Restless

I am restless and anxious. Like getting your weekly allowance on a Tuesday and you want to spend that money. Burning a hole in my pocket.

Concert in Tennessee? Indiana? Somewhere to go?

Hey Carol, maybe it's time to pay you a visit soon.

Just want out of Dodge for a week.

Greg

Good bye, room.

For all of your cubic spaciousness, for amber waves of pints, I will sorely miss you, my concucube. You are aware, of course, that just as I have you down -- having realized through trial and error your feng shui -- I may have to leave you for greener pastures.

I can only mean that figuratively, since where I'll be going...well let's just say, that place wouldn't be one millionth as green were it not for the trackless miles of cement culverts and metal diverters channeling billions of water from central California to that great metropolis of Los Angeles.

The concrete -- but verdant -- jungle of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula sits alone without me there. It is my town. The 213. Aortic freeways. Thousands of miles of tract homes. Select>edit>copy>paste>REPEAT a lot of times.

Sorry, my concucube of a room, I'm leaving with a heavy heart, but my chances will be better for everything down there. Better chance of seeing loved ones, better chance of finding the "her", better chance of being a victim of road rage, car theft, jacking, HIV, or meeting a Republican. Oh please God, please! Don't let me meet a Republican.

What a crazy notion. Not being in the Crewz, man! Gnarly! Politically correct sods.

Just for your information, this is not really the truth. This won't happen. It's not happening now ("it's all happening! it's all happening!" -- Penny Lane) It's a blog, you ding-dong. I'm supposed to muse here, and shit, I was beckoned by Los Angeles when I saw the L.A. Lakers on TV. It was against the Warriors. Wow, the 405 (everybody down there says THE in front of a freeway number; up here it's noticeable to everyone north of Point Conception, California. What a ramble. But as I was saying...

Ok, room. You recognize these sort of rants, right? You've been there. First hand accounts. Tangents galore. Venn Diagrams of thoughts, telephone conversations, or song lists I make on the fly to accompany my mood, taste, or musical musings. From now on, start ignoring these things as they happen in here, because I wouldn't want you to miss me when I'm gone. If you start now, then you'll forget about me. All one hundred and twenty-three years of you; I'm just one-third of that, but we've only been acquainted for no more than 2 years. FORGET ABOUT ME, room.

so much art, so little time

A very long time ago, greg and I went to the los angeles county museum of art. Yesterday I reminded greg that we had viewed Backseat Dodge '38. "Don't you remember," I said. "It's set up on some grass and dimly lit." Greg couldn't conjure up a picture of this piece of art. I was at work researching my next project. A new book about art was sitting on my desk and i love when this happens, interest about something i've already seen or done, reignites and sets me blazing to find out more. Like how the artist died. Edward Kienholz died on June 10, 1994 from a heart attack while hiking in the mountains near his home in Hope, Idaho. Greg and I were young when we viewed Backseat Dodge '38, I remember being moved by the low lighting, the dusty sound of music, and the complete stillness of the vehicle. A vehicle that can't go nowhere, not meant to go anywhere, anymore. There's a woman and a man inside the vehicle, but for me they were not the strongest element. The music, the lack of light, and the concept of things breaking down over time: vehicles, emotions, struggles. That spoke to me. See things in a new way. If you do, art never lets you down. I can't help but picture in my mind the artist overlooking a mountain range, sensing there's even more.

what's so great about nice?

I think having a really bad cold does something to your thinking, but coupled with the fact that I am horny, well, i have begun to feel like an emotional human experiment. "Let's make her really sick and really horny. Then let's put an attractive married man just a few years older than her, yeah, let's put him at the gym, and while your at it Larry give him nice biceps. He'll stare at her from across a workout machine. His look will say, "Look I want to hook up with you, but you gotta give me a sign." Yeah, that sounds like a mighty fine experiment.

"I describe in a realistic form a nonrealistic reality. When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion, you seem to move inside the painting." -Fernando Botero

food for thought

Home sick today. Found my thelonious monk cd's. I had given up ever finding them. His music soothes me. And when i felt better I got up and found some other cool stuff: a gold necklace, a short story i wrote about a girl who steals seven hundred dollars from her mother, a pair of jeans, stuff like that. You see i'm cleaning out my stuff, going through everything and evaluating if it stays or goes. It feels good. I worked on getting the knot out of the necklace, i edited my short story, i put on the jeans (they feel great by the way), and i played thelonious over and over. I wonder what else i might find tonight...to be continued

Well Greg, another valentine's day has come and gone. I spent valentine's night at the gym. Married man with nice biceps was there. I asked my married friends if they think a married person would be at the gym on valentine's night and all of them said no. I honestly had forgotten that it was valentine's day until a salesclerk asked me what I was doing for valentine's day. The question made me stop for a second, then i thought to myself valentine's day is just another day. All valentine stuff is half off, some even sixty percent. Right now I'm wearing my bright red sweat pants, their tight and sexy and I'm watching a chick flick. I'm celebrating valentine's day...in my own way.

in the woods...dreaming

"Now I know that it is not out of our single souls we dream. We dream anonymously, communally, if each after his fashion. The great soul of which we are all a part may dream through us, in our manner of dreaming, its own secret dreams..."

-Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

I listened to the birds and I listened to the creek. My answer would come a couple of days later in bed. What was I feeling, standing there in the woods, was someone thinking about me the very same moment I was thinking about them? That could have been it, but it wasn't. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling, delicate words started walking through my mind: buttons, love, floating, sound, and then I found the sentence. I was dreaming. Yes, dreaming. Dreaming while wide awake. That was it, i found it, i figured it out, it found me. The woods are a magical place and I had forgotten that, if I had ever known it at all.

sorry

sorry, carol. got busy all of a sudden.

greg

in the woods

...here i am, riding the wave of life: work, malfunctioning gall bladders (ex), elementary school, work, art, driving, making toast, homework, gym. After taking my son to school and shopping for art supplies, the wave took me to the woods on thursday. I went for a walk, alone. I was thirsty, hungry to see if this gut feeling i had would lead me to the right place. Grey skies and some lite rain, yeah, i was in the right place. Halfway through my walk, i stopped to listen to a creek and i realized, no it hit me that i badly needed to be in nature. No people, no phones, no let downs, no goodbyes, no faces. Nature was waiting for me. Bird calls filled the woods like an unseen opera.
To be continued...

¿Dónde Estás?

Where are you?

Your hiatus

Hey Carol,

There is a gap between your posts, so I've noticed.
No worries, pressure, or ______________,
I would just like to read something new from you.

I've decided to give you some writing parameters, just to hurry you along a bit (I'm not contradicting myself here, just in case you started to wonder)

Not a topic to post about:
We don't have to talk about the pictures, because we already did that: they're staying.
Think of it as an action towards Lent; that you'll give up ripping on our pictures. Yes, that's it!

Not a person you should blog about:
Ex's...'nuff said. Time to move on...

Movie you should not blog about:
"The Wrestler" I'm over all the hoopla, Mickey Rourke (sorry, Carol), and all award ceremonies in general.

and,

Blog posting you should not blog about:
This one.

-Greg

Obamanos!

Sin Palabras

"HEADSET"

SCREENPLAY

BY

CAROL



In a world filled with bluetoothes and sliding phones one boy stands alone.

Kekoa, otherwise known as "the brave one," survives an attack on his school by

intergalactic aliens because he is in the library reading about the civil war when the

attack takes place. Other than his bell bottom pants, nothing about Kekoa is up to date.

He finds modern ways distracting and stressful. Kekoa's lack of knowledge about technology

will be the very thing that saves him for he is the last surviving boy on planet earth.

carol's "other" screenplay

I think this has some potential.

watch words...they're everywhere

"Don't ever mention that you see me."

She said this as she leaned through the corvette passenger window.

"Drugs," i thought to myself. They terrorize your beauty and make you talk too loud.

It was warm and sunny so I had ventured out just a bit, hell, now that i reflect on it, I was running from my dream, again. In this dream I was with a recent past lover and things weren't working, before I knew it I was trying to climb a stone wall. I might have started flying. That part of my dream gets a little foggy.

I drove my wonderful one of a kind volvo (not really) out on the back roads today. I opened the sun roof and turned the music up, trying my best to shake the dream off, to lose it. But one part of my dream kept rising up through the sunshine. Me and this recent past lover are in a house and when i walk down the hallway things start to tremble. The door frames buckle, the ground moves like lava. I try to reach the last door, but deep inside i know better than to try and open it. There ain't nothing but some kind of bad behind that door. Where i once felt compelled to open that door in my dream, I realize i don't have it in me to turn the knob. I wake up.

I know, I know, i get what the dream means -it's over, he's not good for me, but that's not the thing right now, it was the impression it left on me, like opening a card that you can't read or hearing a woman say don't ever mention that you see me.

Needing something, bored, and running out of time I tried buying a lipstick. I tried on one called Heather Buff. The saleswoman approached me and asked, "looking for something natural?"

That left quite an impression.

Hi Carol

Hi Carol,
How are you? I watched Gangs of New York last night. It's good.

Tonight I am probably going over a friend's house for a movie. Gonna hang out.

Greg

full steam no sleep

barely any sleep last night. around two thirty I clobbered at the light switches, angry and frustrated. A wicked man showed up in my dream, trying to keep me down, locked up. I put off making my crafts because it was sunny outside, and boy did i pay for it. Procrastination is horrible. A wicked man in fact.

Keeping My Cool

Miles Davis kept his cool. He played at clubs that wouldn't even let him in through the front door, having to enter through the kitchen.

Today, I kept my damn cool. Thought of Miles a few times. My job today was boiling hot with controversy, drama, and cocked-eye looks, but I kept it on the mellow side of things instead of boppin' hard. Cooool.

A fellow teacher patted me on the back. Literally. It felt good, rewarding, and I felt all of the stress go away. That's what Miles would do with his band: walk up to them, place his hand on their shoulder, and would nod, soaking in the individual sound, charisma, and pain of his fellow artist. A pat of approval.

It feels good. Try it on someone. They will know you're listening. Like Miles.

Let's Talk About Drugs and Family Problems

About a week ago, that's exactly what I heard from one of my students. I gave them a break on that Friday, a break from reminding them of how important it will be for them to finish high school, a break from the merits of hard work, a break from me not giving them a break.

The eight young men sat in their chairs waiting for my reaction to the request, that we talk about drugs, gangs, and how fucked up their lives seem to be.

I write seem in the immediate sense. Seem to be. It can be fucked up, they've seen fucked up things, but the minute I say "No" to the request their lives will be fucked up because no one will care. It will be so.

All eyes were on me. Some had a look of "I know he won't"
Others were just waiting for me to say, "Yes"

I did not have to relent, I did not have to make a big decision: weighing the possibilities "if I do" versus "if I don't"

We had a great 60 minutes together. We listened to each others stories. Each of them, when I pass them in the corridors of campus, nod to me, look at me as if I'm there. A real person, like them.

Greg

too cozy to move

a long time ago I watched my older sister mop the floor. I stopped by her work because i had cried that morning about the man i loved leaving town on a bus. I had cried in the backyard, in the sunshine, in the cold. In a dimly lit aquatic center I listened to my sister talk about all the things she wanted and had to do, go on vacation, take her daughter to ballet class, find a better job, and make dinner. I sat in the dark watching her and a feeling overcame me, that everything was where it was supposed to be. Once a female clerk at JCPenney's, let's call her Vicky, she was so completely sincere and kind to me that while standing there in her presence, I became light headed and a calmness filled me. I didn't want to move; I just wanted to soak up this completely authentic exchange. I write tonight from the cozy lobby of the locally owned theatre that my friend J manages. There is a fireplace. There is classical music. And there is the feeling that I am exactly where I should be. 

When you get a haircut, the hairdresser will say to you, "put your head back."

You relax, you may even get a little sleepy as they massage your scalp.

I like that part.