"That's a big table...even for Americans"!!!

      My first week was spent pacing around my new living space.  There is no where to sit, ah yes whearhouse living is going to take some getting used to.  I share a wall with the Carpenters Union, Sal is their...shoot I don't know what he does but every morning at about 6am he get's fired up and starts calling someone a "cocksucker" at the top of his lungs.  I am not sure how his body can take all the stress.  I built this table so I have a place to store tools and a workspace on top...for what many have asked.  You know....all the crafty projects that are going to start blossoming.  I got a gallon of this color for $5 at lowe's...clearance.


storage underneath.
Wheels baby wheels

Cardboard

I stopped in Ohio and stayed with my friend Jonathan.  He is part of a group of artists that are having a show next week.  We went down to the studio and got to work on these crazy cardboard pieces.  I had a lot of fun.  We set off a bunch of fireworks afterwards...ahhh it was beautiful.  

Elko to Cheyenne

All those shots were taken on the way to dinner in downtown Cheyenne.  I had chicken fried steak for $13.95 at the Albany which claims to have been around since the 40's.  The road is a strange place, I can feel my body trying to adjust to all the crappy food.  Not enough veggies or fruit...heavy on the meat.  I stayed the night in Elko, Nevada a couple nights ago.  I walked across the street from my hotel run by a Indian family into the Stray Dog.  I passed a table on the sidewalk with three women and one guy with a fauhawk and Teva's with socks.  I ordered a pizza and a beer and headed out to the last remaining table on the sidewalk.  I listened to their conversation about being propositioned at Burning Man "like 14 times".

One of the girls kept turning around and looking at me, after the third time she finally invited me to join them.  The three girls worked for the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) as sprayers.  They claimed to drive in to the backcountry, suit up in those white hazmat outfits with a backpack full of chemicals and go to town.  Full benefits, 401k, and plenty of overtime.  Elko comes up with a large percentage of the country gold and the cute blonde's father is a geologist who found gold in the area.  The guys at the BLM got wind of this and now treat her like a princess.  It doesn't hurt that she looks like a prom queen with cowboy boots.  She pulled up her wifebeater and showed us her stitches.  They ran down her hip and looked puffy and slightly infected.  She claimed to just had surgery for hip displacer.  Her friend starting yelling for her to walk claiming that she has the best walk ever.  She resisted a bit, but with a little more encourgement she was strutting down the sidewalk.  After taking a seat she claimed that her family told her she walks like a dude, isn't it beautiful when people are honest? 

      

Eastbound...Again.

Hola,

to my 17 followers and the thousands of lurkers who have been without a post in quite sometime.  I am here to put all the rumors to rest.  Yes, I am moving to NYC.  I have spent the last three weeks working construction and coming home and collapsing.  I can't believe I used to do this everyday.  My body is so out of shape it's ridiculous.  I was intending to pack all my stuff a little bit everyday but I am a procrastinator so of course it came down to the end.  

Thursday night I had a BBQ send off party which was really fun.  I got four pounds of marinated carne asada from Azteca Market on Fourth st.  At 5 dollars a pound you can't go wrong.  We had tacos, veggies, ice cream cake, and lot's of laughs.  I woke up Friday and tried to get out of bed, I elevated my body and was met with the ceiling spinning like a washing machine.  I immediately let my head hit the pillow.  The stress was getting to me.  Luke got a tongue lashing for leaving the salt and pepper shaker the night before.  He came around in the morning to retrieve them.  I gave him a Skill Saw and sent him to the store for some bagels and coffee.  Holden showed up next, then Rebecca followed by Jai.  Everyone was hanging out mildly helping me clean the place when I told Rebecca that I had a new plan.

"Let's just put everything outside and then give the place a little a little shami and I will be alright."

"Sounds good"

      I was really just talking out loud trying to forumulate a plan since I had two hours till my landlord was showing up for a walk through.   

R spread the word and all of a sudden there were 5 worker bees going full speed.  The sidewalk was littered with magazines, toiletries, clothes, taxes, blankets, and many other items.   Jai even got off the phone after expressing his new found love for his fiance to some distant caller on the other end.  He grabbed the vacume and did a really good job.  Rebecca was slaving away in the kitchen, while Luke packed away my computer.    

"I don't even do this at my own place"

"I know, keep it up your doing great" I shouted encouragement.

  Everyone did a fantastic job and I am very thankful for the final push I really needed the help.  Good friends are invaluable.  I am blessed.  

I finally got out of town at 5 o'clock just in time to hit rush hour traffic on highway 37.  I was heading to Tahoe to see Blyth and meet her family.  I timed it perfectly with my 10:15 arrival.  We chatted with her folks for a half hour and they fell asleep.  A few hours in the morning were burned with discussions on suspension bridges, crawdad fishing off the pier, birthday cake made by B and then a little cleaning of the cabin.  I was there long enough to make a good impression without having to answer all the questions her father was dying to ask....i.e. how the fuck are you going to support my daugt I mean yourself in NYC.  Don't worry Howard, there are plenty of people asking the same question... it will work out...trust me.  

Come along for the ride...2164 miles to go.  

Photographs

Selfportrait NYCInside abandoned train Utah
Abandoned train
Shooting through the train window...heading East
The three Strays from Chicago...Thunder Mtn. Nevada.

Ramblings From a Road Dog

I pulled over for this...wait till the film comes back.  Wyoming.
Yellowstone,  it was freezing.
Bison held up traffic on many occasions.
The Badlands and I... (mom I am refraining from a smart ass comment here.)
Towed.

Hola people,

I am just going to highlight a few things from the last week or so.

1.Stayed with Jonathan and Anne in Columbus, OH.  Explored the student ghetto, Wexler Museum, got giant burgers and had a good time.

2.Drove through Illinois while listening to Sufijan Stevens album "Come on Bring the Illinois"

3.Woke up in a rest stop and watched a convoy of army personel drive by.  Very surreal.

4. After days of rain it let up just as I reached the Badlands in South Dakota.  My father took John and I here when we were kids.  Very magical, highly recommend it.

5. Got pulled over in Buffalo for a busted tail light cover.  My registration was expired he told me it is a $410 fine...he let me off with a warning.

6.The drive from Buffalo to Yellowstone on route 16 was way longer then I thought but well worth it.  Snow lot's of it.

7.Yellowstone lives up to the hype.  Bison all over, natural beauty is amazing.  I bought wood for a fire...it snowed all night.

8. Grand Tetons = breathtaking.  Wyoming is a wonderful state.

9.The Cocoon died.  Had to have her towed to Tuffy's auto.  Luckily all she needed was a new battery.

10. Driving across the Utah salt flats today.

Meet the Parents by B.

 

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Matt asked me to make a guest appearance on his blog to share my experience from his parents’ Gurdjieff Studies seminar a couple weeks ago. Since Matt already posted his experience from the Arizona seminar, he thought a virgin experience might be more interesting. If you’ll indulge me, here goes…

His dad was kind enough to invite me, never having met me before. Though I didn’t have much of an idea of what the weekend would entail, it almost certainly would not include a Memorial Day barbecue, but when you have the chance to learn from a spiritual teacher with 7 published books (and 3 videos), and you’re dating his son, how can you say no? At the very least, I figure, it will make a good story. 

I spend the first 24 hours totally confused and, frankly, a little pissed off. My seminar roommate later tells me that she worried about me that first day or so, using the word “morose” to describe my energy. Nevertheless, everyone leaves me alone to make my way on my own. It turns out I am just tired and confused that first night. I get over my fantasies of escape after a good night’s rest and am ready for early morning yoga at 6:15am. 

Matt’s dad leads the sessions. He is stern but loving. His Irish chuckle is a welcome reprieve from the serious mood that permeates the air here. I work with the ideas he is introducing - getting out of the “head brain” and “into the body.” They aren’t unlike ideas I have heard at yoga classes in the city, but it is new to be applying them with such intensity and duration. It requires a lot of nap-taking in between scheduled sessions. In fact, one impromptu nap takes place in the reeds on the side of the road because my bed is just too far away. 

In case I haven’t already mentioned it, this is a journey that everyone at the seminar takes alone. I thought that the weekend would be a good chance to spend some time with Matt before he hit the road back to California. I hadn’t anticipated that he would pretend to ignore me from the moment we walk in the door. Aside from feeling confused and a little abandoned, I feel invisible. That’s not something we feel every day, even in the crowds of NYC. I say that Matt “pretended” to ignore me because, at this point, my ego is stubbornly holding onto the idea that I am of interest to other people, that they are watching me, that I can’t be ignored. I heard other people echo this sentiment, as well, concocting paranoid fantasies that they are being singled out and tested. I am quite sure that was not the case. 

When Matt’s dad says my name during yoga (a light chiding for doing the pose wrong), my heart jumps. Someone has acknowledged my presence – I am here! It’s shocking how much we rely on social interaction to stay sane. I am reminded of a recent New Yorker article that discussed the cruelest form of torture – solitary confinement. People spend years in prison left to their own thoughts. As Matt would later joke, it’s pretty heavy to realize, after spending only 3 days with nobody to distract you from your inner dialog, that your personality kind of sucks. By this time, I think we all are starting to get a little tired of listening to our whiney, repetitive inner voices.

On Saturday night, I finally figure out what we are supposed to be doing. I heard it the first night, but was so distracted and agitated that it takes hearing it a second time and listening to other people’s experiences for it to sink in. Putting it into practice during the break between the discussion and the evening meditation, I begin to understand. It takes only a sip of water – the first real sip I have perhaps ever taken – for me to start to come into my body. I feel charged and hyper-aware of everything around me…the feeling of my clothes against my skin, the weight of my body on my feet. As I turn to return to the meditation room, I see that Matt has been standing behind me. That’s all it takes to bubble up all of the emotions I’ve been wrestling with the past 24 hours – the hurt, the anger, the shame, a little more anger. I barely make it to my seat in the back row before I’m overwhelmed with emotion. Tears pour down my face and onto my shirt. It’s not a cry of sadness, but of release.

That night is remarkable. Walking along the road on which I fantasized my escape the night before, I notice specks of light in the distance. Feeling the lure like Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters,” I laugh out loud suspecting that I’m so high I’m hallucinating the shiny dots. The next day I see on the map that I was walking toward what’s known as Firefly Meadow. Maybe they truck in the fireflies so the seminar participants feel like they are getting their money’s worth from the weekend. Regardless, it is pretty magical.

By the final morning, I’m existing in the moment, letting seductive thoughts of past and future slide by without dragging me along. Walking around the grounds, I can’t believe how beautiful everything looks. How did everything I’ve been seeing for the past 2 days suddenly get so beautiful? I’m positively filled with joy, thrilled to be alive. I see the cafeteria as if for the first time. Eating meals in the cafeteria has been the hardest part of the experience for some reason, but I don’t even try to hide the huge smile on my face as I eat my oatmeal. The rest of the morning is spent packing and attending a couple final sessions. Matt motions for me sit next to him during the final discussion. For the last exercise, we all join hands in a circle and I position myself next to him, feeling like a scheming schoolgirl. I will never again take for granted physical contact. 

Once we have hugged and shared a few laughs, his parents come over. I give each of them a big hug as his dad says, “Nice way to meet the parents, huh?” At lunch, we decide it’s either the best way to meet the parents, or it’s my new “worst date ever” story.