Thursday

Drank two cups of tea tonight, and let the third one go cold.

Today I was hurled through a spectrum of emotions, and I'm left feeling numb. I am not sad but I am not happy either, instead I sort of slowly move through a haze. I've been really concentrating on my personal projects lately (Writing), along with losing a little itty-bitty teeny-tiny bit of weight and training for speed on my bike. I vaguely structure my time, but if I don't follow the rules, I forgive myself. I'm really focusing on myself and the things that please me. It's a lot of smoking, putting on some incense, some music, and reading delicious fluffy young adult fantasy novels.

I'm also trying to fend off a cold or allergies or something. I've developed an annoying cough. The smoking, of course, does not facilitate my recovery.

I was going to do some writing, but found myself reading and drawing instead. I was always disappointed with my drawings, to be honest, feeling that I could only achieve results after much laboring and erasing, and even then, my results were not what I envisioned. I am learning to unlearn and draw as I used to draw as a kid: which was sitting for hours caressing one graphite line until it curved just so.

Earlier today I caught my bicycles engaged in conversation.



What could they be saying do you think?

They might be discussing my messy messy apartment. And the pink bike is bored, I am certain.

Hurry up with my new tires, Nashbar!

Wednesday: Writing

I believe that in addition to being Countdown Day or whatever (It was actually only a second), today might also be the one year anniversary of the "fight" which commenced the break up of Yours Truly and the Love Of Her Life (I only know this because I stumbled upon the entry in my Livejournal recently). We lived together until our lease was up, and, a year later, I still don't really understand what happened, just that it was really over, and I'm still searching for some sort of closure, progress, and enlightenment.

It's good that I can and like to write, so I can work this stuff out in strange simple inventions.

Enjoy.

One day my best friend and me got really high, drank one beer each, and then took the bus from Hollywood to Venice Beach. It was a lot of time to talk.

"Oh my god," she said to me, "I heard the craziest thing."

Baited, I said, "What!"

"So you know that friend of mine? The one who's been with her boyfriend for like, five years? Well, they broke up, and guess what, the boyfriend turned into her vagina."

I tried to imagine this. "Did it have his face or something?"

"No, I think, it was like, the vagina looked normal, but it could talk to her in her head, and it was her ex's voice."

"Oh mannn."

"Anyway

...when they had been together, they had been very much in young impetuous, naive, and optimistic love, and they burned right through it. They smoked a lot of cigarettes and they smoked a lot of pot and they had a lot of sex. They were together through college and one time, when he spent three months away in Europe, she cried to hold him in her arms again at the airport. They went home and made the closest thing to love that they could understand.

But the love died, or it changed, or it simply went away, and neither had the wisdom to cope. Then the day came when he put all his things into boxes piled in his car, and drove away. That night she laid on her back in bed, numb, and she absently reached into her underwear.

"Hey!" she heard, "Hey what's going on!"

The ex-girlfriend started.

"This is your...this is your...oh my goddd...."

"Wait, are you my...?"

"VAGINA."

"Well, that's weird," she observed.

"Look, this is going to be difficult for the both of us."

"God, I miss you already."

"But I'm right here!"

"But I need my space."

"I do too. If you respect mine I'll respect yours."

They did their best to obey their mutual rule, but the ex-girlfriend often cried and begged that they get back together, and the ex-boyfriend would fall silent, almost lifeless, and the ex-girlfriend felt as if her body were very far away.

But sometimes the ex-boyfriend would help her masturbate, plucking on nerve endings as if she were a harp, and she'd sing like a well-tuned violin. He would see the memories floating in her head and fish them out, sweetly describing the moments of sexual ecstasy. They did that together even though it always ended up hurting.

Other times he'd subconsciously creep into her skin, standing her hairs on end as her very flesh recalled the feeling of his body. She could almost smell his hair, which had always smelled wonderful. She could even imagine his weight in her arms. And then the ex-boyfriend would wake from his sleepwalking and everything would knot up in her stomach.

The real problem arose when the ex-girlfriend started dating. As her ex-boyfriend was residing in her vagina, she encountered the expected problems. He was jealous, he was hurt, he was desperate, he was angry, and he was totally and utterly and cruelly dismissive.

One time the girl met someone she liked.

"I like this guy, so please, respect my space."

"Does he make you happy?"

"As happy as I can be right now."

The ex-boyfriend promised, but when the ex-girlfriend and her new partner started to remove their clothes from each other, the ex-boyfriend accidentally let loose a sob. He whispered, "I used to touch you like that...."

It was so quiet that the ex-girlfriend mistook it for her own thought. Her partner asked, "Is everything all right?"

The ex-girlfriend took a gulp from the glass of whiskey on the bedside table. "Yeah."

They kissed against the headboard, and the ex-girlfriend's partner put a hand on her breast and began twisting her nipple as if he were searching for a radio station.

The ex-boyfriend rolled his eyes. The ex-girlfriend said, "Oh, you don't have to do that." She hoped that his lack of skill in one form of foreplay was compensated in another.

They wrestled in the sheets for a while, and the ex-boyfriend was jealous to feel the ex-girlfriend's response. But he held his tongue.

Finally her partner put his penis inside her vagina, and the ex-boyfriend made such a gagging sound that the ex-girlfriend froze and said, "I'm sorry, but I just can't do this."

He complied, and they repeatedly apologized to each other, the whole time looking only at their clothes as they reassembled their modesty. She sent him out the door and it was like ripping a Band-aid off - initially lingering, languishing, and then one swift hair-pulling yank.

"I can't have sex with you!" the ex-girlfriend said.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to. He just felt all wrong."

She sighed. "Maybe. It's so hard. You always felt so right."

"I'm sorry," he said again.

"I know. It's okay."

....so that's what I heard. Isn't that the craziest thing ever?" My best friend's eyes were wide.

I whistled and leaned back, putting my arms behind my head. "Sure is."

"Hey, is this our stop?"

I looked out the window. "Yup, this is the one." She pulled the cable and it rang. The bus lurched to a stop at the corner. We climbed off.

"Let's go find a place to smoke."

"And then let's get vegan desserts."

"Hells yeah," I said.

Writing July 8 2009

Monday: Work in progress: Ride A Bike Crest

Slowly but surely!

Work in progress July 6th 2009

I am going to make a screen with it. I think it will make an excellent print.

Monday weekend roundup: Fourth of July

My Fourth of July weekend was a manic flurry of body-sweating, bike-riding, beer-drinking, bus-riding activity. On Friday one of my best friends and I took a bus adventure out to Venice Beach, encountering the typical reality TV sitcom that results from forced surrender of "personal space," including, but certainly not limited to, an older man so drunk he didn't realize when I shoved him out of my friend's lap.

At the beach, which was overcast, we struggled to light a match in the wind, paid too much money for boardwalk pizza, enjoyed vegan desserts, and did all those Los Angeles things that are not for tourists.

That night was another bus adventure, only this time we went out to Silver Lake to welcome our good friend Rhonda back. Man it was good to see her. Bitch may have gotten some work done, but she was the same old booze-guzzling hot mess underneath...just the way I like her. I wore an absurd outfit and danced till my hair stuck to my face.

Saturday was a whole day of riding, which kicked off with a literal bang as my rear tire blew out. I am not quite sure how it happened, but Lola ended up with a hole in her rubber. I patched it with a boot and swapped out the tube, but the tire tear would later prove un-ride-able...although it was so much later that it hardly affected my day for the worse.

Meeting up with Bear Cavalry, we rode, we ate, we drank, we crashed parties, we climbed hillsides, and we eventually saw fireworks over the ocean. The fireworks were not as exciting to me as the time I got to spend making new friends and building relationships earlier that day.

Sitting on the top of a hillside, a little lovely in the brains, with a bird's eye view of the road, the trees, and the ocean, engaged in meaningful conversation with people I have growing affection for was enough to liberate me from the heaviness that has been anchoring me to this semi-fulfilled state of being. For a moment I was a bird upon the wind, perhaps the great elegant crane we spied in the river down below, and I was soaring as I sometimes fly on my bicycle, only this time, the world was far far below me, all its troubles shrunken down to nothing. It was an enchanted moment, scored by the music coming out of the sound system below, and for a little while we were lost boys, defiantly childlike and perpetually daydreaming.

En route to the fireworks, I could feel my tire go flat again. We replaced the tube to no avail. Fortunately, I dropped myself close enough to Venice to walk back to a familiar bus stop and limp home.

As a result, today I rode my mountain bike around, which was tremendous fun, especially since I removed the kickstand - it makes such a difference! Today on Wilshire Boulevard through Beverly Hills, I smoked two kids on fixies. I would hardly call them cyclists, simply kids following a trend, so it wasn't much of a victory to beat them, though they were utterly astounded at my prowess on my fat Gary Fisher. Which is not to say I did not derive a sick pleasure from slowing down and coasting within inches of the slower rider, ever so slightly to his left, right in the corner of his eye. Also gave a pretty good spring on Santa Monica Boulevard into West Hollywood, keeping more or less constant with vehicular traffic. That stretch might even be better on a mountain bike with the way that road is all torn up (In Beverly Hills too! Embarrassing!). When Lola's brand spanking new RED tires arrive (Along with her brand new RED bar tape), I am going to be so much faster and stronger from pushing myself on the Hedgehog (Which I've been riding with knobby tires, no less, for more resistance than my hybrids).

And not to make a hasty generalization...but why are dudes in black BMWs such dicks? Seriously, if you'd like to educate me on how I am "supposed" to ride, at least slow down. I can't hear you when you're yelling like a coward out your window as you whiz by ten miles over the speed limit just to catch a red light. If you're going to yell at a little girl on a little Gary Fisher, at least do it to my face.

So I can laugh in it.

Get a bike!

Friday: Writing

Recently I had the pleasure of crashing on my bicycle. It was my fault, it was something my ego is still too wounded to confess, and all I know is one second I was riding and the next second I was on the ground with enough time to brace for an incoming chain reaction crash. My first thought was, "Oh my god, is my bike alright?!"

When we were younger, my kid sister was the one who made multiple trips to the emergency room for stitches and casts. She wasn't clumsy or careless, she was just fearlessly testing the limits, and I, as a chubby kid, admired her physical prowess.

Since I started riding, my relationship with the asphalt had become almost intimate, and only because I had learned to be adventurous. But when it was sheer oversight, the crash was only shaming.

So I trailed the pack for the rest of the night until we stopped to rest and drink. A young man approached me in the lavender dark and asked me if I was okay.

I grumbled an affirmative, and offered up my road rash-ed elbow as evidence to my unremarkable condition. He said, "Oh you're bleeding. Let me get you a bandaid."

I protested to no avail, and eventually submitted my wound to his care.

In a moment I relinquished all control and ego, and I was a child transformed, giving in to higher powers and sharing my mortality. He skillfully applied the bandaid, laying down one end and deftly peeling up the other, the way someone who's applied many bandaids would. There was a sudden security in his easy motion, and though the bandaid was merely a superficial and temporary aid, in that moment, it cured everything.

The extension of our humanity to one another stirred something deep and primal inside of me, and it occurred to me that we are the human animal.

Writing July 3 2009