Life has been strange lately.
I have been receiving all kinds of messages in the forms of dreams and coincidences.
Life is about to change.
But in the midst of getting ready for it, life is still quite quiet.
I have been exercising and eating right. Week 2 of the 6 week diet. Not much drama.
Whew!
Went to El Coyote with Mads and Zapato last night to catch up with Mads on her fabulous trip to Italy. Her pictures were amazing and all I want to do now is travel travel travel.
This time last year is when I started to travel a lot more.
And when we had Mads's huge bday extravaganza.
I always get excited for October.
And not to try and rush past any days of my life, but I am kind of ready for September to be over.
A very emotional month I must say.
On Myspace, I just got the strangest email from a girl I don't know who may have a career opportunity for me. A career opportunity that fits me to a glove and which by looking at my profile you would never think would suit me.
How random it seems.
But I know better.
It is part of the messages I am receiving.
Bring it ON!
I am more than ready.
I started the 6 week challenge again.
It was just in time too.
I weighed in and was measured and felt a bit yucky seeing the inches and pounds go up.
Granted, I am menstrual at this point so the bloat added to my weight gain but yes, I have enjoyed myself immensely this summer and it is time to nip it in the bud.
Oh but the cramps.
And all I want is chocolate and rice.
But I am determined to get through the first 2 weeks of low (read "no") carbs without a hitch.
Wish me luck.
Boy Howdy it has been awhile since I have written anything.
I have been on vacation in San Diego with my family.
And it was awesome.
My sister's two kids are amazing.
Usually after one of their visits, I am kind of aching to get back to my single, child-free, freedom lifestyle.
But this time, I just really miss those little kids.
People think that it is weird that I don't want children.
I don't want them but I do love them.
I took my nephew and Rondie's grandson to the park and there was this 11 year old boy who had his dog Roxie with him.
Kid was starved for attention.
He asked me if I had kids.
I told him I didn't.
He said, "You should".
Just like that.
I should.
And just like that I said thanks but no thanks.
It was a nice moment.
Then my sis, her husband and I took the kids to Disneyland for their first time.
I was hoping it would be magical.
The first thing that happens when we got in the park was that Goofy and Pluto scared my 3 year old niece.
that didn't bode well.
But aside from a couple of judgement calls on what they would like and what they wouldn't, it was a great day. A long day. We didn't think the kids would last that long. But they did. They loved the parade.
When I asked my 5 year old nephew his favorite part of the day, he said it was his mickey mouse shaped lollipop.
Go figure.
I miss them.
I am now back to my usual routine and it feels a little empty.
Mads and Jazzy went to Italy.
Maybe that is it.
Or that I am tired.
Nope, I think I just miss those little crazy rugrats.
I once read an excerpt from a book written by a guy who grew up in the Catskills.
Growing up, he didn't know that it was unusual to be raised in a mountain community that came alive mostly for the tourist season of summer. But in the fall, became a ghost town. He was of an small number of kids who grew up like that.
Once he realized that his experience was unique, he wrote about it.
I am sure he wrote it from the perspective of an adult looking back. I mean how else could he write it?
But when you do that, you also bring up old memories that may be tainted with your experiences since then. Age and wisdom tend to put their own spin on anything. Mostly memories.
Well just like that guy, my growing up in Los Angeles (Venice to be exact) in the 70's by a single mom didn't feel unique to me either.
But sometimes when I see a film like Dogtown and Z Boys, it brings back to mind all the things I did grow up around. The feelings of how life was then. The way the air felt on your face and how it smelled in your nose. The sound of skateboards in the halls.
This weekend, I saw my old friend Leash.
Leash and I were in every class together from 2-6th grade. And then several more in junior high. In high school, she moved to culver city and I moved to portland.
We were in girl scouts together, went to the same babysitter together and even kind of looked alike.
We were both old souls and could talk about mature subjects.
It had been 3 years since I had seen leash at our babysitter's funeral.
It was her birthday the other day.
And seeing as how I can remember the phone numbers and the birthdays of everyone I grew up with but I still can't seem to manage to remember my bank account number, I phoned her.
Twice a year (my birthday and her birthday) we catch up via phone.
But this time, I wanted to catch up more in person.
So Saturday, I spent the day with her at her place with her 2 kids and her husband who was getting ready for work.
It is always like no time passed when we talk.
There was a kid skate boarding out front with her son.
And it was weird, because this kid looked like the kind of guy leash and I would have had a crush on in junior high.
At our school, football players and jocks weren't the kings.
At our school, it was the surfers, skaters and the burnouts. Vans shoes and Mr. Zogs Sexwax t-shirts were the uniform.
And we idolized those kids.
We weren't exactly like those kids.
Most of those kids grew up on the beach and were the product of teenage parents and were being raised by their grandparents.
They were scrappers. And they were confident in the world because they had to be at a young age. They were always getting into trouble and seemed to do well mostly in the art classes (which was also where they could store their surfboards if they had gone in the morning to the beach).
Leash and I were products of a more stable environment than they were.
Most of our world was single moms who even though they worked full time, still kept an eye on us.
We weren't the beach rats, but we weren't like the wealthier kids either.
We were somewhere in between.
Not suburban, but not urban.
Well taken care of but not rich by any means.
I am sure if you gathered all our immediate friends from that time, they would feel it too. They would recall moms going out on dates with men you weren't sure you would see again. And how school house rock was a staple for us and how everyone talked about pink floyd's the wall, but we weren't able to see it because our moms wouldn't let us. How kids lost their virginity at like 12 years old and so you always assumed you were the only virgin left. About how pot was smoked on the back wall of the gym field but most of us were too scared to just go hang out there. About how gangs were all around us but we all managed to come out unscathed with not even a fight (even if you were threatened on a daily basis, sometimes with knives).
That was our world. But until this weekend, we never had categorized into a "world".
Because it seemed so normal and almost unexciting and bland for us.
Leash and I meandered down memory lane and looked at the junior high year books. She and I both were in the same classes with these kids and they liked us, evidenced by the curt but admiring entries in our yearbooks as they signed them.
We talked about how much we felt connected to that time in LA and that time in our lives but how disconnected we felt from being "IN" because we just weren't fucked up enough and ALL the crushes we had on the surfers and how we always wanted to be more noticed by them even though we knew we were in such a different world from them.
I never knew she felt the same longing to be part of their world that I felt. I mean she learned to skate board so she was more in than I ever was. My "in" was writing poetry for everyone whenever they would have a drama in their life.
A lot of those kids had problems that I am sure some outgrew and some didn't.
The cool thing for me was seeing how we have turned out since that time.
She has an amazing house that she works on with her husband. Her kids are great and hilarious. She is the cool mom on the block for wayward kids (similar to those we knew growing up).
And all the teenage angst we had about our non-place in school actually gave us a sense of a place we didn't know we had until now.
We were like that Catskills guy in a little way.
Everyone has that story that binds them to their age group; references that we all agree on.
While at the same time, everyone also has their story of how they are set apart from a john hughes movie whether you grew up in grosse pointe, michigan or in Denver or in Costa Mesa.
But for me, it was really nice to actually put it into words.
Put it into an idea that we could throw around and then put away.
And have another person's memory be like a mirror to mine.
It almost gave my recollection of that time its place in my head which makes it easier to catgeorize.
Which makes it easier to move on from it and be the person I am today.
In the Present.
Which I will always prefer to living in the past. No matter how rosy two memories can make it.
As I am driving home yesterday, I took a route away from the freeway.
I am a freeway gal.
But the freeways were headache inducing and I thought I would attempt side streets.
So there I am driving through all the entertainment buildings in Burbank that I once used to gape at with awe.
I pass the Equestrian Center and I feel old Los Angeles washing over me.
Old spanish style buildings emerge as I near griffith park.
The palm trees lazily lounge above the road I am on.
Traffic is not bad.
And I see a man on a horse.
He is wearing a cowboy hat.
And I am reminded of field trips as a kid to the William S Hart Ranch or Will Rogers.
And then...
I notice him on a cell phone!
What?
Then another man on a horse is walking by on his cell phone.
Then I see an old man running with an ear piece that is also his phone.
It made me sad. It made me nostalgic for a time I never lived in.
It made me wonder what we all did before we had the need to jabber at all hours of the day.
It made me pick up my cell phone and call my friend to tell her how weird this all was.
cuz this shit is funny.
And if you can't beat em, join em.
Sometimes jabbering about the craziness around you is being current in the time we live in.
And being present is my new goal.