A Treasure Found at Home

i haven’t read the whole thing, but i’m thinking he’s not talking about the desert the same way i talk about the desert. still, it’s all true.

You neglect and belittle the desert.
The desert is not remote in southern tropics
The desert is not only around the corner,
The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,
The desert is in the heart of your brother.

–T.S. Eliot, Choruses from ‘The Rock’

i have a bunch of stories from this weekend but, for whatever reason, i’m not sure how to start them.

the whole saturday night trying to be sexy thing didn’t work all that well. it was very cold and rainy and i didn’t have any tops that went well with the skirt, so i skipped that for fear of freezing my tushy off. i dressed in my red red pants and a flowy black shirt.

also due to the rain and the cold, we all opted to stay at the piano bar instead of changing venues. it’s not much of a pick up joint, so we agreed to forgo the ’someone else has to buy our drinks’ rule, as well.

it was not *completely* without drunk men trying to pick up any woman who would stand still long enough. russel came over to our table and tried very hard to impress us by giving us all new names before asking ours (i was sherry), then he bolted when buttons suggested he buy us a round of drinks. flo took one for the team by chatting up his slightly bemused, perhaps embarrased friend in hope that russel actually would come back with drinks. she cut him loose when it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen.

i may not have worn the skirt, but i made up for it later at bleu’s ex’s house party by feeding chocolate cake to a total stranger by hand. i think he might have been cute, but since the lights were down pretty low i can’t be sure exactly — plus, he looked like he was a youngin’. i left to go dance right after the cake incident, but bleu tells me it was ‘very effective’.

three hours of sleep later i got up to meet hen for meditation. not much shows off the discursivness of a girls mind better than meditation on three hours of sleep, let me tell you. there’s precident, though, from that level three weekend in 2004 and the sfsc holiday party… mmmmm, latin dancing…

oh, um, yes, meditation and discursivness:

during the dharma talk (regarding materialism) someone asked if our grasping for more and more was a result of our society/culture specifically. if we were raised in the woods with no human interaction, he wondered, would we always want a newer and a better? i’m pretty sure the answer is yes. as if in preparation for the question, i ran into a couple dogs on the way to the muni just that morning. not being participants in our culture so much, i figure they’ll work as an example. they were wandering back up the hill sort of side by side with little interest in what the other was doing. (they had one guy with two longish leashes, so they were together but had room to move.) the golden retriever had a stick in his mouth. actually, he had it sticking out like those tools parapalegics use to type. it was obviously a treasure gained on his morning walk, but the whippit didn’t seemt o care one way or another about it.

i paused as they were about to pass and they both came up for pets. i fawned over the stick and played at trying to take it away. just that seemed to change it from a stick to a Stick in the eyes of both dogs. they started vieing for who got to hold it — not fighting, but playing and jumping. i didn’t want to rile them too much, so i dropped the game and walked off. at the corner, i looked back and they were still both trying to cary the Stick home. just me ‘wanting’ it made it something valuable and desireable, even though there was no more real value to the stick than when they’d been walking up the hill with the wippit ignoring the retriever.

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there was more dancing with coffee guys this weekend. i made a stop to get some wake up chai after my three hours of pre-meditation sleep. when i walked in ’soul man’ was playing. how can you not dance to ’soul man’? so, dance i did. and dance the barista did. and we danced to the next song as he prepared my chai. he even suggested i stay for a while and dance with him. i told him i’d like to, but i had a previous engagement, so he encouraged me to return next sunday morning for dancing. i didn’t commit.

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we had our first annual member’s meeting this sunday, complete with champagne. yum. we hysterically told the story of the history of our community together in a game where every person said one word then passed the marker (in our case, a champagne bottle) to the next person for the next word. i can’t wait to see the notetaker’s notes to read the entire ’story’. we also shared with our neighbor what the community has meant to us, our challenges, inspirations, etc. i was lucky enough to be very near one of the seed idea holders, who happens to be a person i love, so it was the best of both worlds.

to complete the total fabulousness of the evening, flo and white dog both became friends. w00t! and both asked what happened next, were they really friends already, how would they know (flo the night before actually, and white dog called me to check his status today), they were so so excited.

i’m feeling very bitter lately. i was just talking to a friend of mine from far away, giving her the update on my life. i’m pissed.

this week i’m supposed to be trying to believe i could attract a guy who isn’t still all caught up in his ex.

does such a thing exist?

i know it’s ‘not very buddhist’ of me to say so. i shouldn’t be attached to that idea, and all that jazz. but, i’d almost rather not have anyone flirt with me and kiss me and ask me out if they’re all going to be emotionally completely unavailable.

is there much better than taking a dance break at lunch with the people behind the coffee bar?

i don’t think so.

today is my sister’s 18th birthday!

w00t!

somersault by zero7 breaks my heart open every time i hear it.

sf20060123

Originally uploaded by Hjem.

i had to laugh when i saw this sinfest comic! it’s amazing how far a little kindness can go, it’s even more amazing how guys these days don’t seem to get it. even when you flat out tell them, they don’t buy it.

but, the word is getting out!

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click on the image, then click ‘all sizes’ to see it big enough to read easily

for our first stop next sat, we’re going to a piano bar. this time i think i’m going to sing. i need two songs. i love this one, but haven’t heard it in quite some time; will i remember the tune?

Chances are ’cause I wear a silly grin
The moment you come into view
Chances are you think that I’m in love with you
Just because my composure sort of slips
The moment that your lips meet mine
Chances are you think my heart’s your valentine

In the magic of moonlight
When I sigh, “Hold me close, dear”
Chance are you’ll believe the stars
That fill the skies are in my eyes
Guess you feel you’ll always be
The one and only one for me
And if you think you could
Well chances are
Your chances are awfully good

Chances are you’ll believe the stars
That fill the skies are in my eyes
Guess you feel you’ll always be
The one and only one for me
And if you think you could
Well chances are
Your chances are awfully good
The chances are
Your chances are awfully good …

~~~~~~~~

anyone got suggestions for singing?

i’m having a huge amount of trouble concentrating today. i’ve done next to nothing work wise, and can’t seem to get motivated to change that.

i’m exhausted.

i’m frustrated.

i’m grumpy.

none of those things add up to a friendly, fast, responsive request answerer. it’s just going to get worse if i don’t tackle these now, so why don’t i just buckle down and do them? what’s wrong with me today?

i dreamed about family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, mom and dad… there was so much going on. someone had just died or we were planning for someone’s near death. i think i was going to move in to my mom’s parents’ house, but was it after they left it or was i going to share with them? i can’t say i was disappointed when the alarm woke me this morning. whatever was going on, it was hard.

i need to do laundry. i put off getting the w/d from mom and dad for christmas, because i’ve been thinking of moving somewhere closer to the train station and less expensive. i mean, if i’m never home, what’s the use of having a fabulous apartment, right? but then i realized how expensive it would be to move. deposits and truck rentals and hiring movers and boxes and all the time and applications… i think it’s better for me to stay where i am for a while longer.

ok, enough complaining and day dreaming and babbling. i’ve got to get to this list or requests… right after i get some water and some red vines.

i got my ticket today.

eeee!

somehow, it never gets old.

now i just need to sort out who i want to camp with. where should i live and who do i want to help. what projects and how involved??? buttons will need a camper/rv, but she won’t be there all week. i wonder if mary would be able to join me this year and split the cost of buttons’ rv. it’s worth looking into.

i just bought the cutest little flirty, fun, sexy, black leather skirt.

this is the sort of skirt a girl just can’t pass up. it requires organizing a going out.

i also discovered last night that white dog knows the owners of a fabulous little tea house in the area. he’s going to take me there sometime. it’s funny that the tea house has come up in conversation a lot this weekend. ‘b’ went there with some friends, even though he doesn’t like black tea. he told me he had to be convinced, but didn’t share with me what it was that convinced him. then white dog was pouring tea for himself at work last night and got to talking about being a tea snob. then on and on about tea and this tea house in particular.

i actually left the bar to chat with creampuff and buttons because i couldn’t get a word in edgewise!

most of the night was about everyone flirting with everyone else and telling each other how sexy and wonderful we all are. a nice shot in the arm considering my recent misses in the relationship department. it was fun to flirt with white dog, who is himself cute as sin, and to feel cute, as well.

the night primed me for this black leather number i found today. there will be more flirting in my future. oh, yes.

the system that tracks all the requests i’m supposed to answer is temporarily down… oh, shucks.

i have the best of craigslist as an rss feed, and usually it’s empty. today, however, there were some new links. sure sure, they’re all good; that’s the point of ‘best of’. but this one really stands out.

maybe because of our near loss of grandma rose. maybe because creampuff just lost her mother and aunt. maybe just because of the human condition.

read one man’s touching tribute to his recently passed mother.

i was thinking of becoming a voting member in my dance community. i had started to mull it over slowly: should i? what would it mean? is it the right time?

then last night as talked about the event supper club at the place supper club (did they think we were singing their praises?), ‘b’ asked me when i was going to become a member.

‘later,’ is what i said.

wtf? why not admit i’d been thinking of it? why does his question make me want to put it off longer? i suppose i’d be more comfortable if i could slyly, quietly become a member without having to send a letter to everyone.

it’s my thing, about me and my concept of community. but, without those individuals there would be no community, so i suppose i see the point of having a public letter. right of passage and all that.

i have commitment issues, and this feels like a commitment. maybe that’s exactly why i should do it.

we’re crossing our fingers and holding our breath.

she’s breathing better, things are settling, she looks ‘more peaceful and pinker’.

it could still go either way, but these are good signs.