California Fever

poppin' the p's...

Just a test post to try out the mic set-up.

moovies

This is for Sam, although it's not the audioblog she might have expected.  I did finally make it over to audioblog.com, but since I'm too retarded to have any clue where the hell the mic is on our laptop (I'll have to wait for the boyfriend to get home to have him show me, which I'm sure will be accompanied by a big eyeroll as in, "Are you KIDDING me?!")...instead I did some videoblogs.  They're not here.  Boyfriend and I came up with blog name for video clips that we liked and I've had it ready to go in TypePad--I was just waiting to figure out how the hell to post clips.  I've finally figured it out, so you can check out my first few videoblogs at Moovies (http://marilyn.typepad.com/moovies).  And in case you're wondering, "moo" is sort of a key word in our lives.  My nieces and nephew call me Moo Moo (it's a long story) and boyfriend is known as Mookie among his musician peers in Portland.  So "moovies" it is.  :)

Paging Dr. Freud

So I'm lying in bed, having just finished reading a super-light novel.  I put the book on the bedside table, turn off the lamp and think I might try going back to sleep.  Next thing I know (I swear I don't know what prompted it) I'm tumbling backwards, like in some cheesy 50's TV special effect, to my adolescence.  (And just now I typed "adolescense" and thought, "That doesn't look right"...so I changed it to "adolesence" and that looked weird...so I had to go to dictionary.com to get the right spelling.  Jesus, how long since I've typed that word anyway?  And to think I used to be a spelling whiz.  And is there some spell-check feature in TypePad that I'm just too retarded to know even exists?)  Anyway, I start having flashbacks of some really hurtful teenage memories...and the next thing I know, I'm bawling my eyes out.  I mean heaving, wracking sobs.  But the whole time I'm crying I'm thinking, "What the fuck?!"  Because, really, the book couldn't have triggered it.  I mean it was about a country singer in Lake County who gets knocked up and her crazy family, real and adopted.  (Well, okay, I have a sort of crazy family, but that's beside the point.)  And then I remember that it is "that time of the month."  Although I feel oodles calmer this morning than I have for the past few PMS'y days.  Maybe it's the hormones?  I don't know.  All I know is that one minute I'm literally closing the book on a super-lightweight piece of fiction and the next thing I know it's "Paging Dr. Freud" time.  But just like Holly Hunter's character in Broadcast News, I cried super-hard (with my arm flung over my eyes for extra-dramatic effect) for about two minutes...and then thought, hmmm, guess I'll go get the papers out of the driveway and make some coffee.  Sometimes I just freakin' love being female.  No, really.

BlogHer

The first-ever BlogHer conference was held in Santa Clara today.  It made the front page of today's San Francisco Chronicle.  I didn't attend, but I did read many posts written by those who were live blogging the conference.  You can find those links here.  I particularly enjoyed Beth's posts since she had several "Meeting the BlogHers" items.

Jory is one of the founders of BlogHer.  Anyone who reads Dooce knows that she was in attendance.  Evelyn was on a panel about citizen journalists.  Fussy was there, as was Jen and Tonic.  The organizers maxed out their total of 300 attendees.  I found it interesting that only half of those attending were from the Bay Area.  Women (and men) from all over came to attend the conference.  Anina was one of the "Meeting the BlogHers" profiled on Beth's blog; she came from Paris.

Any thoughts about anything you've read about the BlogHer conference?  Would you be interested in attending next year's conference?  I'm still undecided.  Frankly, for someone who's not that interested in the tech side, doesn't write a business blog, isn't looking to monetize my blog...I didn't see a lot of panels on the agenda that seemed that relevant to my type of blog.  I suppose I (like many of you who don't fall under the Mommyblogs umbrella) would be considered what they call an "identity blogger."  (Although if that's the case, somebody please tell me what the hell my identity is, will ya?  HA!)  Maybe what I need more than a conference full of technology and networking panels is a plain old meet-up.  Just a bunch of women sitting around shootin' the shit over coffee and tea.  Yeah, that's it.  I don't need a conference...I just need a good old-fashioned coffee klatsch. 

palms

Today's San Francisco Chronicle had an interesting article about palm trees on the front page of the Home section.  I fell in love with palm trees long before we moved to the tropics.  Maybe it comes from being a native Californian, even though where I grew up we're known for old-growth redwoods, not palm trees.  But there's something so iconic about palm trees.  Hollywood.  The beach. 

In 1990, I found myself traveling solo to Grand Cayman.  It was while lying on a chaise under a couple of palm trees on Seven Mile Beach--Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones open face-down on my lap--that I looked up at the palm trees and that blue, blue Caribbean sky beyond them and wondered what it would be like to live on a Caribbean island...  Needless to say, palm trees are a touchstone for me. 

I've been thinking about starting a photoblog as a way to force myself to pick up my camera more often.  The article on palm trees got me off my duff to do it.  Now we'll see if I keep it updated.  :)

Railroad Museum

I went on a little excursion for a couple of hours this afternoon while the boyfriend was at work.  I went to the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento.  How did I get there?  Well, by train, of course!  I boarded one of Amtrak's Capitol Corridor trains in Davis, and in less than 15 minutes I was at the Sacramento Amtrak platform.  (This is the Davis station taken from the upper deck of the train.)

The Railroad Museum is just around the corner from the Sacramento platform, although it was a little confusing trying to find it at first.  There's some major construction going on in the parking lot of the Amtrak station, but I just followed the signs and found the Museum was just a hop, skip and a jump away. 

My first stop was the theatre to watch the 20-minute film called "Evidence of the Dream," about the building of the TransContinental Railroad.  It talked about Theodore Judah, the engineer who thought to use Donner Pass to traverse the Sierras.  He was backed, and eventually forced out, by the "Big Four:"  Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis Huntington.  Gee, and all this time I thought Judah was just the name of a streetcar (and street) in San Francisco...

The Museum is operated by the California State Parks system and there were guided tours, as well as docents situated throughout the Museum.  It's a great place to take the kids.  The kids' play area was getting plenty of use.

The gallery has a photography exhibit right now (through January 8th) entitled "Still a World Apart:  Visual Profiles of Contemporary Railroaders."  This is a slice of the largest--and my favorite--photograph in the exhibit.  It's a portrait of Leland Cain, who began his railroad career as a dishwasher in 1941.  He worked for the Chicago & North Western line for 53 years, retiring in 1996 as a bartender.  In 1984, the Chicago Regional Transportation Authority commuters voted him "most outstanding customer service employee."  Between Leland and his father, son, step-daughter, brother and nephew, the Cain family has 164 years of railroad service between them.

It was fun to step inside this U.S. Postal Service car.  Mail sorters would sort the mail as the train traveled at speeds up to 80 mph between Chicago and Tacoma, WA as part of the Empire Line.  The car was retired in 1967.

The Museum's exhibits include trains of all stripes--from antique steam locomotives to toy trains.  Toy train enthusiasts would have a field day here.  There are several cars that one can board, and it's quite impressive to look out on all of the engines and cars on display in the ground floor exhibits from the second floor.   

I wandered around a bit in Old Sacramento after leaving the Museum, but it was very hot and I didn't feel like browsing or shopping.  As I was talking to the boyfriend (who was just getting off work), I heard a train whistle.  I walked quickly the couple of blocks to the Sacramento station's platform, where my return train was waiting.  On the ride home, I looked out at the fields and thought how glad I am that the government hasn't managed to kill off Amtrak...just yet.

St. John

I never really arrived in New York after that.  I went back, of course, but it was by bus.  I never really landed.  ~Tara Bray Smith, West of Then

That's how I felt when we returned to St. Thomas after our 10-day trip to the West Coast in October of 2003.  We landed, of course (taking a bus there isn't an option!), but it was in body only.  My head and heart remained on the West Coast after that.  Like they even needed much help at that point.  I'd been ready to go at the two-year mark and for awhile, I was really angry at my boyfriend when he said we'd do just that but then changed his mind.  Then it became a tradition to sit down around the first of the year and decide if we wanted to stay another year.  But after our trip Stateside we were of a like mind--it wasn't a matter of if we'd go back, but when.

Only one factor might have swayed us to stay longer:  if we'd been able to move to St. John.  At the beginning of this year, we began talking about it seriously.  For years my boyfriend would tell me that he couldn't possibly live there--it was too small, not enough to do, not enough going on.  But I'd loved the island from the moment I set foot on it and could have easily lived there, but then I've lived in some pretty small places (one town had only 1,300 people).  But after five years on St. Thomas--and after spending more and more time on St. John playing gigs at restaurants and bars and resorts--he'd changed his mind.  We both felt done with St. Thomas, and we wondered sometimes if we were tired of the tropics or just tired of that island.  There were too many memories there (yes, even after only five years) and many of them were unpleasant.  But St. John feels entirely different than St. Thomas.

So early this year, boyfriend started asking some of his St. John pals about how we might go about finding a rental there, because they're hard to come by.  But time and again, the answer came back that it was really, really hard.  It's become an island for millionaires, even though there are plenty of locals and middle class folks residing there.  So a few weeks later when we learned suddenly that we'd have to vacate our condo, we took it as a sign.  It was time to head back.

But St. John?  Me no done wid ya yet, mon.

rainforest

You wake to your boyfriend getting up and wonder why the alarm didn't wake you.  The brand-new radio alarm clock you bought at Rite-Aid yesterday.  When you'd plugged it in last night and your boyfriend had set the time and fiddled with the settings, he played one of the alarm settings at a high volume.  It was the sound cathedral bells.  You found it really annoying.  He asked, "Do you think this will wake you?"  You said you supposed it would, but clearly it didn't.  But at least you spent an extra five dollars to get the Timex that has sleep sounds.  He played all of the sleep sound settings for you last night as he sat on the edge of the bed and you stood next to him.  You told him to set it on 'rainforest.'  You crawled into bed, he went back to the laptop, and you fell asleep listening to crickets and unknown wailing forest creatures.  You felt momentarily sorry for yourself that you're missing out on your family's camping trip.  But then you thought of Jill who's camped in a location which you believe to be in the general area of where your family is camping.  You thought of how Jill is waiting for Bigfoot, and suddenly you didn't feel so bad about spending the next six nights curled up in your super-comfy sleigh bed under the ceiling fan. 

When you woke this morning, the rainforest had disappeared.  Your boyfriend must have turned it off when he came to bed.  It still astounds you, even after several months of sleeping in your new bed, that the mattress is so well-made that your much-larger boyfriend can climb in and out of bed without you feeling a thing.  When you wake you think once again:  this is the nicest bed you've ever had.  You're seriously in love with your bed. 

Your boyfriend goes into the bathroom to take a shower and closes the bathroom door most of the way, so only a sliver of light streams into the hallway.  You wonder why he's being so considerate, since the two of you rarely close the bathroom door.  You suppose he's trying to give you a few more minutes of sleep, even though you'll need to get up shortly to drive him to work.

When he returns to the bedroom to dress, you make your way into the bathroom.  The image that greets you in the mirror is truly frightening.  Your hair is so far beyond bed-head it's not even funny.  You lamely run a brush through it, knowing it's not going to do much good and console yourself with the fact that it's still dark outside.  You throw on a pair of shorts under the t-shirt you slept in, slide your feet into your most well-worn flip-flops, and gather up your purse, keys and cell phone.  Then you flip on the light in the kitchen and begin grabbing items out of the fridge for your boyfriend to throw into his backpack for a makeshift lunch.  You turn on the desk lamp and the motion-sensor porch light and lock only the bottom lock on the front door since your deadbolt key is hard to work.  Your boyfriend gets into the driver's seat because you don't know yet where you're headed.

As you speed up 113 on the way to Woodland, the sky to your right begins to show the day's first light.  You think how much you love living surrounded by all of this land.  And how words fail you when you try to explain to people how much you love living here--yes, even after living on a gorgeous tropical island.  They seem unconvinced when you tell them that.  You look out at the barely-there light and think how grateful you are to live in an area that still has so much wide open space in between the towns.  You're a creature of the West--you need wide-open spaces.  As much as you love bodies of water, land will always win out with you.

Your boyfriend exits the freeway and a few blocks later turns left on a street you've never been on.  It's an industrial area and you're surprised to see that some large companies have huge distribution centers there, True Value and Radio Shack among them.  He pulls into the parking lot of the City's service center and parks the car.  He grabs a bottle of lotion he keeps in the car and rubs some all over his arms and face.  It's only then that you both realize that he's forgotten to apply sunscreen.  He kisses you goodbye and walks away to find his way into his new workplace.  You get out and walk around to the driver's side and make your way back home.

You grab the paper from the driveway after you park the car.  As you walk to the front door, you absently peel the rubber band off the paper and automatically flip to the front page of the Datebook section.  You always look at the Datebook section first.  You unlock the door and feel glad to be greeted by the warm air inside after being out in the cool morning air.  You feel sleepy and think you might have a good shot at getting back to sleep.  You lay the paper on the ottoman, dump your purse and keys in the chair and walk into the bedroom.  You kick off your flip-flops, take off your shorts, flip off the ceiling fan and climb back into bed.  You're not in bed 15 seconds when a noisy semi backs up down your street--your street that's blocked on one end for the construction on the side street.  You curse your bad luck, but the noise quickly ends and you savor the quiet.  It's quiet even with all of the windows open and construction happening half a block away.  You grab a book from the bedside table.

It's a book that caught your eye at the library the other day as you were searching the DVD shelves.  You remembered reading a glowing review of it somewhere.  You have loads of books stacked next to your bed already, but you can't resist getting this one, too.  You opened it the minute you got home from the library and have been reading  bits of it here and there when you find a moment.  You're riveted by this book and you're not sure why.  Maybe it's because it's the kind of memoir that instantly appeals to your sensibilities.  Maybe it's because you've known junkies and you're drawn to her mother's story.  Or maybe it's just because the entire sad tale takes place mostly on an island and in spite of your love of the land you sometimes miss the island.  It doesn't matter--you're enthralled.  You read maybe 10 pages and then lay the open book face-down next to you, in the spot where your boyfriend should be.  You're lying on your left side, facing his side of the bed, and you tuck your right hand under your pillow, the way you always do.  You listen for the faint sounds of construction to drift through the cranked-open windows--your daytime rainforest.  And then you fall...into a deep, deep sleep.

scratching the itch

As long as fear is still in you, your happiness cannot be perfect. 
~Thich Nhat Hanh

In catechism class in Catholic school they taught us about 'original sin.'  I never understood the concept--how each of us was born already tainted with sin.  How can THAT make sense?  If you're taught that there's something innately wrong with you--even before you've had a chance to do anything wrong--is it any wonder that some of us have a hard time believing that we're fully acceptable as we are?  When I was little, I'd imagine 'original sin' as a black mark on my soul.  I think I sometimes visualize some of my fears that way.  And no amount of 'cleansing' seems to rid me of them.  I think that's because the truth is that the secret lies not in casting them out, but in never having believed in them in the first place.  How to rewind those tapes ALL the way back to the beginning?  It's not easy, but I do think it's do-able.  And that's one of the primary reasons I've focused so much energy the last few years on remembering my younger self at around age 4...before the nuns got ahold of me.  :)

People who use venting techniques like hitting a pillow or shouting are actually rehearsing anger.   When someone is angry and vents their anger by hitting a pillow, they are learning a dangerous habit.  They are training in aggression.  Instead, a wise practitioner generates the energy of mindfulness and embraces her anger every time it manifests.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

I've been a rage-aholic at times in my life--seeking out opportunities to unleash on unsuspecting strangers.  It was a real problem during my last years of drinking.  Not necessarily a problem for me, but definitely for all the sales clerks and wait staff and drivers who wondered what the hell had just hit them.  I felt momentarily better, but what a stupid solution to a big problem.  Like swatting one bee when you're standing inside a hive. 

I've done the 'screaming into a pillow' thing.  It felt like a fairly good release, in the moment.  But all I really got out of it was sore vocal cords. 

It's easy for a monk to address an anger issue when he's never dealt with PMS and/or perimenopause.  :)  These days I try to stay attuned to what kind of anger I'm feeling, to see if it's hormonal.  If it is, I cut myself a bit of a break...and remove myself from the general public.  But truthfully, I've grown weary of anger.  I sometimes wish I'd never have to feel it again.  I feel like I've already hit my quota of it in this lifetime.  But I know it will keep showing up in my path until I've agreed to a face-to-face with the sources of it.  It's not enough to remove anger-inducing people and places and situations from my life--I've done a lot of that.  It's time for a heart-to-heart...with myself.

To meditate means to be invited on a journey of looking deeply in order to touch our true nature and to recognize that nothing is lost.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

"...to recognize that nothing is lost."   What a beautiful, grace-inducing thought that is.  I've let go of much in my life--relationships, friendships, careers, possessions, interests.  And sometimes, there've been occasional twinges of regret, but not much.  Because I truly believe that I'm always right where I need to be--even if, in the moment, I don't understand why I need to be there.  :)   But I've lost nothing, if I really think about it. I think that's why I can so easily let go of possessions, but value photographs more than anything.  It's not the photos (and since getting a digital camera two years ago, I rarely print paper photos)--it's the memories they represent.  So even if I lost the photos--and believe me, I've lost some irreplaceable photos in my time--I still have the memories.  I still have the moments.  They, too, reside in my soul...but far away from those black marks.

easy-peasy

I was growing bored with the same old look I've had here since March...but felt lazy, hence the TypePad template.  Just wanted something light and breezy for these hot summer months.