and head home to pack my car and get ready for tomorrows departure. I am looking forward to my trip to work and be away.

The 21st

Today was a bleak and stark day after my birthday celebration night.

Awaking half hungover and naked, wondering where my life went right after the fifth tequila shot. All day under a blanket watching suits and wishing I was viral enough to still be able to skip hangovers completely.

Wondering where that dj went and why the joints are all smoked to a nub. 

Another Trip Around the Sun

In an effort to study my own personal habits and basically out of morbid curiosity as to exactly how many events I forget or loose with time during a year. I have made a commitment for my birthday this year to write as many "daily journals as possible." With the intent of examining my life patterns a bit more closely this year.

Will it end up being fact, fiction or just plain shit? We shall soon find out, Im hoping for a loose braid of fact, fiction and mystery which seems to make up most of life thus far.

 My birthday August 20th 2016, on the eve of my 35th birthday this year, I found myself busying myself in my studio space just past the post office in Manchester. A small town by the sea, surrounded by cows and the dairy farmers who ranch them. My studio is a giant space of a building, 130 years old and once a dairy creamery. I have renovated it, to meet my specific needs including a 9ft x 6ft wheat paste art piece bolted to the wall. Complete with custom mass making capable sewing machines, hammock in the office lounge and as much weed and rolling papers as we can smoke.

 On this day I am trying to finish stamping my clothing companies logo onto 9 brown paper bags, that need to be shipped out to models I used at an event earlier in the month. Swag bags as they are called go a long way in acquiring free working talent for shows and I am no stranger to these bags and all their little nuances.  A friendly face appears in the doorway, and I know immediately all of my working potential for the day has disappeared and the party gods will not have me working on my birthday this year.

 We roll and smoke all the weed we can fit into an extra large paper immediately. Then proceed to get awkward high together and talk about nonsense. I can only get a reaction from him when I tell him I am planning on shredding the lengths of fire hose he has brought me into strips and making a "mesh dress" for my next show. His face holds a momentary light of interest...slipping quickly back into complete stoned bliss the next.  We mutually decide I am done "trying to do any of this silly shit today" and make our exit from my studio.

 I find my boyfriend, somewhere running from one job to another in town. We decide on something to eat and head to the store, a bottle of Melagro tequila makes it way into the basket. The birthday has begun.  Once back at the house, our friend has parked in the driveway and is sitting inside the car. Why people do this I will never understand, just go inside already.  We proceed to BBQ and take shots of tequila. I begin to feel the familiar itch of birthday creeping up my spine, induced by tequila. I have a fleeting thought of the m word. Moderation. I then realize moderation and I like so many birthdays before will not be seeing each other tonight and proceed to take giant shots from the bottle washed down with lime and salt.

 After yelling inside at each other for an hour all hopped up on booze and weed we decide to get the decks warmed up and play some records. I enthusiastically run upstairs with my bottle in hand and immediately eat shit to the floor when the rug slips on the wood flooring and literally disappears underneath me. Even a sober person would have to take a knee with this type bobbie trap laying around. I take the cue from the universe and stay down on the rug and begin sifting through records. My friend is a vynl freak and he thinks we cant tell, but I can tell. The quick once over of the vynl, the sideways glances at the labels the twisting of the knobs and fervent tongue swathing of the lips. All the signs of a dopamine fiend full throttle.

I have imposed my "one carpet two legs" rule on myself and refuse to do anything further from a standing position. I proceed to finish the bottle of Tequila, Dj on my knees and pick records for everyone and yell at them. I think at one point I just straight put the headphones on and gave up nodding my head into the abyss of sounds only I could hear.

Another Beach

I wandered down to the beach today to walk along the endless expanse of blue green waves and watch the whales surface. Hoping the roar of the rolling waves would help me sort the endless siege of thoughts raging in my mind.

I walked to the lighthouse down a deserted stretch of the Mendocino coast watching the beach houses become less and less overbearing on the cliffs above. I stumbled app-on a raft made of driftwood. Laying helplessly at the tide line. Mast, rudder, and steering apparatus included. Quite a feat of artistic and natural skills combined.

The driftwood boards lay across the rafts deck loosely and I sat on it to pass some time. It became so obvious to me as I sat there on this make shift raft staring into the chaos that is the ocean breaking on the shore. This craft would surely fall apart should the ocean reach its resting place here at the tide line on the beach.  All the artistic natural talent in the world couldn't save it from the waves it was meant to sail over, smashing it into a million pieces on it maiden voyage.

 So I sat there coincidentally, a wanderer lost in thoughts appon a faulty raft waiting to be washed to sea.  One giant metaphor for us and all of our securities. There are never any, its just how we perceive everything that keeps us clinging to our faulty delusional rafts until the tide finally washes us out to become one with the eternal endless abyss of life flowing by. 

Yourselves and Each other ...an open letter to a thief.

Heavy is the heart that labors beneath the pressure of lies and deceit.

Blind are the eyes that cannot see through fear and judgement to realize their true potential.

Feeble is the mind that allows thoughts of jealousy, greed and malice consume it.

Empty is the soul that wages war on itself and others through the fractured lenses of ego and hypocrisy.

May you find the strength to transcend these mundane and most basic of aliments of the human experience.

Blessing on your journey.

Take care of yourselves and each other. 

Moving up

When your rooms too small, move out. When the cities confines start to close in, get on a plane. When the world becomes your soap dish, make a spaceship and head for the next star. Life is to short to waste time thinking of all the things you would do if only you could.

Invisible

. I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible... -Elizabeth Wurtzel

One morning

".....and then one morning you wake up and you've forgotten all those things that made you unhappy, sad or less than who you are, and you are surrounded by love light and happiness once again."

Parasite in the land of plenty

I have become a tour guide, for a few weeks. Unintentionally and kicking and screaming the whole way. Acosted by people from home in my new surroundings, people stomping demands of "you will make sure I have a good time" and "Its your job to make me have a good time." No plan, no interests, no guide book and nothing to contribute.

I give the speech I had not known resided inside me, about making your own happiness and finding your own way. As the words cross my lips I understand that I have crossed over. There is a difference in levels, and respect and actions between us that is huge. Well at least we are in Kho Phangan I think, where the Thais are used to the typical disrespectful white people banging around. Excessive weirdness and ignorance.

Many scooter rides with the ungrateful tourist strapped to the back seat into the day and night, prove to be wearing on my soul. A refusal to learn compiled with a huge sense of entitlement make me not miss my home country even in the slightest. The fact that I have to be in charge of this persons good time irritates me. I cant wait for the day she leaves.

After much negotiation and several stomping off fits, I manage to get a night to myself. I spend it at a compond high atop a hill dancing and smiling, watcing the moon rise. Round and full above me surrounded by hiding dancing people far from the Had Yai maddness. Safe, and full of life. Not thinking for a moment about her and her demands.

Watching the sun come up from the water as I float and drink the last of my beer. Wishing the clock would stop as the hour I have left ticks slowly away. One last hurray, and then a feverish gathering of things and a blurry morning ride to the dock. We set sail back south, away from the isle of parties and distracted people. Criminals hiding from the law and confused travelers. But still harboring an ugly 160 pound bag of shit with a grin and a bikini to the next island.

The sun is blinding on the boat, amazing, calming and comforting. The sound of the engine blaring sooths as I sip coffee with the guatar player from Job 2 Do on the deck.
She is yelling again. Into my bad ear and demanding something, Im begining to think that that slice of watermellon I injested at last nights party may have had more than just "love" infused into it. As the sunrise turns many new shades of life, and the yelling disapears into charlie brown trumpet noises.

She has disapeared again, thankfully. I cringe at the thought of when she might rear her ugly, demanding face again. All too soon, I discover as we disbark from the boat she is back to demanding things. Lost and ignorant and to impatient to wait and see. She stomps behind me to the bus, dropping clothing and papers from her badly packed duffle bag she has unimaginativly thrown over her lumpy sunburned shoulders. She is now the ugliest being on the planet at this moment I am sure.

I fall fast asleep on the bus, uninterested in conversations with her or about her she has given up I presume and leaves me to sleep. The bus carries us slowly, hour by hour closer to Railay. I gather my things from the underside of the bus, and make my way to the tuk tuk that will cary us to the dock, and the boat from the dock that will take us to my island. She is lucky. ..but shes oblivious in her world of entitlment she sees nothing. Pouting I watch her disfigured face a marr in the beauty around her on the boat ride in. I am smiling.

As the boat comes to a stop far from shore, low tide is a bitch. She clambors to get herself and her dragging duffel out of the boat. The boat man throws the bag to her and I watch in silence as karma makes my day. The bag knocks her off the slippery concrete walkway underwater and she falls into the murky low tide mangrove water. Computer bag submerging, heel gouging on the rocks. She squeels. I laugh a little inside.

So the journey contines.

Fake Right Go Left. . . .

Faking right and going left can be used as an escape tactic in many situations. Avoiding fighting friends, leaving uncomfortable potential make out sessions, skipping out on your tab, and the ever popular just want to go home without saying good bye.

In the last week I've learned allot about humility. Strange adventures in the jungle with even hotter stranger mornings on the beach swimming in 90 degree waters. Just when you think everything is awesome, life comes and throws you some curve balls to make you reel back and think.
Curve balls that look like a green eyed 25 yr old Canadian hockey player living in Korea with a bad tattoo on his left upper shoulder. Curled exhausted on my bed naked as the day he was born. I can only open my eyes to the still playing music and the misquito net fluttering in the breeze and stare out blankly into the wooden bamboo hut that houses my disgust with myself.

What a big fuck you you are, to him. Proof that I can and will have anyone I want. Proof that nothing about you or myself was special. That I can take just as many people to the same spots we've gone. Take the pictures, hang the ropes, climb the faces. I hiked you to the other side, broke the rules and showed you sparkling crystal caves in the dark. Played you music, and stripped you naked. Risked arrest when we couldn't find a place by stealing the keys from behind the local discount bungalow main desk. We defiled that room for hours, unoticed. I liked it. Id do it all again with you... but only for the point of it all.

Think about the long walks into the dark, and how bright the sun scorches a broken heart when day breaks and him and my heart he holds hostage are still a thousand miles away. But lets be honest you don't care and neither does anyone else.

I'm gonna fake right and go left now baby. ....and keep going.I think as I stroke your perfect 25 year old Canadian skin. Its been nice to know you, and you, and pools of green eyed soft skin lay like the after wake of a speed boat as I walk away. I don't want to fall into you and I didn't open a door into me. I felt the sting you ignored and I stared blankly out into the water when you were studying the intricate details of my neck skin. If only you knew what really lies here for me on this shore, why the glowing shrimp look so amazing to you but are lacking charm when I touch them. Ive buried a treasure here for sure, but I wont give you the map.

I'm glad your going back to Korea, London, wherever your from. It doesn't hurt it doesn't even sting...a little bit. I felt nothing. I used you...like so many have used me before. I cant see anything in your eyes....because I don't want to. I'm laughing at you yes yes I am. When I think about our memory Ill be laughing still.

I guess you could call this my selfish phase, I just call it the great abyss, and Im going to stuff you into it green eyes,beautiful skin,perfect lips, musculur build and all. I'm not afraid, and Christmas didn't make me wish for anything this year. Santa didn't bring back a happy papered box with a new heart piece in it or fix my sun damaged skin. I'm here right where I want to be in my own head, sitting on a beach watching the tide come in and the fireworks drinking Sangsom. Waiting for tomorrows that never come. True love that has died, and something real. Throw me the ball Im ready to go long, and make the touchdown.
Score.

‎"Ah to be the unicorn in the traveling circus ...is not the life for me."

Bangkok, used to be one of my favorite cities away from home. Its big its menacing and it stinks. It stays open until well....it never sleeps. There actually are tons of citys around the world that never sleep...it always amazes me that NYC made that their slogan like its the only one.

Sitting at the Gekko bar on Cosan, nursing my first beer for the night and watching the interesting travel crowds ebb and flow through the street. Luggage bags rolling, backpacks slamming into each other, travelers looking dirty and honeymooners looking star struck or confused.
I sit, humbling observing the passing traffic and wondering where this night will take me. Not expecting much from the Cosan antics, as I have seen this show before, I wait.
A group of travelers gather around a table behind me and begin the nights revelry. A loud man off to the far end of the bar area is throwing beer on his friend and demanding more whisky from the tiny Thai bar lady.
I eventually end up getting an invite from the table behind me to join in their fun. I figure why not, and end up sitting at a table with two spanish, one itailan, one french, two americans, and a sweed. A group of aging Goa Trance hippies once at the heigt of the travel circuit now clinging to the last of their group, headed once again back to Goa for the season. Selling jewelry, and a dream that has as it seems died ten or so years ago. I run accross these people every now and then, and I often wonder if they can see, that time has passed and they as much as they continue on they have forgotten to change with the times. Lost souls....living on the road, clinging to the dream.

I spent some time in the reggae bar dancing with rasta spanish men and german women teaching english. Watching the angry bangkok Thais fighting with the farang. Smoking hookas on the street until dawn and helping the drunken idiots stumbling around find their guesthouses. In between marriage proposals, and pool games I saw the light, invites to goa to sell jewlery on the beach sound so great on the outside but I would just be a unicorn, a single girl in the traveling circus of freaks left out in the cold. This is not my path...but I wish you all the best.

Time in Pai

Ive been in this tiny northern town of Pai now for about a week, I believe I blew into town last wednesday, but I cant be for sure at this point. The days have blurred and the nights have run together. Ive seen the waterfalls and laid in the sun. Soaking up the rays and smiling at strangers.
Attended a party in the jungle on monday night, filled with crimials and travelers. The criminals injesting large quantities of illicit drugs and the travelers injesting whatever liquors they could find. Smoking bong loads of tabacco in a tee pee high in the hills. Drinking with the moon and talking with the stars.
Hiding my broken heart inside, and attempting to drown it in thai whiskey. Watching the night turn into day and the fog roll over the valley. Like so many parties in so many other places the music goes until dawn and everything looses its appeal after the sun begins its ascent back into the sky for the day.

Tuesday was a blur, waking up at 2pm with no pants and dirt in your bungalow is always an interesting feel. Taking a short trip to the corner for mexican food in thailand, complete with margaritas and a CNN newscast on the bigscreen. Downloading movies and staying in....in your hut for the night is a concept only some share.

And then the next night I find my self back at the bar where it all began, making small talk and reliving the events of the previous two nights. Sitting by the bonfire with people from around the globe listening to various laungages and senarious. Watching faces and actions, having one to many beers just because the company is intrancing. Listening to the river flow and catching the occasional glimpse of shooting stars. Learning more hebrew and exploring the fact that goosebumps mean I shouldve changed into my pants at some point hours ago.
And there is love, all around me. No I am not holding your hand, and no we dont stop between buckets to make out like the couple across from me. But if I stop for just a moment and just be still....its there...in the air like a warm blanket on my cold heart just waiting for me to let it in.

I woke up this morning, with the urge. So the time has come. My bag is packed again, and its time to move on. I will see you all again Pai, and Im sure as it always is it will be a little of the same and a little of the new.

This too shall pass

Why open yourself up to being torn apart again? Because some of us apparently have to learn the hard way.

Even as I wake up in them midst of sunshine and lush gardens, my heart inside my chest is ravaged like a set of hash brown potatoes sizzling in the pan. You wont show up at my window again, and we wont share a day of motobikes and waterfalls. I have no choice now but to come to grips with the reality that even here on the road, Ive picked a damaged fruit. My love as strong as it maybe cannot mend you, or fix the past and even as the sun beamed down on us for a few hours happy and care free. It will not last. You will always leave, and I will continue to cry.

So without you around, I will plan my trip again alone. I will discover alone and be alone once again. Figure out how to hold my head up yet again, greet strangers and try and not let them see how detached I really am. I am offically lost, theres no getting around it. There is no place for me, here there or anywhere really. At least here it is warm and the clouds they part for moments at a time. If I could just forget you, things would be so much easier. Wipe you out like a wave clears a lovers name from the sand.

The next few days will be bad, I can see them coming already. A tiny bungalow, and a huge gaping hole in my chest. Ive sutured it up now on several occasions, but I manage to tear them out each time as if it never happened. Maybe as you get older its harder to let go, as the prospect of love is a scary one. Maybe Im just as damaged as you, as lost and frightened of the real as you pretend not to be.

Dont cry ....you tell me. I watch as the last of your colored skin flits past my window and the pain sets in.

Loy Kratong in Bangkok

Touch down in Bangkok again. Cant exactly say how many times its been now. This city never seems to be the same every time I come here the experience is so very different.
This time I spend four days work/shopping and crashing on my friends floor. Celebrating Loy Krotong and learning that sexual tourism not only can overwhelm some people but can become an all distracting force that ruins their life.
In a small garden apartment in Sukhumvit my friend has spent the last year, doing the basic farang (white people) activites customary to bangkok. Sleeping with underage thai women, teaching english, and overindulging in all kinds of drug and alchohol related activities.
I am not impressed by his hovel like apartment, or the stuffy days filled with exhaust and ciggarette smoke he shouts to the rafters about. Party here and party there and falling in love with this thai girl or that massage worker. Hollow exhistance for a hallow confused person. I find myself having trouble adjusting, the city traffic keeps me up at night and the days are spent sweating through the shopping markets for goods to send home. The whole time I cant wait to get out of there. The ciggarette smoke and floor sleeping are not helping my acclimation back into Thailand. I insist we do something more interesting than stare blankly into our computer screens after day two.
Saturday night we go to the flower market on the river for purchase of flowers and materials to make our Kratongs, The following day is the Loy Kratong festival. The theme of this festival is to create the Kratong a floating tiny raft made of a bannana tree stem covered in bannana leaves,flowers, candles and incense. Then place it in the river and light a floating lantern into the sky. You are supposed to ask for forgiveness when floating your Kratong for any bad deeds you have done that year and give blessings to the water goddess. You can buy kratongs along the street for pennies but due to the lack of creation in my friends life I insist we make ours from scratch.
We spend half the night wandering drunkenly through the flower market along the river collecting flowers we will need. Then make our way back to his apartment where I begin assembling our Kratongs. He sits staring into his computer. I cover mine in flowers and candles and start on another, somewhere around here the beer and boredom get the better of me and I insist if Im going to be sitting on the floor I at least have some company. A half hour later Opal a thai gogo appears at the door. She is beautiful and in traditional Thai style very interested in helping with the Kratong. Only however if she can have some drugs. By this time I am wasted and not interested in furthering my intoxication more with Yaba or speed. My cohorts take part intensively. The house is alight with cigarettes and Opal swirling around. Our Kratongs get bigger and bigger and more elaborate. Im trying to find a way to keep occupied but really just doing a good job injesting beer.
The morning finds us, me throwing up from injesting far to much beer and cigarette aftersmoke, Opal sitting in the bedroom doorway fighting with her boyfriend on the phone and my friend staring still into his computer typing feverishly.
I am tired and over this scene so I curl up in a ball on my sheet on the couch and wait for morning.
Sunday dawns and my hangover is immense, all overtaking. I crawl to the corner and eat my rice with egg as quickly as I can. The heat is making me sweat out all of last nights beer in a hurry. Deciding that the fear has crept in I pack my bag, the overwhelming stench of the apartment and debauchery is to much. I make my way to Kosan to a familiar clean fresh bed and room. Its loud here with revelers for the festival. The fireworks have started and tourists are crammed on the streets. I call my friend who is confused by my recent vacating of the apartment to the other side of town. We agree to meet back up and float our Kratongs across the river together. By this time I am so tired I fall asleep for almost three hours undesturbed. I wake just in time to shower and make my way back across town for the festival.
I float my Kratong down the river flowers incense and all. Take pictures of my friend and his Thai girlfriend who blew into town sometime in the evening. We watch the fireworks and mayhem on the river bank. I miss my mate.