intellectual properties

carpe amor

everybody wants to know “the secret”.

but i don’t believe in unconditional anything and really all i can say is that if there is a secret on my part it’s that i don’t believe in tomorrow.

happy 14th anniversary to the one who puts up with this.  <3

2/1/98 – 2/1/11

13 years

it’s hard to not have high expectations of someone who is capable of so much.

so much passion. so much life. so much beauty. so much spirit. so much love.

but expectations get us no where. only trust that it all will be.

if i have faith in anything, it’s you.

a dozen

12 years ago today jay and i went on our first date.  i can’t tell you where the years went, or “how we do it”, or what it means for our future.  our relationship has been minute by minute, day by day, month by month, and now, year by year.  i won’t say it’s easy, i won’t say it’s perfect, and can’t even say with any certainty it’s forever.  these expectations have never been there with us, yet here we are, years after other promised marriages have failed. is that the key?   i can’t even tell you that i know what love really is.  all i know is that every day i wake up next to my best friend,  and i can’t imagine my world without him.

besos to you, darling.  and many more.

bleep.

(….)

thursday 1/22 – transportedSF – got to visit the 2 SF ballparks. well, the areas nearish to them anyway. because i’m not a sportsfan, i’d never really visited either. it was nice. i like things after-hours. with dancing.

friday 1/23 – left work early not feeling well, missed the event at the deYoung, tried to take a nap but couldn’t, went out dancing @ 1015 but left kinda early.

saturday 1/24 – the edwardian ball.

sunday 1/25 – clothing swap with the ladies. scored some new black shirts.

monday 1/26 – went to work, went to the gym.

tuesday 1/27 – we went to hear dalton conley speak about his new book – interesting, but not mind blowing. the discussion went very wide and covered everything from how the Obamas having grandma move into the white house is a positive sign for family values to how the large proportion of women in the modern workforce makes this a different economic-domestic situation than the 1930s (related) to how the $value$ of education has changed (specifically, the ROI on tuition and what it means for the future of education) to how the protestant work ethic has affected american value systems and consumer habits and how reprioritization is going on, partially due to the economy, partially due to generational shifts and technology, and whether or not the increasing overlap between work and play is a good thing or a bad thing (americans are reportedly working more hours a day than ever, many of them from home at odd hours, and more causal workplaces and ethics are resulting in fewer strictly-professional relationships). or something. i’m not sure, really. there was a lot of talking but not a lot of points to be made. the notes i took include phrases like “ecclesiastical insecurity”, “protestant curmudgeons”, “convestment” (the blurring of consuming and investing, e.g. home improvement projects), “imaginary wealth”, “the intangible economy”, “relative disparity”, “neo-tribalism/neo-feudalism v. individualism v. institutionalism”, “meritocracy”, “frolleagues” (friends who are colleagues), and “the myth of transparency” (how online phenoms such as facebook that are set up to increase social interaction might actually increase our isolationist tendencies and neo-feudalism, allowing us to filter and group people in ways according to information we formerly didn’t have insight into, and also how the mediated interface allows us to avoid both meaningful interaction and meaningful confrontation). tangentially related should-read: the macropocalypse and what is “smart growth”?

thursday night 1/29 we went over to chef joe’s new house in el cerrito and he made us dinner. southern style, of course. quinn played the blues, then we all sang guns&roses songs loudly and badly.

friday night i stayed home because i was tired.

saturday 1/31 – jay and i both got haircuts and then we spring-cleaned the house for hours and hours and i colored my hair back to red (and black). my other hair was just not syncing my current internal/external theme, which can maybe be vaguely defined as 80s glamrock/rockstar. you know – axl rose and such. that’s what i’ve really been feeling lately, and my hair wasn’t looking very rockstar. now, it most definitely does. the reviews from the peanut gallery have been mixed (not everyone is into the long fauxhawk), but i don’t care. i woke up this morning and my hair looked better than it has in months. that’s the kind of haircut i like. anyway, was going to go out dancing saturday night at party nearby in the san antonio district, but somewhere between cleaning and hair-coloring i developed wicked headache (too many fumes?) and so stayed home. heard the party was very good, but a friend got mugged/physically assaulted walking to/from, which makes me agitated. she’s ok and the thief got scared off, but i really hate feeling like we can’t even walk down the street around here.

sunday 2/1 – we had an anniversary party. it was sunny, we have awesome friends, it all turned out quite well.

fell a little off the exercise wagon last week; need to get back to the gym tonight.

coming up next, jay‘s got a DJ gig tomorrow night, the I Love You Because… gallery opening on thurs 2/5, helen’s sock-puppet party on friday, jay is DJ-ing this awesome fashion event @ Mighty that you should come to saturday afternoon: LoveBomb, and then there’s some other party jay isn’t playing saturday night.

so happy together

11 years and counting: 2.1.98 – 2.1.09

why? because.

rainbows in the desert: words

travelogue: oakland to palm springs and back, January 30 – February 3, 2008 for our 10 year anniversary.

wednesday, 1/30: i was still sick as a dog, spent all day at a work meeting, and when jay got home i was in bed and hadn’t even packed. got up, threw all kinds of random stuff into my bag, and we hit the road. first stop: fresno, ca, 40% of the way to palm springs and also the site of a job jay had for solar city. stayed at the radisson in downtown fresno.

thursday 1/31: i stayed at the hotel in bed watching the pre-election events on TV (we don’t have TV at home, so was the only time i’d seen any of the debates or commercials or commentary at all) while jay went to work on the job site until around 2:00p. drove to palm springs, bypassing the usual route through the traffic hell of LA by taking 58 east from bakersfield to barstow and then 247 south. highly recommended alternate path. the moutains between bakersfield and techachapi were a really beautiful surprise (i was expecting flat desert the whole way), dusted with light snow. stayed at the caliente tropics hotel, but it was too cold to enjoy the tiki bar/polynesian pool. had dinner at peppers thai cuisine and it was really good – excellent fake meat and thai vegan food – and the waitstaff where really friendly and helpful.

friday 2/1: actual anniversary started the morning with brunch at manhattan in the desert, which was decent standard cafe food. the waitress was really nice and brought me some free OJ to take with my dayquil. while eating brunch, we perused the local “what where when” guide to try to find things to do. the only thing of interest (to us) that was happening was that Stevie Nicks was playing at one of the large casinos in the valley that night. we got pretty excited about that – i’ve been a fleetwood mac fan since i was a child, and well – IT’S STEVIE NICKS in a small venue! even though it said sold out we called the venue anyway and were put on a “waiting list” in case any tickets were returned to the box office. we figured that would be a really fun way to spend our anniversary evening, singing along to Edge of Seventeen. alas, no one ever called back and there were not any extra tickets.

checked into our swanky hotel – the movie colony hotel and got upgraded to a two-story “townhouse” with a private deck. despite the high price tag and overt attempt at interior design chicness, obvious shortcuts, like the old dresser that had just been spraypainted silver, and no tub in the bathroom. also, serious road construction happening just outside, which the hostess said “probably” wouldn’t be happening on saturday (wrong. started just after sunrise.)

in the afternoon, we went on the palm springs aerial tramway, which goes from the valley floor to the top of mt. san jacinto. the trams are little pods that are pulled up the mountainside on thick cables, fitting about 25-30 people, and the inside floor of the tram rotates as you go up so that you get a 360 degree of everything. (the construction of this thing was considered “an engineering marvel”.) it takes about 11 minutes to go up about 6,000 feet, and in the winter that takes you from desert floor to wintery mountaintop, which i wasn’t *quite* expecting. i also wasn’t prepared for what going up 6,000 feet in 11 minutes will do to someone with a significant head cold, and oMg i thought my head was going to explode when we got to the top. my ears wouldn’t pop and i had a sudden and extreme pounding headache for about 20 minutes until my head pressurized. they should have warnings about that. seriously.

at the top, we had to wait a while for the sun to melt the ice off the walking paths, but when it did it was a beautiful if brisk scene. we spent some time hanging out in the sun and snow and watching the kids who had brought up sleds. had i not been sick and we had been more prepared, we could have gone snowshoeing into the larger state park. maybe next time. with us being a big confined to the short walking paths and me feeling sort of sick, we only stayed up there an hour or so and then hopped back on the tram for the fun ride back down the mountain. i went back to the hotel and took a long nap.

that evening, for our anniversary dinner we got a little dressed up and went to the fanciest restaurant in town, le vallauris. they had a beautiful heated outdoor garden/patio, and we had a nice time sipping wine and eating fancy foods.

saturday, 2/2: feeling a bit better, we went across the valley to The Living Desert, a botanical garden, desert animal reserve (zoo), hiking park, and miniature train exhibit all in one. it was a very nice day and we spent a lot of time wandering through the many different cacti gardens, animal exhibits, and pathways. we left just before sunset, and on the way back had a late lunch/early dinner at native foods vegan restaurant, which was super yummy.

we spent the rest of the evening wandering “the strip” in palm springs like tourists, stopping a couple of times for food and snacks and did a little shopping, and then went back to the hotel, because there was really not much happening in terms of nightlife. the outdoor heated pool and hot tub were uninhabited, so we spent a little time swimming and then went to bed.

sunday, 2/3: it never fails that the day you have to leave, the best weather arrives. even though the forecast was for rain, we awoke to a gorgeous warm sunny day and spent the morning hanging around by the pool a bit and then after checking out went back downtown for some brunch. had a semi-decent breakfast burrito at some nondescript tacqueria but nice because we sat outside in the warm sun, and then went back to one of the shops we had wandered through the night before – crystal fantasy (a new age hippie store full of crystals and fairies and tarot cards and smelly candles, etc) – because jay wanted to buy a “desert rose”, a very cool mineral formation that occurs in the mojave and other extremely arid deserts. the one we got is a cluster of 100+ of the rosettes and weighs about 15-20 lbs. it’s pretty cool.

as we were reluctantly getting ready for the 8 hour drive back to oakland, we noticed the wind was picking up, and then on the way out of the valley, we could see a serious dark cloud front approaching. we stopped for gas, and when we got out of the car i swear the winds were blowing 60 miles an hour – stronger than any wind we ever felt at burning man. i mean, the kind of wind it’s hard to stand up in. no wonder they have a huge wind farm right at the mouth of the valley. as the rainclouds approached and started dropping precipitation in the distance, the most amazing rainbow formed over the windmills, and everyone was pulling over on the freeway to get out in the driving wind and take photos. it was surreal and sublime. we stopped a couple of times to take photos from different viewpoints, and it was the very last shot that i took before the memory card was full that i think is the best one. it was an amazing end to our time in the valley.

driving out, we headed right into the wind and rainstorm as we drove through barstow, the wind pelting the car with sand and rain and making it sort of difficult to drive, and by the time we were back in the mountains near tehachapi, it turned to snow. we had to stop for gas, and getting out of the car into freezing driving sleet it was sort of odd thinking of sitting in the hot sun that morning eating brunch, just a couple of hours earlier, and of playing in the snow at the top of the tram the day before. i guess i should have expected a dynamic mix of sun and snow in the desert in february, but it was really quite novel when you’re not prepared for it.

the rest of the drive home was uneventful – the roads were pretty empty due to it being superbowl sunday- and the last stop was at an applebee’s in tracy for a late night dinner. arrived home around 10pm, and happily collapsed into bed.

rainbows in the desert: photos

i love the desert. the vast skies, still vistas, stark contrasts, dramatic weather and survivalist flora and fauna are sources of great beauty and inspiration.

smooch

today is our 9-year anniversary.

i don’t know what to say, other than i love you, and i hope you like your box of chocolates.

8 days a week

8 years ago today jay and i went on our first date.
then, i basically moved into his house a couple of days later
and we’ve been wandering around aimlessly together since.

i don’t know much about love, as i think it’s subjective
and mine seems to change every day
but what i do know
is that when it finds you
- true love –
it sticks
and there ain’t no getting rid of it.

everyone wants to know when we’re getting married
as far as i’m concerned we’ve been married in our hearts for years
and the truth is
i’m just too lazy to plan a wedding.

plus, weddings aren’t for everyone
at least according to some people
and as long as those people continue to determine what marriage is,
i don’t want one.

anyway,
back to us.
happy anniversary to my best friend~
i love you more than chewing gum.

les fleurs d’amour

happy 6-year anniversary to me and jay