My ramekins have run amok. Goddamn.

Io capisco un po' l'italiano

Day one of my italian lessons, and the first thing I learn to say are pickup lines. Scuzi, senore,  lei capisce l'italiano? lei capisce l'inglese? can I get in your hot italian pants? please?

I am so going to be the mackdaddy tramp-mistress of Venice someday.

Apparently, small spiky bespectacled  rodents lust for me.

aww.

The Misadventures of Myself

or, the Predestination of Wandering Annies

Yesterday, I decided to go for a walk. Because I was lonely, and I had a feeling that if I left the house, something would find me.

So I got on the subway, and kept going.  All the way into the city on the orange line, then switched at State St downtown, and the whole way out on the blue line to Revere Beach.  This is the opposite end of my little urban world. I was hankering for a frontier.

Ten years ago, Revere was a stinking mire of greasy sand, washed-up fish carcasses, and polluted bilge. One hundred years ago it was a Coney Island-esque mecca sprawling up and down the waterfront, with carnivals and saltwater taffy shops and a grandstand with a band. Yesterday afternoon it was a raw, clear, empty stretch of lonely grey ocean and sleeping shopfronts. Not a soul was there, except for the seagulls. I found a shell, and the wind whipped my cheeks something fierce.  I think I left my loneliness there.

I decided to explore Revere. It was cold, so I slunk along the seawall, crossed the empty parkway, and poked along the closed-up shopfronts looking for respite and something to contemplate. Instead i found Store 24. I bought some horrible coffee to keep my hands warm, and the impulse suddenly hit me that if that moment I bought a scratch ticket, i would most certainly win.

And I did.

Six dollars, to be exact. Yay, me.

So with six bucks in my pocket and a sloshy sugary coffee in hand, I meandered back to the train station, and hunkered down to hope for the blue line's swift arrival. 

A man walked up to me, and said hello, and stood there while I stared him down. Usually i get persnickety when strangers bother me, because they generally either want to get in your pants, or get evangelistical on your ass, and me and my good luck and scalding hot coffee were at the ready and having none of it.  Instead he asked if I was an artist, and was polite, and curious, and I was feeling predestined, so I deigned to chat with him. All the way back along the blue line.

David, his name is, and he came from Ghana nine years ago to read books, learn, and play chess. He was a marine for two years and was sent to the desert, and came back to live in a monastery. He told me about the history of his native country, and the Ashanti who believe in learning and teaching; and what colors we like. He recommended The Art of War and the Celestine Prophecies, and I found myself and my newfound non-lonliness sliding easily into his company. Lately I have been a vehemently determined loner, and generally I don't like to talk to people, but sometimes people find you anyway.  Maybe he lucked out, and got me right at the perfect moment when I was fresh from the beach, and susceptible to thoughts and conversation.

We parted ways at the orange line.  At Back Bay Station i decided I'd had enough of the subway, and stumbled up into Copley Plaza. I paced around for a bit, still feeling out where the day would lead me next, and found myself in a bookstore. I was hunting around for a copy of the Celestine Prophecies when the foreign language section caught my eye, and I left the bookshop with a copy of some italian lessons.

Yes, I am going to learn to speak italian. In ten days, apparently! Prepare yourselves!

But my adventures were not over yet, although it was already nighttime in the city.  I took the elevator up to the top of the Prudential building, and wandered around to get a view of the lights of boston. Because, sadly, I have never seen it before, although I've been here for seven years.

So high up!

And back down to earth again. I went looking for Bryon, kidnapped him from his studio, went home, to JP, ate some simosas and naan, and then to bed. Dreaming of frontiers.

Plexiglass, not photoshop:

What I did Today

yesterday bryon accused me of being a "lump"
he says i need a "project"

hmm.

as soon as he left, i put on some horrible techno and danced my brains out
nobody saw me.
then i went for a long walk in the cold.
noted that springtime is coming, slowly
thought about my own material consumption
and looked at the picture i drew yesterday.

i am not a lump

i kick ass

pttthbbt

Originality Strikes Again!

If you google "oxymephorous", the first thing you get is....

me, OXYMEPHOROUS

Yeeeeahhhh!

um.

well, duh.

Ohh, Marta

...she is brilliant. This is my little promo for her new website, since I feel I owe her a great debt of gratitude. Because, without her, I would never have met Bryon (we both have been her subjects, and the first time I laid eyes on him was in a gorgeous chocolate polaroid print at an opening for her work- love, on many levels, at first sight). Sometimes she keeps me up at night drinking tea and chitchatting about dorky things. And she is the most profoundly talented artist that I know. And I'm not afraid to say, quite frankly, she kicks all of our asses.

Here is one of her prints- the tea girls, from left to right: Kerri, Jenna, Myself, Teegan, Ryan, and theunstoppable Amelia.

Please, go see more here.

I'm back!

I was too busy stealth-navigating through the thickets of NJ and Pennsylvania to post from my spy-phone, but suffice to say it was quite a ride. Details to come, momentarily.

First I must go to dunkies and get myself a cuppa somefin, and check my email.

Ahh, yes, and here are some photos from the Soviet submarine I attempted to hijack out of Providence on Sunday. Unfortunately, I realized too late that I do not know how to read Russian (yet!), I do not know how to drive a submarine, and I forgot to bring enough vodka. Next time, I will not be so easily thwarted.

My phat ride, parked in the bay.

Packin' some fearsome vintage  heat.

I have no idea what this thing is for.

And on a related note:

-from a russian submarine, with love.

I'm bound for the City of Brotherly Love this morning.....to check out an unusual castle, have a cheesesteak, and stand outside the modest offices of the architect Louis Kahn. Maybe I'll try posting from my cell phone, since I am an uber-dork. Ta-ta for now.

I am sitting in Bryon's ugly green chair right now, watching two sparrows build a nest under the roof of the house next door. I first noticed them a couple of mornings ago, chirruping away in the sunshine. Their sounds are different lately, shriller, more gleeful; it's February, barely 17 degrees out, and springtime is in the works.

» Philadelphia

February break is this week, and I have no obligations to anything for five days. Tomorrow we are going to run away from home. All I want is a Philly cheesesteak and a view of someplace different. In my version, we pack some extra underwear and a toothbrush, hop in the car and see where the road goes. In his version, we mapquest everything ahead of time, make reservations, and figure out when the museum will be open. Logically, his system makes better sense- that is, if you are determined to reach a certain destination and have a particular, specific sort of adventure, and not end up disappointed, or sleeping in the back seat of the car. But I like my way better, because you always end up just where you ought to be.  The journey, and not the destination. It's a matter of  perception. Despite this conflict, I think we make excellent travelling companions.

A year ago, to this hour, minute, and day, I changed my life. We had been together for seven years, through thick and thin, best friends and terrible mortal enemies. We grew up with one another. We were going to get old together. But when  I woke up this similar morning, a year ago, I decided I wanted it to be different. And oh, how different this time has been.

And then there was everything in between- Jared, and reading quantum theory, and wanting someone far away, and feeling wanderlust, the jeep I never bought, and learning to draw again, the new teaching job, my grandfather dying, and finding Bryon right under my nose, and going to New Mexico at last, finding a love for a place, greater than any love for any person, and all the hullabaloo with my maddeningly disloyal incestuous friends, the specific pain of having to choose between them, and the choice i made with all my heart..

So now I'm here, and sure, and steadfast, and decided.

I miss him alot today, but I wouldn't change a thing. You cannot go backwards, y' know?

Last night we went to the monkeyhouse to see Amelia dance. Amelia is amazing. She makes me nuts sometimes, but I have to say that most of my crazy bostonian escapades involved her in some way, sleeping on  my couch or reading cosmo aloud in a dramatic voice, her wierd obscure dictionaries, her crazy clothes. Credit where it's due, oh, crazy girl.