life swing:the past 7 days (from michigan to priceless)

my grandfather, Cecil Morse, passed away from old age, last Thursday, June 21 2012 in Harbor Springs, MI. he was 91 years old, a WWII veteran, and progenitor of a very large family (note that i have 22 first cousins and 27 second cousins listed in that obit.). on Tuesday morning at 4:30 am i got up and took a flight out of SFO, through Detroit DTW, and to Pellston, MI, the small airport nearest Harbor Springs. i went directly from the airport to the visitation at the funeral home, had late dinner with some of my relatives, and slept in a bed beside my mother.

the funeral service was at 11:00am the next morning at the church down the road from my grandparents’ small farm in the rolling hardwood hills of the northern michigan countryside. i won’t go on about it except to say that it was difficult. it was all very exhausting physically and emotionally and i couldn’t quite let it sink in. i felt cold, even in the summer heat.

i had downloaded the Fly Delta app for my phone, as recommended by Delta the previous morning, and it told me my flight out that afternoon was delayed. so with a couple of hours to spare before i needed to be back at the airport we hung out in my uncle’s yard, spurring on the youngest generation to dares and complete feats of endurance and strength in the waning summer afternoon.

we then headed back to the small airport, where i quickly panicked when realizing that the phone app was wrong. the terminal – a small place with only 2 flights in and out per day – was obviously empty of people waiting to board a plane. the TSA agent quickly informed me that i was too late – my flight was not delayed and it had already boarded. i pleaded, noted that i had no luggage, and they did, this time, make an exception. i was hurriedly rushed onto the plane, with no time to hug my mother goodbye. i arrived back at SFO late in the evening wednesday night.

thursday morning i got up and went to work, with a pile of things waiting to be addressed because of 1. the unexpected 2 day absence, 2. my impending leave after 12 years of running the office, and 3. i would be out Friday – Monday to attend/work a festival. i worked, quickly ran some last minute errands, went home, and we packed and loaded up the car and drove 4 hours to the Feather River canyon, arriving late in the moonlit night.

.::.

Priceless is a music festival/campout that False Profit has thrown in a small mining town in a canyon on the feather river for the past 7 years.  every year  it gets bigger, and better.  and this year, it was more or less serving as our going away party.  it’s definitely the last time that large of a number of our extended community will be in the same place at the same time before we go.  it was the last DJ set that jay will play in California for a very long time.  it’s a beautiful place with beautiful people and something we look forward to every year.

but with the ongoing mental stress of the process of moving to NY, of training my replacement at work, compiled by family stress and the emotional toll of my grandfather’s death and the 2-day early-morning/late night trip to Michigan and back the same week as prepping for this festival, i was tired.  when i woke up there in the woods in my tent Friday morning, i almost didn’t want to be there. i didn’t feel sociable.  i wanted to be in a tent alone in the woods.  not in a tent surrounded by 600 people that i couldn’t disappear from in the middle of a festival.

i did my best to buck up and remind myself that this would be the last for a very long time.  it took me a long while to adjust to being there Friday, to graciously engage people offering condolences for my grandfather and wanting to know all about our move to NY and also muster the energy to help do all the manual labor setting up a huge festival takes.  as the gates opened and the work buzz settled down and night began to fall, i started to feel OK again.  tired but ok. good, even. i danced as hard as i could that night, working it all out, and finally falling asleep in the chill music tent around 1am.

the weekend went on, with beach parties in the daytime and dancing all night within a community of people who are helpful, courteous, invested.  invested in happiness, in the future, in creating beauty and levity in a world filled with all darkness and confusion modern civilization has wrought, the good and the bad. this combined with hot summer sun and cold river water was medicine. a faith restorative.

the people who live/work in the location where we have this festival see many groups come and go all summer, from biker picnics and family reunions to more hardcore EDM crews that are less invested in sustainability and basically bring in 2x as many people and totally trash the place.  the woman working the small store on site told me that we are the best crew that comes there.  we are all so nice and organized and respectful and everyone seems really happy and she was really enjoying it, she said.

it is really great to hear the townspeople say they are impressed by our community, by our work ethic and our collective vibe, and i’m glad our community values are reflected outward and spread to those on the outside.

i felt adulthood weighing on us.  now there are babies and mortgages and careers and divorces and deaths and histories and tangled relationships. these things are heavier, harder to shrug off than the worlds we had at 25. but i think instead of tearing us apart, although yes some people have disappeared from the community for those reasons and more, they are bringing those of us still together closer. and i felt that.  i felt that we were there for each other, not just to party.  there to take care of each other.

this is probably the cheesiest thing i’ve written in quite some time, and maybe it’s because of the leaving town soon, the knowing there is no Burning Man for us this year, no Halloween in SF or NYE, that what i felt more than anything this year was that yeah, we may be good at throwing parties. after 10+ years as a crew i would hope so.  but what i felt more was that what we are REALLY good at is loving each other.

i felt it in the offers to help, to feed each other, to carry eachother’s stuff, to sit with one another during angry moments and emotional meltdowns and psychedelic breaks, and represented in small gestures – a hand on a shoulder, a hug, a smile across the table, and that fact that whether it’s a beer or a cigarette or a sandwich or a water bottle or a hug or a kiss or something more intangible, when standing around with these friends you can reach out your hand and they will, without pause, hand you whatever it is that you are reaching for, offer what is theirs to you in your time of need.

not all communities are like this.  not all families and communities feel safe, supportive, full of love.

that, people, is what is really priceless.

Ephemerisle: Worth Your Investment?

Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do “more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing”.

Some futurists think only theoretically and wax philosophically about the possibilities for humanity from the comfort of their libraries and leather chairs, rarely, if ever, testing their assumptions.  Others only read the directions on the box, if that, and head out into unknown territories with little more than power tools and some rope to answer such questions as “Is ephemeralization possible?”and “If climate change causes global flooding, could me and 10 of my friends live on a boat?”

Hundreds of years of literature (Lord of the Flies, Robinson Crusoe ), movies and television (Survivor, Cast Away, The Book of Eli and obviously Waterworld) have traditionally concluded that, with limited resources, human nature eventually retrogresses into an Orwellian unfun form of protective tribalistic survivalism, not any kind of Utopia.  But most futurist works do not take in to account the emergence and determination of modern survivalism-IS-fun types who take such conditions as a meta and physical challenge to investigate the possibility of non-violent ephemeralism (one exception being Huxley’s Island, a specifically written utopian counterweight to Brave New World, the pair of which I encourage every Burner and Ephemerialist and Futurist to read).

The term “futurist” is also misleading, as many current prognostications about the future involve a complete lack of computers and robots and are not unlike the happy, healthy, self-sufficient cultures of indigenous tribes and vikings of yore (only a light sprinkling of which still exist today). As many dystopian novelists and revolutionary, countercultural and experimental communities of the 1960s have asked: could we ever get back to a balanced, natural state if necessary, or have we gone too far?

Anchored just outside of Stockton, CA in the expansive and windy network of natural and unnatural waterways of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the most important question the floating festival Ephemerisle, now in its third year, wants to investigate — besides whether you would live or die — is this: Can being trapped on an island be FUN?

On June 9, 2011, False Profit sent a recon team to this local real world test of such theories and questions regarding emphemeralism in the particular context of seasteading. About 20 boats were tethered together to form an island, thereby forming a community of approximately 200 residents of various ilk. Community and connective platforms were built, and collective energies and resources were pooled.  The result was 4 days of sunning, swimming, dancing, diving, teaching, sharing, and learning within an enthusiastic, ambitious and industrious community bent on creating their own world.  As a contribution, we brought a boat full of speakers and DJs.

Learnings:

1. “Missing the boat” isn’t an expression for no reason. However, if you do happen to miss the boat, do not give up. There are other ways to reach your destination. Having a stash of cash or other highly valuable tradeable goods helps. A lot. River people can be very helpful if properly persuaded.
2. Driving a boat isn’t hard, but you do have to pay attention.
3. Dropping anchor sounds easy — you just throw it overboard and your boat stops moving, right?  WRONG.  Due to collective ADD and inability to commit, we moved our boat approximately 7x, so we are experts on how hard it is to drop anchor.
4. If you want freedom, do not tie yourself to anyone. Literally or figuratively. Otherwise you may end up listening to lectures when really you’d rather be having a danceparty in your underwear on the roof.
5. High speed watercraft are highly enviable and worth procuring.
6. Pirates are easy to distract. See item 1.
7. Blasting other boats with a wall of sound is an effective method of takeover, so if you don’t have cannons, have subwoofers.
8. Aquatic wildlife is way easier to catch and avoid than mainland predators (e.g. the prismatic leopard of the temperate rainforests of northwestern america). The only non-avian fauna spotted were river otters, and they’re just cute.
9. Put sunscreen on your ass if you’re going to lie around naked.
10. I’m On a Boat is not that hyperbolic. It really is like that. If you’re on a boat with us, anyway.  Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

Conclusions:  Ephemeralization seems possible, but we will still need GPS to figure out where the hell we are unless we all learn how to read starmaps.

Recommendations: Invest. More boats + more people = more fun at Ephemerisle 2012.

dylan (non-resident), jess, nicole, whit, me, lydia (visiting), jay, larisa (newest recruit), ben (1st mate), eric, jordan, alex

Sidenotes:  Growing up in the Great Lakes State on the shores of Lake Michigan surrounded by inland lakes, you would think I’d have spent a lot of time on boats as a child.  But alas, no one I knew had a boat, or, at least, invited me to come on it.  I recall being on boats only once or twice as a child. So I know nothing about boating.  Particularly, I did not know that I would still feel the world rocking gently back and forth two days after disembarking, but perhaps that is specific to the workings of my inner ears and not a global experience. Secondly, I realize that this is not so much a summary of the experience as a literature review.  But honestly: you don’t do a lot while on a boat.  That’s the point. So other than the above there’s not a lot to report that would make any sense at all if you weren’t there.  So if you really want to know what happened, join us next year on a motherfucking boat.

summer 2011: warm-up

for years i wondered if my blogging was a result of actually having something to say, or just something to do while sitting at a desk job for 8 hours a day. well, these past few months i’ve not been sitting at my desk job all day every day (shifted to working part time as needed), and i think the lack of posts here answers that question.  it turns out when i’m not stuck spending hours a day in front of a computer i do other things, like read the New Yorker and go for walks, and don’t just sit in front of my laptop. so that is the explanation for lack of posts.  it’s not because i haven’t been doing anything or reading the news or have commentary.  i’m just not as inclined to sit down and write about much if i’m not already at the computer.

moving on: last weekend was super fun. we went to see 2 live shows – Ezra Furman and the Harpoons (with Tristen opening) on thursday night and The Black Angels (with Sleepy Sun opening) on friday. Ezra was great, but he was sick and i think it showed.  always a good show though with great energy from the whole band.  i highly recommend their albums if you love singer/songwriters.  while i dig indie rock, dark and twisted psychedelic rock is higher up there on the list of things that my brain soaks up and rolls around in and enjoys. local SF band Sleepy Sun was a great surprise for an opening, and The Black Angels did not disappoint with their wall of sound. it was a challenge to keep my mind from wandering into the purple haze, but the crowd push from the mosh pit jolted me back every few minutes (who moshes at a psychrock concert? i thought we all just stood around with our eyes closed? people who grew up at gilman street, i’m guessing). + i love falling in love with the people on stage for a minute and that is why i love live music.

a string of birthday parties on saturday, then sunday we went for a hike up our favorite trail in Berkeley and cooked dinner and watched the Babies documentary with friends. while it was fun to watch and beautifully shot, i was slightly underwhelmed by this film. the small controversy when the film came out about whether it was appropriate for children to watch (some mommies thought seeing other babies pooping/peeing/breastfeeding was TMI for their own little ones) was much more interesting to me than the film itself.

and now we are gearing up for spring/summer.  with my new free time – the first summer i’ve had since 1998 that i’m not working full time all season – i have A LOT OF PLANS.  we shall see how many of them come to pass.

things that are for sure:

–Spring Training, this sunday in Joaquin Miller park in Oakland (if the world doesn’t end on Saturday!), because if your summer is a marathon of camping (disco or regular), mountain climbing, all-night escapades, road trips, festivals, and full days of drinking in the park with work days in between, you need to warm up so you don’t hurt yourself. this is a free all day picnic-party. the illustrious obi-j closes the show, but we’ll be there all day.

–spending a long weekend floating on a houseboat flotilla in the Sacramento river in June – i have lived in this state for 12 summers and i almost never get to swim. the Pacific is cold and surly no matter when, and the rivers and lakes are all a drive away. growing up in Michigan with a freshwater pond and/or river every 100 yards, this really makes me crazy sometimes.

–PRICELESS. July 1-4 up in Belden Town.  the best disco campout in the High Sierras for the 6th year in a row.

–Phish in Tahoe August 9 with a hiking/camping weekend beforehand. summer in lake tahoe + phish = guaranteed awesome.

the things that are definite maybe:

–New York City.  sometime before July 31, because i NEED to get to the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met.

–Burning Man. we have tickets. but if something a better use of time/money comes up (like a trip abroad this fall?), this could get bumped.

in the meantime, i plan to continue spending my days biking around town, going to yoga/keeping up the workout routines, and window shopping. and….that’s about it.

summer 2011: are we ready?

the country you love could be your own (FP voter guide 2010)

the official 2010 Voter Guide from False Profit HQ:

Here at False Profit LLC, we care about politics. And we know that you care about politics too. We noticed that one time you read that article about politics and stuff and shared it on your Facebook account. That was totally cool. Now we have another opportunity to make a difference.

Whether or not you believe voting makes a difference doesn’t matter. You should do it because it’s awesome. And nowhere does it matter more than in local elections. Best of all, voting gives you the right to complain. As a San Francisco resident, that’s an inalienable right that they can’t take away from you, no matter how hard they try.

So be sure you vote on Tuesday, November 2. Or else Olivia Wilde will be very pissed at you.

Below is your handy Cheat Sheet to print and take to the polls. Check our web site for the full explanations and more links to do your own research.

Remember: The country you love could be your own.

False Profit Voter Guide Cheat Sheet

CA Prop 19, Marijuana Legalization – YES
CA Prop 20, Congressional District Redistricting- No
CA Prop 21, Vehicle License Fee to Fund State Parks – YES
CA Prop 22, Prohibits State from Taking Local Funds – Yes (with dissent)
CA Prop 23, Suspension of Air Pollution Control Laws – NO NO NO
CA Prop 24, Repeal of Corporate Tax Loopholes – YES
CA Prop 25, Simple Majority State Budget Passage – YES YES YES
CA Prop 26, Approve State and Local Fees with 2/3 Vote – NO
CA Prop 27, Eliminate State Redistricting Commission – Yes

SF Prop AA, Vehicle Registration Fee – YES
SF Prop A, Earthquake Retrofit Bond – YES
SF Prop B, City Retirement and Health Plans – NO
SF Prop C, Mayor Appearances at Board Meetings – NO
SF Prop D, Non-Citizen Voting in School Board Elections – YES
SF Prop E, Election Day Voter Registration – YES
SF Prop F, Health Service Board Elections – YES
SF Prop G, Transit Operator Wages – YES
SF Prop H, Local Officials on Political Party Committees – NO
SF Prop I, Saturday Voting – YES
SF Prop J, Hotel Tax Clarification and Temp. Increase – no
SF Prop K, Hotel Tax Clarification and Definitions – yes
SF Prop L, Sitting or Lying on Sidewalks – NO NO NO
SF Prop M, Community Policing & Foot Patrols – Yes & No
SF Prop N, Real Property Transfer Tax – Yes & No

Barbara Boxer – US Senate
Debra Walker – SF City Supervisor District 6
1) Rafael Mandelman, 2) Rebecca Prozan – SF City Supervisor District 8

GOVERNOR: Meg Whitman is not for me.  I’m voting for Moonbeam!!!

OAKLAND/BERKELEY (ALAMEDA):  WE GOT A LOT ON OUR LOCAL BALLOT TOO.  I support using the Green Party Voter Guide to make those decisions:

Alameda County Local Measures
F – County $10 Vehicle Registration Fee – Yes, with reservations
H – Berkeley: Continuation of School Maintenance Parcel Tax – Yes
I – Berkeley: Continuation of School Facilities Bond – Yes
J – Emeryville: $95 Million School Bond – No, with reservations
L – Oakland: Schools Parcel Tax – No Endorsement, see write-up
N – Albany: Appointed City Attorney – No Endorsement, see write-up
O – Albany: Utility Users’ Tax – Yes
P – Albany: Paramedic, Fire Engines and Ambulance Tax – Yes, with reservations
Q – Albany: Cannabis Business Tax – No Endorsement, see write-up
R – Berkeley: Downtown Plan – No, No, No!
S – Berkeley: Tax on Cannabis – Yes
T – Berkeley: Medical Cannabis – Yes
V – Oakland: Cannabis Tax – Yes
W – Oakland: Telephone Tax – Yes
X – Oakland: Parcel Tax – No, No!
BB – Oakland: Amend Measure Y Funding – Yes

NO EXCUSES, people.  You are LEGALLY ALLOWED to take off work to vote if needed.  and come ON! voting isn’t hard when you have awesome cheat sheets! (or visit SmartVoter.org to make your own informed decision.) DO IT!

burning man 2010 (or: eat pray love on the playa)

“I have sometimes imagined that everything in the world is exactly where it’s supposed to be, all in their places, all the way down to the smallest things that we usually deem insignificant. Like that rock on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store on the corner. And if you kicked it—that rock—if you disrupted its place, it might leave a little rock sized hole of nothing, into which the world would collapse like water swirling down a drain.

But that’s not right. Things move. Everything moves. And the world never fails to swoop in and fill the place you thought was empty. The empty world is always full. Look around. Look again.

If you are lucky enough, in autumn, to see a leaf—when does it give?—falling from a tree, to witness its graceful descent to the grass in its entirety, and if you watch it close—don’t blink—it will occur to you that it’s absolutely fucking impossible. None of this is possible. And yet here we are, tenaciously, impossibly. You can dwell on the flowers. You can dwell on the rain. But if you do, if you make the crucial mistake of choosing this or that, you will have missed the greatest fact. That the orange flowers and the blue rain are mad for one another—raving lovers—grasping at each other, achingly, to close the space between.”  ~ BHJ

~photo by john curley~

.::.
introduction
.::.

as i noted in the prologue, my burning man this year was going to be different for multiple reasons, the 2 major ones being 1. jay wasn’t going and 2. i really, really, really needed a decompression chamber.

a bit more on #2: it seems i am a highly strung person. i am anxious. i get stressed over little things. i can’t sleep, and then i sleep for days. i have anxiety/panic attacks. i obsess over details. i keep meticulous lists. this has been helpful for my day job (which benefits from me being this way, and i excel at my duties), but not good for my overall being, and in the past year or so this has become literally painful, manifesting itself in my body and resulting in what is now almost a year-long chronic pain in my upper-back/shoulders/neck, most likely caused by anxiety and stress and has been non-responsive to all the other treatments i’ve tried, from muscle relaxers to chiro to acupuncture to rolfing (and in fact typing up this summary took longer than expected because whenever i type for more than 5-10 minutes straight, the pain comes back and i’ve only been able to write in spurts).

as anyone who has ever been to burning man knows, it’s not generally a relaxing experience and people need days, if not weeks, to recover. first, if you’re going with any organized group, there is planning stress from the 10,000,000 emails from your campmates. yes, this is necessary if you want to create a kick-ass village with kitchens and showers and art cars and sound systems and lighting in the middle of the desert. but knowing what you are creating doesn’t make it any less stressful, IMO. in fact, probably more stressful than say, planning an event at work, because in this case you actually CARE.

also, i am not a “joiner”, and i don’t much care for rituals, ceremonies and the like, which makes me going to Burning Man seem even more ridiculous, because, as the BBC recently pointed out, it’s one of the largest secular rituals in the US at this point.

and then, there is being there. the weather. the full days of WOOOOO! the long nights of WOOOOO! the dozens of miles walked/danced/biked every day, back and forth, around and around the circus. so much time when you have absolute freedom! the lack of sleep and nutrients. the dehydration. the exhaustion.

i did not need that right now. i needed to RELAX. and so my burning man experience this year was, as nicoco pointed out one morning, more like being on a cruise ship. i did work when it was needed and what i could, but then i laid around a lot in my beach chair, finishing reading Eat Pray Love and writing in my journal. i sat around Center Camp, sipping coffee and watching people. i went to bed when i felt like it. lots of caffeine aside, i did not do any drugs (i’m sort of a tweaker already while totally sober; drugs usually only amplify this in an uncomfortable way and i’m better off just not even going there). i didn’t even drink all of the champagne i took with me, and not once did i really feel intoxicated.

the link to Eat Pray Love: i started reading this book while traveling in south america. i won’t go into the details of the book but will say that reading this after dealing with this stress-pain issue for a year and then 1. traveling to south america and then coming back to work for a week and 2. going by myself to burning man did provide excellent context for reading a novel about a 30-something woman’s self-healing journey after a period of overwhelming, disabling stress.

i did have many issues with the assumptions and context of the novel (many of which are detailed in this Bitch Mag article: “Eat Pray Spend” and so i will let that article serve as a proxy for all my other thoughts about 1st-world consumer appropriation of other cultural rituals and the current problems with the “Sex and the City” feminism that seems to be popular these days), probably more than the average american woman who doesn’t live in San Francisco surrounded by self-affirming cultural appropriators who spend tons of time and money going to ashrams and yoga and dance-meditation and ceremonies of various sorts and get off on depriving themselves doing herbal juice fasts, and so her “journey” wasn’t this crazy unique story to me – it was a longer version of what people i know do all the time. but the writing was good, while i didn’t really care much about her own personal story of transformation, i found the stories about the other people and cultural situation she encountered to be entertaining and thought provoking, and a few of the ideas really stuck with me and are embedded in the text below.

mostly: i found myself in my own version of Eat Pray Love on the Playa. i was alone, independent, self-reliant, and i was, for most of the time (exceptions, of course), alternately conscious of my intention to relax/detox and choosing my actions/thoughts accordingly, and then really zenned out. i mean, as much as i could, i emptied my mind, stopped caring about who/what/where/when, and completely checked out. in a place where Active Participation is strongly encouraged, this seemed at first a bit odd, and it took a couple of days to adjust and not be enveloped by the excited mania that was going on around me. but it was what i needed, and when i returned, i was in such a state of relaxation that it was unfamiliar. i was calm.

.::.

the journals

.::.

below are the journals i hand-wrote while on the playa, with some text/post-script added.

(if you just want to see more photos, steph goralnick’s are by far my favorite).

Continue reading »

priceless v5

there is so much i haven’t blogged lately, but typing hurts (yes, still), and so does my brain.  taking off tonight for the annual Priceless party in the mountains.  i’m already ill, so i’m hoping that priceless is more like Time to get Well.  hey, it’s worked before.

happy 4th, y’all.  be safe, and do it good.

June 8 2010 – SF/CA Election Cheat Sheet + Why voting “No” is important

False Profit Cheat Sheet

A Prop 13, Seismic Retrofit – YES
CA Prop 14, Top-Two Primary – NO
CA Prop 15, Fair Elections – YES
CA Prop 16, PG&E Monopoly – NO
CA Prop 17, Insurance Persistency Discounts/Rate Hikes – NO

SF Prop A, SFUSD Parcel Tax – YES
SF Prop B, Earthquake Safety Bond – YES
SF Prop C, Film Commission Appointments – YES
SF Prop D, Public Employee Pensions – YES
SF Prop E, Costs of Protecting Dignitaries – ?
SF Prop F, Rent Increase Appeals – YES
SF Prop G, Transbay Terminal – YES

For full explanations visit False Profit.com

If you live in Alameda County, like me, go to SmartVoter for information about the Alameda County items on the ballot, specifically Measures A-D, which are minor, or visit the East Bay Express voter guide.

In general, I’m against voting for huge state measures at the ballot box (voters being swayed by commercials and misleading short summaries should not be making decisions; elected officials guided by experts should be making decisions, that’s why we pay them), and I especially agree with the Green Party – “When we can’t understand a proposition’s effects and side effects, we should usually vote No.”

To be clear: For those of you who don’t understand your ballot propositions and therefore just figure you won’t vote, NOT VOTING is not the same as Voting No.  VOTING NO IS IMPORTANT.  It keeps badly organized, faulty laws that people don’t really understand from being implemented.

tiny posts that somehow evolved into live-blogging american idol

• there are certain songs that when i hear them on the radio, in my head it gets replaced with the high school marching band/jazz band version (i was in band from grade 6-12, was 1st clarinet and played sax also).  i am not enjoying the HS jazz band version of China Grove in my head right now.

• i still listen to “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley all the time.  that song makes me so happy.

• last night i resuffered the dream that i wasn’t passing calculus again (IRL i got an A), and this time (the nth time) i noted that the lack of achievement in that respect directly correlated to lack of hooking up with the boy i had a crush on, who is also usually in the dream.

• when we were in europe, there was, in Prague, a clash with some local street vendors over a purchase. someone made a deal they shouldn’t have, and then they tried to force jay into paying more for it afterward.  i got very nervous and freaked out and sort of ran away, especially when more appeared out of the shadows and we were obviously outnumbered. i slipped into another shop and then down the street while J&J worked it out.  i was randomly thinking about this last night and in retrospect, i should have probably stood with them, as most men will not do anything to a woman, and the situation probably wouldn’t have escalated and then dragged out the way it did. especially not on a crowded tourist street. if i would have been the one to forcefully say “WE ARE LEAVING RIGHT NOW”, what would they have done? or maybe that’s a stupid idea.  more to the point is the fact that i run away when scared.

• we are going to see Ezra Furman and the Harpoons again soon.  I can’t recommend this band enough. i am way more into Ezra than Lady Gaga (even though this little piece of Gaga reporting is awesome).

• WARNING: i am currently typing this while watching the American Idol finale, so there are going to be tweet-like comments interjected into this otherwise totally cohesive blog post.

• last night i watched the Biggest Loser finale.  i have watched the whole season.  i enjoy this show.  it teaches people things that are hard to learn.  losing weight is hard.  nutrition is not complicated, but it isn’t necessarily intuitive either. i was really rooting for Cheri to win. oh well. footnote: i think Australia’s Biggest Loser is better (which you can, um, find somewhere on the internet), particularly because of the mini-nutrition seminars . and motivating yourself to exercise?  that’s a whole other animal.  i like BHJ’s approach.

• i also watched the last 1/4 of the Dancing with the Stars finale.  i’ve only seen about 1/20th of this season. it’s not that i’m not impressed;  it’s just superfluous.  as is this American Idol thing.

• this AT&T ad with the orange silky looking things is very rip-off of Christo.  oh, wait!  there at the end of the ad there is some fine print that says Christo had nothing to do with it.  interesting.

• who sold David Bowie’s music to Lincoln commercials?  fuck.

• this ad where the girl eats KFC on the bus to help her ignore the loud talking cellphone guy?  i’d be just as annoyed if someone sat next to me eating a bucket of KFC.

• oh, Xtina! hot.
• oh, wait. this is boring.
• where was i?

• ok, so on April 30 i went to the ER with neck/shoulder pain and then on May 4 jay crashed really hard on his mountain bike. we are both currently recovering and doing mostly well, although we do both complain like a couple of senior citizens about aches and pains. i am repeating this as a way to explain all of the television watching referred to above. there’s not a lot to do when you’re on painkillers.

• i really don’t care that Simon Cowell is leaving American Idol.  i’d rather see Billy Idol in his seat anyway.

• tonight we went for momos at the Cafe Tibet on University in Berkeley. and then i had an incredible eggplant dish, although next time i’d rather have the wild rice than that weird cinnabon-textured bread ball thing. never had a momo?  they’re little steamed tibetan dumplings filled with all kinds of delicious things. you’re missing out.

• fruit, vegetables, yogurt, eggs, cheese, beans, lentils, rice, nuts, coffee, wine.  all as organic as possible. moderate: soy/tofu/fake meats, popcorn, tater tots. avoid: bread, pasta, sweets. never: meat or fish. that is basically my diet.

• what is this, YACHT ROCK IDOL??
• this should stop…..

• this dreadlocked Idol finalist reminds me: not long after we first moved to California, i went out in L.A. wearing baby blue corduroys and phish t-shirt in matching baby blue. we got made fun of by some LA bimbo at the door of a club. i was indignant.  do you ever look back at photos or remember versions of yourself and wonder who that person was?

• this Idol finale is watching people sell out in real time.  it’s terribly sad.

• ok i will admit i still have a soft spot for bret michaels.  esp after Apprentice.

• despite being laid up for a couple of weeks, both jay and i have been trying to get back in shape. that’s a weird term, “in shape”, but you know what i mean.  to feel better. to live longer. to look hotter. me, since December, him, the past several months (i don’t know exactly). i haven’t lost much weight (i don’t think i had much to lose, but let’s not discuss that here, ok?) but jay has.  my boyfriend looks hot.  the larger point is that when you start really paying attention to your body it’s fascinating, all the fluctuations in energy,hunger, weight, satiation.  it’s easy to get obsessed.  the funny thing is it’s also easy to fall off the wagon.

• 2 dudes from Foreigner were on a local program last night singing “Feels Like the First Time” acoustic.  i was pretty impressed, actually . it was way better than this Chicago number on Idol.

• oh! yes, jeez i knew i was forgetting something.  saturday night i went on a bus party for a friend’s birthday.  the rest of that story is fairly unpublishable. except at the end we all sang “Don’t Stop Believing” really loud from the shores of Treasure Island while some people did gymnastics in their underwear on a wet lawn. i am not making that up.

• sunday was the 4th annual False Profit “Spring Training” outdoor party-picnic in the oakland hills.  i was there for 9 hours. it was super fun.  neva and i had a great time. aforementioned hot boyfriend also played a killer set.  lucky girl.

• in wanderlust news, i have the following in mind between now and mid-September: Utah, Chicago, Chile, Peru, Burning Man, Bali. we shall see how many come to pass.

• i guess i can just come totally clean now and admit i’ve also been watching the 2010 Giro d’Italia.  i feel like there’s nothing lazier than laying in bed watching other people do sports.  the bike races intrigue me though, and there aren’t tons of really annoying commentators or guys with light pens or beer commercials.  it’s very simple: ride bike fastest.  through incredible scenery. i like that.

• dude, Paula Abdul is totally wasted. i also can’t believe what she is wearing.  who made that atrocity? and it’s like NEON fuschia too.  file under: “i was high when i got dressed”.

• i heard a punk rock version of Billy Joel’s “my life” on KALX yesterday, and it was great. i wish i had looked to see who it was, actually. on the contrary, these group sing-a-longs in Idol make me want to hurl. i can’t believe this isn’t over yet.

• Janet’s surrogate is looking good. except it sounds a lot more like Michael than Janet.

• Obama was here in SF yesterday, and even here in the “bluest city in the nation” there was a whole crowd of protesters, everyone from central valley tea partiers screaming (with good cause) about the state budget debacle to environmentalists wanting to know what Obama was doing fundraising when the entire Gulf Coast is in a state of emergency. retort: you need Dems in office to deal with oil reform. i have no idea who you need in office to fix California.

• some days i feel highly dysfunctional on a lot of levels.  today was one of those days.  this blog post is making me feel better.

• i have no investment into which one of these humans win idol.  oh, wait….well now that it’s announced i guess i was sort of rooting for the girl.

• and that is probably the most i will blog in a while.

the end.

Summer 2009: in bits and pieces

i haven’t done a ‘this is what i’ve been up to’ bulleted post since the end of may, which means this one covers June, July, and August. wow. so i guest that makes this a “Summer 2009″ who/what/where/when summary. much of this has already been referenced in singular posts or tweeted, but if i don’t summarize like this i lose track.

after the beautiful zimtrix wedding came JUNE:

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burning man 2008: american dreams

this post has been sitting in draft since september 16, 2008, and i have kept revisiting it, trying to finish, trying to think of what to say, so this is pretty fragmented and definitely incomplete.  now that we are definitely NOT going to burning man this year and pretty much everyone we know who is going is leaving for BM 2009 within the next 5-7 days, i think i’ve reached a time limit and feel like i should say something about last year. it did happen.

.::.

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