Life After the Rapture

Well today is may 22, 2011 at 1pm and my soul was not ascended into heaven yesterday as one of God's chosen.
I knew through the Wikipedia post on The Rapture that it would be rolling across the world hitting every time zone at 6pm...i wonder if if Arizona got two hours of rapture since it doesn't do Daylight Savings Time...
I must admit that as i spent the day before and hours before making fun of The Rapture and discussing the absurdity of something that has been predicted a dozen (probably more) times through history. ACTUALLY my mother in her confirmation class did the math to figure out the rapture....it was predicted for sometime in the 80s....
In grand fashion I attended an art benefit for a health clinic (insert irony that I got stinking drunk there) the night before The Rapture in glorious fun with my friends and enjoyed dancing and singing with my friends as our last night was prolonged into early hours of the morning. I had a great sleep over and woke up at my friend's house to a prolonged discussion with a zen monk about The Rapture. I am sure for him waking up to two girls sleeping in the living room of our mutual friends was intense for a celibate monk and might have felt a bit rapture-y. Interesting enough, what I took away from the conversation is that there are certain men who just don't think woman are intellectual. He brought up several conversations I had well formed thoughts about, even while hung over...and he didn't want to hear them. He wanted to show his prowess on them. Well I may drink and carouse and have breasts but my thoughts were just as valid and smart. But for some reason he didn't want to hear them. I find it more interesting to have an engaged two way conversation. Well and let's face it I am a little jealous he is a monk...I dream about being one all the time.
I went home after an amazing breakfast of banana waffles and bacon. All food tastes better when hung over especially when it will be your last hang over. I also got some sheet music because in the waning days of this civilization I am picking up the oboe again. (classical instrument that only Sufjan Stevens has any reference for...though his oboe player is a little out of tune and not at all that good...)

I was sleepy but I wanted to do something of importance before The Rapture....I got to reading the latest book I am obsessed with. The Tiger's Wife....pick it up the writer is under 35 and freaking amazing....I ended up online just surfing around...buying books before God took me away.
I must admit i got nervous at 530pm. I didn't want to be on the toilet when we all got sucked up to heaven or our eyes started bleeding. I took a shower to be fresh and clean after a lot of whiskey and bacon grease residue. As I was showering I was on high alert for earthquake shakes...I thought I felt the bathroom door shift open a tiny bit more....

Minutes before The Rapture I was thinking about my soul and what would it feel like if it was taken from me...even it was to save my eternal ass....I truly thought about if I would be taken if this REALLY happened. And I have to say even with my carousing, feminist ideals I think God would take me. I'm a good person. I love my friends. i love my family. I will take care of my parents when they get old. I give my friends lap dances. I get entangled in political thought. No seriously, I talk people through crisis and laugh with them when things are going well and I care. I critically think about what life means and what id SHOULD be like. I create beautiful things. I worry. I eat organic. I have no idea what I am doing but I don't lie, steal, or cheat. I am truly a soul making a try at it. I good clean try. It scares the shit out of people but I think Jesus and God can appreciate my earnestness.
I had turned on the TV so I could say I was watching basketball when God came (my sense of humor is on the cynical side) but I don't have cable and the Mavs game was on ESPN. So I watched some PBS. And life continued After The Rapture....

Life!

Today was the opening of Broodwork at my work...hee hee.
Here is a not very flattering pic of me with Kathy and Eamon O'Kane, the sweetest successful artist I have met. Seriously he is truly accomplished and very nice...a rare mixture and quite a treat. What is the cutest is that he has two boys and he seems to spend a lot of time thinking about what he is going to get them as presents. :)

Here are some more pics from work....I spend a lot of time there and these are some of the folks that make my day brighter!

As I can't find the battery charger for my camera this may be the last picture you see in a while from me....eek. I guess I will just have to steal things of the internet to fill up my blogs.
(Sweat Pea is somehow an April bday flower)
So I am 30! ...I made it there. It wasn't even that hard or trying. Though I have used my birthday to try to make some big changes through small actions. One I am buying flowers for myself. sounds funny doesn't it? But they are cheap comparatively to therapy and they seem to have the same effect. I buy $4-$16 worth of flowers and put them in my room or in the apartment and it just helps somehow.

I am thinking about getting a massage once a month. THAT is a bigger once a month expense though....but it may be really worth it.

I just felt like getting a blog out into the world.
Other than work I have been a bit boring this week. Of course last week I saw PRINCE and celebrating my birthday a TON. It seems like a time when I am learning alot and have my nose to the grind stone.

I can't wait for some beach weather on a day I can make it there!

Keep on rocking...

Some how these three photos go together and somehow show a lot about my life and what life in LA is like. Colorful sunshine through art and design as they swirl through my life. first being the tables outside a restaurant on sepulveda. the gay love of my life Greg Barnett, who I helped with some art stuff. Who is right now in NYC getting ready for a art show! And the desert flowers I bought to start celebrating turning 30! look at all the colors and sunbursts... :)

Amber came for a visit! We went to the beach cause I had to show her that! And then to a great East African restaurant in Culver City!
I am turning 30 next Wednesday!
Which got me thinking about 30 and well I am not done with beauty or youth but rather I am just ripening...my life is lush and vivid and just hit this point of juicy contentment. I have achieved some of my goals working in the arts, getting a masters, and in some strange twist of fate have performed as a dancer and become a performance artist, and shit a curator too.
Finally i am learning to flow with life's opportunities and I am starting to enjoy it.
I am not over thinking life as much and trying to learn to let myself enjoy the things I love and that I have worked hard for.
and I grabbed this photo that looks like a vain facebook profile pic...cause I look pretty. :)

The Ides of March

Well I am sure there are more than one blogger deciding to "pick up the pen" and get to writing again on this day, supposedly shrouded in bad luck. Well other than a slight headache so far i have made it through.

I am starting out with a lovely photo of the honeysuckle that wraps its way to my apartment...everyday that smell makes me smile and calms me down...as it starts to ripen and fall off the vine...even its sickly sweet dead blossoms are still appealing to me. When the earthquake in japan happened these blossoms brought me back from anxiety land and brought me back to the world.

Other than hysteria over the world as it is...things have been going just splendidly for me as of late. It is a great balanced sort of constant hum of contentment. I have been meeting new people, the art is flowing, and I enjoy my job. I am going to say all that cause it is hard for me to revel in all of that. so i am going to try.....ok i did it. :)

Just today my boss told me what a fantastic job I am doing at the gallery and it will keep me fueled to keep doing a fantastic job for months to come. It is so nice to hear you are doing well and means so much to me.

Well I am going to make this a short getting back into the swing of things with lots of photos blog. so many great things have happened the last few months.





Time with friends,

a performance night at Kristi Engle
and a pop song inspired cheer performance by Pedestal and the All Girl Band at Craftswoman,

a trip to Half Moon Bay outside of San Fran ,

and settling in to living in Mar Vista with a share in my local CSA look at those radishes ("yum buttons" and carrots!!!!!

library relationships

Today I walked to the library I go to...the thing is I moved...so the walk is pretty long...there and back to my new place...so I have started to put holds on books and have them sent to my new nearer library...tonight was rough as my library guy...the guy that has helped me the last year...the guy who asked how to pronounce my last name...he did a double take...and i said "what? what? do I have a fee? a fine?" and he said "oh and you have a book you can pick up [at my new library]"

it was heart breaking. I felt like we were breaking up. :)

I go to the library once a week. all it is is walking in getting my books on hold and then walking out after check out. But now I am slowly phasing out my old library location. How sad.

I can go visit but it just won't be the same.

New Time New Place

Hello all....i thought as I sit here with a sinus headache...I'd type out some of the crazy sort of thoughts that stream through a tired person's body. :)

It is very possible the stress of moving was part of how i got sick and that it got super cold in California standards this last week.

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future. Since I am moving out of a situation I don't want to live in into a place I see as a temporary solution. I wonder what exactly I want. Of course the answer is a stable place to live and a job that I could be happy at for several years. I guess what is amazing is that it took my 29 years to realize that is what many people spend there whole lives trying to get. For so long I wanted other things...adventure....knowledge...passion...love.
And well I still want all those things...now a place of my own...and a continued striving for a career in art....have lifted to the top of my desires...and the arty twist is the major part of my desire is about having a place to make art...more than a fancy living room or dining area....

this is so bland so plain...who wants to hear about this in a blog?

but that is what has been going on...lots of thinking and a bit of stress with changing my life again.

a plus to my new place...watching football on sundays...and no notes.

i have been really sick...tired..flush...achy...just overall flu like...sinus pressure...and the plus to that...was the two books that I read this weekend...
I read "The Red Queen" by Philippa Gregory which I love ah...love ah the British History books. And will read World Without End by Ken Follett next...if I haven't read it already...eek...I know I read Pillars of Earth.
Next was "Little Bee" which hit hard with my time in West Africa....a story of a girl trying to escape Nigeria to the UK. It was an amazing book. Read it. It makes me wonder what I can really do. And not in that I am 20 and want to change the whole world. I just want to make some change right where I am. How do I jump in to other people's lives...and not make a mess of them but help them...it is so confusing. What do I need to do? Like what can I make good? In all the confusingness of what good truly is?

and taking naps...now i am ready to feel good...and unfortunately I am still exhausted...and I guess it isn't coming out...but my dear the things you think about when you are exhausted...the things you notice...the overall picture you are too tired to focus on and you mind trips over things into you sort of stick on the weirdest things.

stay well and sleep lots. PEACE.

Marriage and the Libri

If I could marry a library I would...over a man over a woman over an animal...if there was a way that I could envelop my own life with that of knowledge and its physical the book I would. Because as I learn about knowledge for them most part it is a beautiful creation of play, and performance and passion. Truth an every present moral standard is not a reality. Humans create truth and humans create knowledge and we agree to all of that....as we move and act through society and culture.That is why i swim in books, teen fantasy fiction, historical fiction, ecopsychology...because it is teaching me how to create the next knowledge...the knowledge I can be a part of creating...that I am a part of just through reading its words....
I don't like technical manuals...I am more for fiction than non fiction...

So my nuptials would be one of commitment to making it up....rolling around in words and image....for metaphors that transform...that is what I am looking for...books create environments to try on and test out...or to judge the world we already have...with its demise or with its more glittery alternative.
Oh grand library of my love for creation of possibility...and often times the lament of reality.
Thank you. thank you for sparking my words and my actions and for keeping me company all these years....Thank you for understanding the riddles of life by keeping some hidden and opening the doors to others...