Beginning...

Strange to be laying here like this, staring at the ceiling, hardly able to move, and thinking of the plane I am supposed to get on the day after tomorrow. I didn't think I'd pushed myself too hard but I guess I did. I'm trying to not let my disappointment get the better of me... The cancelled dinner plans, the people I am unable to go see, the hours I must spend in bed.  I'm trying to just breath, just relax, just feel gratitude for this day, despite pain, and recognize my great luck in this world. For however rough the start, the adventure has begun. It is here.

Freya dropped off a huge suitcase on wheels to me this morning. Annie is on her way to fold my remaining clothes in to it.  Brian shipped boxes of my art to my sister this afternoon.  The bathroom still needs to be cleaned and a box of odds and ends needs to be set out on the curb, but the bulk of the work is done.  I must find a way to relax. I must let go of disappointment and tell my body that I love it. I must care for it. I must stop the chorus in my head that goes on and on about how horrible this is. I must be bright. The future is wide open.

If I was in a better physical state right now I'd be feeling quite sentimental.  I'd want to take pictures of the sky. I'd want to write dreamily in my diary of all my hopes and wishes for the road ahead. I'd write about watching clouds being cut by an airplane's wing and hearing sad trumpets weep in New Orleans. I'd spent a bit of time tearing down my large sheets of Rives BFK and wondering what I might draw during this great voyage across the United States...

I can wonder and I can be excited for the adventure ahead. Though I must be gentle with myself, I can still experience my absolute exhilaration about embarking on a path I've yearned for for so long. I can be strong in other ways today.

...a soldier to my own emptiness...

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okay, so i didn't buy a red dress, i bought a blue dress. :)

red is so specific.  i was looking for a fire engine red dress but the closest thing i found was some crazy shade of coral which, though i like the color, was made of such cheap knit that it unmistakably showcased my unmentionables.  and hey, i admit to being okay with looking a little slutty but this wasn't in that good way.  and the only other "red" dress around was maroon.  maroon is categorically NOT RED.  but i was there and eager to shop; excited for my trip and feeling spunky.  this is, in fact, the grand side-effect of The Kelly Bundy Dress.  as well as having two plane tickets, a train ticket, and a concert ticket in my hot little hand.  5 more days!!!!!  AHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  and so amidst the Beyonce that blared from the store's stereo system and the excitement in my own heart and mind, i decided turquoise was the next best thing to red so here we are-  packed and ready for adventure, a devil with a blue dress on. 

i'm gonna see this wide world, mama.  

sure the fuck am.  :)

leave nothing on these streets to explore.

i have never felt so happy in my entire life.


.

living the dream, baby!

it's been a wild week.  i'm full of stories and secrets, full of dreams and experiences, full of the knowledge that the best thing a person can accomplish in this life is Being Oneself.  i feel like Myself more and more.  i make less excuses and fewer apologies.  i simply smile and enjoy my time.  and in spite of my silence this passed week here, i've been writing like crazy.  my brother sent me a fantastic text message the other day telling me that he really enjoys my drunken writing here on the blog and that he thinks i should compile it and write a book.  it definitely warms me up in an indescribably way to know that people appreciate my work, but it is uniquely comforting to know my brother appreciates it and finds value in what i'm trying to say.  in some ways i'm trying to speak for all of us -  myself and my siblings - and to lay down a document of pain that may work as a cure.  i believe that the act itself of Telling can go beyond the therapeutic and bring about a reckoning.  i feel so transported sometimes, so changed by the act of writing.  i feel myself Becoming more and more who i know myself to be.  the core of me becomes more evident, more available, less shameful, less scary.  i learn, again, how to expose myself courageously. 

i've spent the morning drinking coffee, doing laundry, scribbling in my diary and thinking about what i need to pack for my return trip to New York.  i fly out tonight and land at JFK at 6am tomorrow morning.  i can't believe i'm already going back.  that came up quick!  it doesn't feel real and won't feel real until i'm staring at the lights of our most spectacular city from the cabin window of an airplane.  it'll be interesting to be there so soon after the hurricane.  i have no idea what to expect.  i know New Yorkers are on top of their shit and i'm sure the city isn't nearly as fucked up as it was last week but, i mean, it was a hurricane!  i think of Staten Island and my chest goes tight.  i hold my breath.  i'll see it for myself soon enough. 

and so i'll be off the grid for a week, off exploring and dancing and writing.  i'll pack as lightly as i can get away with and concentrate mainly on writing as much as i can make time for and taking a few more pictures than i did last time.  my friend annie is meeting me in Chelsea.  it's her first visit to NYC and i am so fucking excited to be there with her.  a fellow server at the restaurant, upon hearing that she and i would be in New York together, shook his head and said: you guys are gonna get arrested. ha!

i promise to not get arrested.  ;)

all my love,
angela

i want to fuck your brains out

circles of water on the floor next to the bed.  my glass gladly cries as i listen to the song in the post below:

my sweating Greyhound. 

i haven't been home in three days.  off on some sort of adventure through suburbia.  these things come out of nowhere and who am i to say NO?

unexpected and totally welcome, i didn't have these adventures when i lived in a suburb.  i was wound up way too tight for that.  or maybe i had snooty standards?  or maybe i just had the correct reading on life in the suburbs and knew those aristocrats cannot be trusted.  i mean no offense, y'all just believe in too false a God.  i must breathe more honestly than what your picket fences allow.  i'm grown enough to know that human beings are a strange, strange species and there are no easy explanations for anything.  we are (i am) driven by a need to find some sort of comfort after enduring such a steep and horriffic sadness...  and we tend to find said comfort in the glass confines of an illicit bottle if denied the soft mouth of another.  and so, i learned the hard way, again, that drinking an entire bottle of Korbel bought from a Wallgreens at 1:45am will, if drunk by a single individual (me) (even if over the course of several hours), result in such a tormented stomach that the act of eating itself becomes the most torturous experience there is... even days later.  the only sparkling wine one should drink should be the real thing: champagne.  at least then the resulting horror story might possess an air of romance (though, if i may remind you, i am never without romance.  i am a romantic human being and i know how to create romance wherever i go.  if you are ever in doubt as to how one accomplishes romance i have two words for you: back scratch.  simply scratch the back of whomever you are with, especially if it is a friend, and you have abolished all trashiness from the current situation.  trust. ).  and so tonight, on a ravaged stomach, i made myself a Szechuan dinner and it was the first thing i've really eaten in days   ( ...should i really be telling you this?).

still, we breathed at each other's mouths.  we panted at the open wish. we stared at each other, point blank, and he asked me if i was an atheist.  i said i didn't know.  i confessed to him that i had once been thoroughly convinced that there was a God (for my entire life) but, when watching my mother die, He died as well, right before my eyes.  he ate a bag of chocolate malt balls and i listened to his ideas about humanity.  as i poured another damned glass of Korbel we discussed mortality and i pulled the shoes and socks off his feet.  we sat across from each other in deep hotel armchairs and i massaged his feet like a Christ.

i loved listening to him.  he had such a slow, lovely southern drawl.

these are the strange rooms i sometimes am lucky enough to stumble in to.  i am granted the honor and pleasure of witnessing the humanity of another.  i learn.  and then i come home and pull off my worn clothes, i listen to The Smashing Pumpkins and think of a bed in New York, blues guitar and the delirious dreams that followed on the echo of those plucked strings... 

and i am left wondering what the hell the world is trying to teach me.




 

totally useless and unfocused and desperate for more

i don't even know where to begin or how to begin.  is there a chance for eloquence inside this massive buzz of elation?  i am far too excited to be of much use for anything other than sex or dancing.  and that's a straight up fact.  i return to a list of pressing responsibilities and cannot manage to make myself focus on any of it.  the dynamism of the past week is alive and writhing in my blood.  i don't remember ever feeling as beautiful, elated, thankful, energized and alive as i do right now.  the energy of that city is amazing. i only slept 5 hours a night each night i was there.   how do i begin to tell the story of an adventure?  how do i tell you how happy i am?  how do i tell you how painful it was to board the plane on my return flight home yesterday?  and that it felt more like i was leaving home than returning to it.  i fell instantly in love with new york city, especially the lower east side, and felt at home the very second my shoes hit the street. 

a wall in brooklyn photographed at 4am that pretty much sums up the entire experience.

i'll tell you a few stories once i catch my breath.

sigh...

AOL tells me that it's 44 degrees and raining. i've got the curtains drawn all the way back so i can confirm the weather report. it is, in fact, raining. a grey and white day but there's enough light coming down from above the clouds to wrap everything in silver. lovely. and i just finished making the prints to ship off. yesterday was a crazy fiasco of finding an emergency plumber and taking my friend to the doctor to get her cast removed. all at once, all at the same time, frenzy frenzy frenzy. everything is fine now and back to normal but i am worn out. completely. i let myself sleep in this morning even though there's stuff to do and errands to run and drawings to make and drawings to finish and paintings to finish and paintings to begin and prints to send off to new homes. i'll send them off this afternoon when the rain lets up. i don't take paper outside in bad weather. nope. it just ain't worth the risk. especially when the print is made with water-soluble ink. and so i apologize for the hold-up. the insanity of yesterday was completely unanticipated and i had to barricade the bathroom with OUR CLOTHES so that the crazy black water did not flood out in to the hall and ruin the carpet. it was a wild adventure to say the least. and then the clean-up after the plumber fixed the problem - a root had grown in to the pipes - a normal occurrence for people who live on the edge of a forest, but i had never seen water-works like that in my whole life. i didn't know a toilet and shower drain could actually mimic a volcano. no fun. and yes, it was as gross at it sounds. but this morning, i woke to a clean, bright, fresh home and the drizzle coming down and the wonderful quiet and black ink and coffee.