fresh air

Well its been awhile, huh?

I am no longer sick. It is no longer cold or drizzling or snowing. I am literally on cloud nine, in heaven, all cares are back to their rightful places in the background, major upsets are back to minutae, I can now re-relate to hallmark slogans such as dont sweat the small stuff and stop and smell the roses and enjoy the little things and live for today and bless this mess and....ok ill stop.

Although I do like the idea of fall and winter, the flash imagery of being covered in clothes (haha), cozy times, spicy drinks...the reality is it is messed up to be indoors all the time, to get to the point where crumbs and stains and where is my scotch tape are somehow something you should give one crap about, to just obsess and fret and stagnate, its really jacked.

So now we have opened up our windows, opened up our eyes, opened up our hearts and opened up our minds, as a people, or at least I have. It feels so damn good to have my self back, I feel as if my proper and rightful place as an upright citizen/homo sapien (sapienne?lol) to roam the good Earth has been reestablished and I like it. I am going to sit outside for a long long time tonight past sunset past dark and enjoy it all. Besides---no mosquitos yet :)

Dedice a la musique, les cheveux verts, et la future

It is such a gimmiky thing, and yet I fall for it EVERY time: lead vocals en Francais. Hip-Hop, trance, and scads of other electronica use this technique to marvelous effect. Especially if the singer is female, and french is not her native toungue. Perfection!
I want to do a bit of this in my band, and I am sort of coming to grips right now with how much studio and non-organic kinds of music I love and how it all works out with my garage and low-fi budget and sensibilities and roots and how, oh how, will I work in some gorgeous french stuff about les reves, and les bouches, and les nuages, and les bicyclettes and je veux te la donner mon couer, when I have no studio or money but I do know alot of french, and actually I am gonna say right here and now that godarnit there will be french and it will all work out and ummm yeah. Stuff like that. See? I am getting a little bit better. Cough cough sniff.

Bjork is on Saturday night Live Tonight! I hope she rocks.

missing out

I am too sick to blog
I will be back when I can
Trying to become healthier as a lifestyle...

: )

green hair

It is more than official.

After 6 months, which has really been 20 years, of searching, I have decided upon my final dream hair.

It is going to be deep green, like forest green. It is going to be long with bangs. I will curl it all beautiful in pink curlers or I will do braids. This will finalize all of the issues and displaced, misplaced asthetic problems I have run into since adoloescence. My love of punk and glamour, my not knowing if I wanted to be a skater boy or a screen siren, my desire to look super wierd and super pretty, to have grannies say "shed be cute if that horrible hair wasnt green" and to walk around and feel like myself!

So I am quite ecstatic. I need to bleach out all this blue and purple and faded lavender and get the green and maybe even a haircut at a place, just a trim on the bottom. Then I just need to keep on growin! It was a tiny bob at xmas time and now is to my shoulders in the back, so by next year, it should be super long. Too excited.

vrrrrrm

Over the weekend, two very cool girls were convinced that I was from Detroit Roller Derby. Convinced. This was the biggest image compliment I have received in I don't know how long, if ever. I feel like the ball is truly rolling now on my new look. Hooray!

Lady clothes

A topic near and dear to my heart: my interest in fashion and my deep vomitous aversion to lady clothes---and how I have been misjudged,mislabeled and misunderstood as a tomboy when in fact I am a girl girl girl.

When I was 10 years old, starting 6th grade, I was five foot three. By the end of that school year, I stood five foot eleven. I wonder if I even weighed 100 pounds.

So there I was, taller than all the women's clothing made in the world, barely eleven years old, size ten shoes, the largest size you could get in normal stores. Years before I was old enough for high heels, I was already too tall to wear them, and so, I never learned how to walk in 'em. This is how I started out! Way before I was even a teenager, I was severly limited in my options. I wore my school uniform by day, my field hockey, volleyball, and soccer uniforms after school, and on the weekends....ewwwww you don't wanna know. Wierd flood everything--and there was no "cropped", these were floods---hard to blame my mom when I grew 8 inches in 8 months---but there were flood pink pants, flood acid wash jeans, and flood black pants. Random sweaters from christmas,( ladies' medium, too wide and too short for the stalk of spaghetti that was me) and perhaps a pastel polo type of shirt from kmart or kresge.




Fast forward to when I "turned cool" --- I had a depeche mode Tshirt, a new order Tshirt, flood jeans and a jean mini skirt. Everything else has been forgotten. I had black chucks, black tights, and a few shirts from my boyfriend. Anything skirt or dress in my closet was so far out of the realm of what I considered even remotely attractive, modern, current, or wearable, that it soon became this thing that I was some kind of tomboy, masculine, manly, and my *family* liked to rub that in. but it wasnt really true! I had a CABOODLE (remember those, anyone??) of makeup, a zillion earrings, probably 8 perfumes, and --ahem-a decidedly not tomboyish underwear collection. Did my hate of FLATS and PUMPS and sickest of all--PANTYHOSE--really make me a mans man? I grape-sprunch sprayed my sun-in'ed bob while curling my eyelashes before dawn every single morning, blue eyeliner, turquoise eyeliner, peach gloss, pink gloss, dozens of nail polishes----black bikini, peach bikini----but no love for the LADY CLOTHES. Ever.


To me, since somehow, someway, there seemed to be no cool feminine clothes in my world, maybe Madonna or Bjork or the rich kids had awesome stuff like I would have liked---but in reality, the skirt or dress came to symbolize deeply irksome events ONLY. Family portrait, Church thingamabob, Holidays, forced visitations to Moms Work or Sisters Recital. I felt so ugly so itchy so gross gross gross gross, in the hand me downs and borrowed 40 year old womens stuff that vaguely fit me (with safety pins) that it wasnt until my first dance that I wore a dress and felt ok. But a dance doesnt count.






Fast forward a long way...to my first grown up job. Age 19. Corporatesville. Crap! Will I need lady clothes???? Im making $9.25 an hour---astounding money for me, minimum wage was 3.90 or maybe 4.15, but it was part time due to the fact that I was a full time college student, and so it was good money and yet not enough to get some sweet new wardrobe....so I kinda faked it. I wore black cotton tights. Black buckle Doc Martens. ($130 bucks in 1993 you better believe they were my only shoes!!) One little short black A-Line skirt from the "new store" Old Navy. Cardigans from the thrift store, and one white t shirt. oh--and a pink, purple and yellow swatch watch with a huge eyeball on it. Every single day. With a long silver necklace from contempo! hahahaha! Remember Contempo!!!?? Sheesh.

My older co-workers loved me, and said nice things like "you can get away with that", "youre so cute" and scarier things like "i dont know how you dont get written up", "that is bullshit"....and this was when NOBODY dressed the way they do at work now. It was 3 piece suits, power shoulder pads, hose, pumps, period. Except I did not.

I got married, loved my wedding dress. Duh. But beyond that it has been years and years of concert T's, jeans, chucks, with dreams of fun dresses, dreams of stripey tights, and kind of growing into the not working/wear what u want/but some image as a mom to work out stuff.......and well somehow here I am!

I still detest powder-smelling stinky stuffy itchy vile lady clothes, but now I know what it is exactly that I detest. It isnt anything about being a girl. I have never ever been happoier to be a girl. Its about being ME. Maybe I will never have enough money to own all the outfits I dream of, and maybe creating them will be my only option. But the world of fashion has become ALOT more accessible, I see what the magazines are calling "Work jeans" and i am so curious to see if this is really true or not...but for something as near and dear to my heart as outfit-imagining, I will never be sad if purple hair, cherry barrettes, chuck taylors wth tights or shirtdresses in psychotic fabrics turns popular. because I love that stuff, and I would relish the idea of it being easier to obtain.






Somedays I am a girl and somedays I am a woman---but I never, ever want to be a LADY. Unless we are playing tea party. (But even then I might fight ya for dibs on being the cat or the baby or maybe even the grampa.)

********************

boo hoo

I have only a few birthday scenarios and they play out again and again---

1)Me being sick

2)It snowing really hard

3)It being eerily, creepily warm and humid

Today is my birthday, and although I am very happy about it, I am also very sick. I think it is suppossed to be wierdly warm, too, like 74 and thundershowers. See?

Its crazy how many little blurred memeories I have of trying to sit up and be cheerful about the present, trying to taste cake or special meal without my tastebuds, head spinning, chest tight, throat clogged, ears stinging, face pounding.

Next year I will try with all my heart to remember to go on some secluded health-vigil the last week of March! But for today, I will try to savor the strong deja vu and look SO forward to my new year. 2007 has been extreme, and so to me, a-la Chinese New Year, TODAY marks the "new year". I am 32 now--lets let the good times roll.

they pay me to turn 32?!

My grandma sent me fifty bucks for my birthday and my mother and father in law sent me 30. i also had five bucks in my purse all smashed so that counts, too. So I have 85 bucks. I am trying to really not pitch this money in to "the family" as I have done with every single penny I have ever received as a Joy gift in ten years of marriage. I am also going to get a night job a couple of nights a week at this one cool beerhaus thing that seems non molesterish and up-beat and clean. I have no idea if they are hiring but I dont care. Maybe they will see my purple hair and think I will cheer up the joint.


I am trying to think of things I want to save up for and so far it is:

pink chucks
all the bumper stuckers i could ever dream of on cafepress.com
a little videocamera/dvd camera whatever those are that are little
a Fender Rhodes
a Mellotron
a mini Moog
a new guitar although that is so mean to my guitar...so maybe a bass. a yellow one.
a non raping bike seat
fountain pop machine
slurpee machine

send me ideas--maybe I am forgetting something I always wanted! My own hair coloring salon-dance club perhaps?

documentaries

I like to see stuff that is awesome and then go on ahead and do that. Have that. Make that. Be a part of that.

So next on the horizon as soon as I can afford to buy one, is going to be joy and her little videocamera. Because, you see, dear friends, I am going to be filming it all now. Or lots of it. If you never wanted to be the one in the chair on the documentary, fake looking at someone stage left, slightly diagonal camera angle, maybe a little cigarette on the side table, sweet music playing while you are talking (actually playing, not over-dubbed)....well then too bad, cuz its happening sooner than later if you come around me.

As much fun as I am having with the irfanview software for the pictures I have taken with my camera, I can only imagine what i'm gonna do with film, moving pictures. Please someone tell me there is cool stuff I can do with moving video, as far as "effects"---AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I am too excited. So everyone brush your hair and think of something clever to say cuz you're goin' down in celluloid history whether u like it or not
;)

i wanna shirtdress now

this

plus

this

plus

chucks

plus cardigans

plus blue hair

is

all

i'm

saying

I have been in quest of dresses since I was a teenager. I want shirtdresses, like from the 50s, but in amazing vintage fabrics. duh. Who doesnt, right? Well, when my only body challenge was being 6 foot 1, it was one thing but now that I have filled out, forget about it. Anything I have ever found in a resale shop wouldnt button around my little finger let alone my bod.

So the semi obvious choice of finding the perfect pattern and sewing it reared its head a few times but didnt amount to much. Still need to persue that one more.....

Right now in fashion, there is a great return to the Dress. By fashion I mean old navy or the mall or something---hahaha but still, i do not LOVE the ones I am seeing. A big problem is the current rebirth of the EMPIRE WAIST which, when I say rebirth, I do mean MATERNITY---

these things look like preggo clothes on the skinniest preteens, why on he good earth would I ever want to wear something so heinously unflattering? Mix the highwaist in with the fact that no matter how "plus size" i go, the thing will be all worng and cut for some one half my height (ok not half my height but probably 5 foot 6)

I am kind of getting to the point where I will have to make my own or find someone who will.

tra la la

When you are at karaoke, what is your angle?

To sing a song that you think you will sound really good at?

To sing a song that totally and perfectly fits the evening?

To sing a song that the crowd will surely rock out to?

To sing a song that you love despite any hope of a talented effect?

To sing a song that you think will have a secret message for someone in the room? A Little fun twist of a lyric perhaps?

Tell me what you think!

shine

To rock and be a mother; not necessarily impossible, not necessarily a contradiction, for me a difficult thing logistically...not just to have given birth at some point but to truly live your days with many little children 24-7-365....am I explaining myself or just makin more excuses?....many kick ass incredible women rock hard and have children. How many children and what the whole details are escape me, though.

For me, I didn't pick up a guitar until my first child was 18 months old, and it seems as if the brief sparks of this turning into something I could really do were, like I said, brief. Maybe I suck, I dunno---maybe you feel like a star when you have the stomach flu everyday for half a year. Maybe you crawl out from the bathroom floor and strap on a Fender. Maybe you feel mentally inspired by a steady diet of elmo, stale cheerios, rinsing and wiping little stains, cutting and smooshing tiny lunch foods, and never ever ever sleeping more than 3 hours straight. Maybe I could have tried harder to be able to do all of that, but I did not. Never directly blaming the babies, and ever optimistic (actually 100% confident and patient) that time and music are shapeshifting forgiving malleable things who are not going anywhere, my beautiful guitar sat in its case for years and years. I never felt weird, I never felt worried. I went on to have three more children in 7 more years, and each baby marked very different points in my life. My "comebacks" as I and other veteran mothers call them, have all been very different. Not really measurable in pounds lost or months past, but more in spirit shifts, a re-gaining of the Joy in the Mamajoy, without any kind of tangible severance besides (somewhat) more sleep at night.

What the f am I talking about??

I am ready to jam is all.

I will play just about anything.

I play the kids' guitars, tuning and retuning them until they beg me to stop and then Casey or Charlie will come up and just twist--twist all my tunings away. Usually sounds much better the way they did it. I have been known to play rubber bands. Thats how the old guys did it right?

I play this insanely crotchety bizarre mystery guitar and do not know the name of a single chord. Like I give a shit.

When you listen to the radio, are you like, "oh wowee kazowee this is a jammin Eflat?" Perhaps you do. But I do not at this time. Im not trying to be punk rock or ignorant I just do not, cannot deal with that right now. I need to play songs that are really awesome is all I am saying. I am not detail oriented, as they say. Ill get a secretary for that shit someday, heh heh. You got your big dreamers and you got your people who make little painstaking lists for the big dreamers. Both important folks.

I like songs that sound great and I like to sing. I like to jump and I like to dance. I can say that I am not very good at any of these but the overall effect creates some energies that you do not want to ignore. I am not going to bullshit you and pretend that I dont know that it works all together somehow. It does and it will and thats where Im at today.

I like to rock out and if you put a slow song on the tape you make me I will fastforward past it. Thats all for now.

R.E.M.

Last night I watched the VH1 broadcast of the rock and roll hall of fame inductions. First of all, they just LEFT OUT some collaboration of I wanna be your dog---what the #@@$@$ would make them do that?? I watched this thing for 2 1/2 hours and got screwed out of the finale. Its probably on youtube.

R.E.M. got inducted by Eddie Vedder. Although the idea of Pearl Jam grates me, Eddie is truly a pal, he really is. Poor sweet thing, he didnt kill himself, he is completely true to himself, and here he is, in 2007, with his moonpie sincere Eddie face, his exact same voice, and what looks to be his exact same shirt. Good. I don't want certain musicians to grow and change physically, and Eddie is one of them. He needs so many hugs, dear Eddie. But we arent that close, its not like that for me and Eddie. And thats ok.

His tribute speech to R.E.M. was the closest thing to perfect I have heard in a long, long time. In a world of bloated speeches and idiotic spraying of superlatives, he followed a very different course, describing his intimate discoveries of the band in 83/84, and the way he descibed how Michael Stipe does his magic gave me chills on my chills. For them to play what they played instead of big hits or new songs was just so kick ass. I was beaming from ear to ear to heart.

I think many many people are aware of R.E.M. as this really solid college rock band, I don't know too many folks who dont have a decent amount of respect or like for them--but thats not it at all for me, you see, these guys are my dear, dear friends, and we have grown up together in so many ways. Shy curly Michael, funny hats Michael, the newspaper suit on SNL with me watching so in love on my black and white TV in my childhood bedroom at 12:50 am with the sound off so I didnt get busted for being up so late... Murmur, Fables, Lifes Rich Pageant on the pink boombox on the edge of my bed...GREEN? Jesus Christ the Tourfilm for Green, could I be more proud of my very first true true love? Michael was my first gay boyfriend, before Morrissey, before Bernard Sumner, Andy Bell, Neil Tennant, Martin Gore, various boys at school, or even Andy Warhol, me and Michael were tight. I loved him and he was cool with it. When he got really sassy after Out of Time and started hanging out with all my freinds from the Seattle scene in 92, he didn't forget his roots--or me. I was so proud of my shy sweetie up there in his eyeliner and sparkle pants--you go darlin.
He and Kurt became close, and I hope they shared more than guitar chords. Sweet babies. So sick that he had to kind of hang out with Courtney for a while after, but I would have, too. she was all we had to cling to there for a minute in 94, until we all got our feet back on the ground, or close to it. My feet are still crooked after what happened to K but Im getting there. Time does heal, sort of. (With big big scars.)

To see my Micheal up there with Eddie was bittersweet. I thought it was a painful reminder of so many unresolved early 90's hurts, from Bill Berry leaving the band, to Kurts death, to the shocking disintegration of radio music since about April 6th 1994...but Eddies love and admiration for my Michael really reflected mine, and although I will probably never feel like popping in the Pearl Jam cd outside of a class reunion, I hope that him and Eddie had a great time together that night.

I dreamed about R.E.M. all night last night, and I can't shake the dust off my mind today. I like sleeps like that.

Beautiful swimmers

I went swimming all by myself last night at the local pool. Since I didnt have the kids with me, I felt silly just playing being goofy...but the crazed old people who swim 355 laps intimidated me so I didnt want to play by them either. So I made up this workout thingy:

In the rib-deep water I walked really fast holding a kickboard out in front of me for balance and resistance. It was hard and fun! It seemed to burn my legs much more than swimming and regular swimming still hurts my back somewhat.

I did my water-walking thing for about 45 minutes! I was so sweaty--in the water! Gross! but it was great. I could feel that my bottoms of my feet were getting harshed up and wished for those water shoes all the aerobic grannies had. My old German guy pal and the Mail-lady told me I was doing great. Encouraging! Emabarssing! they were staring at my blue hair laying on my shoulders but did not ask. What is there to ask? "Is your hair blue?" ---clearly. right? Or maybe they thought I had a terrible chlorine reaction--haha.

Near the end of the hour, (open swim is only one hour on Wednesdays) I realized they let you play in the 9 foot part! whoa! So I did that. Just wierd floating and fake underwater walking and stuff. So fun to just be wierd.

I love swimming for 10,000 reasons--but you know what was really cool? There were these two people, a guy and a girl, and they were doing crazy races in the 9 foot--they swam SO fast, they were making crazy waves, blast blast back and forth back and forth. And when they got out of the water, I saw that they were very large people, maybe 3 or 400 pounds. Thats why swimming is so neat! Good for them! I wish I was that fast! I can still swim really fast but only for VERY short distances as my lung capacity is so so pathetic. I practically drown doing 2 laps, seriously. And if I try to leave my head out like some wierd hair-do lady it hurts my neck.

I love the aerobics class ladies who are there before open swim, because they are getting together in community companionship, they are laughing and having fun, they are taking time for themselves, and they are absolutely covered in cellulite, from head to toe. With bright coral lipstick, and wierd aqua-shoes---they were so beautiful! Am I bizzarre? I enjoy the imagery of people who look like that, it really helps me to see blobby stomachs and lumpy legs and happy shining faces of women.

I started on my media saturation with TEEN magazine at age 11 and until I was about 20 a disgusting amount of my time was devoted to these "plumper lips in 15 days" type of publications. In high school I read Cosmo more than my schoolbooks. Curl your lashes while you sleep. Tone that ass. Keep your highlights shiny. Bigger bust. Long lasting eyeshadow. Learn your skin type. Dont outshine anyone. Force him to ask you to prom. Banish odor. Keep your arms supple. Breath fresh. Eyes shiney. Legs tight. Wax. Pluck. Shave. Tan. Low light. High light. De-emphasize. Enhance. Exfoliate. Moisturize. Count calories. Get rest. Pull an all nighter. Remove callouses. The right shade for you. Dress it up for evening. 23456 simple tips. Shock him. Tease him. Taunt him. Tantalize him. CHOP YOURSELF UP INTO 600 SEXY HAIRLESS MINTY FRESH PIECES FOR HIM.

I went to college and dove so hard into Womens studies I couldnt even begin to explain right now.

So here I am, at 31, 80 pounds heavier than when I was "fat", with zits and stretch marks and rolls and blobs and wrinkles and finally feeling super super happy and cute and sexy and mentally OK with all this shit. I really really took the long road to body recovery, and feel as if all those mega feminist things I read about being truly IN your body, and loving youself and all of that are really in my heart now. Its so liberating and super, I feel shy to even discuss it because I have a LOT of social conditioning in me about "dont brag". But I am happy that I feel good, and I feel like when I look in the mirror that I am seeing JOY and I have never felt that in my life until now! Yay!

For the first time, sex and makeup and clothes and bodies are all in a happy positive fun place in my life. I wish I hadnt had to go through such a long stupid road, but I know tons of women will be stuck on media-row for the entirity of their lives, and for them, I am sad.

This has sure meadered, but it is dedicated to the happy wonderful people at the pool last night.

personal imagery

How I did it--

blue it shall be

Im gonna dye my hair blue tonight!
We took a family vote.
Blue was hands down.

Ill be sure to post pics........

bathin beauty

I ordered this bathing suit from LandsEnd. It really fits awesome and I am pleased. There is a secret underlayer that is tight as a sausage but then the little overlayer looks floaty and casual. I swam and swam with the kids and I dont think I adjusted it once. no wedgie, no boob-pop-out, nothin!

There is no bathing suit that can help with my new grandma elephant legs but hopefully someday I will be able to work out and all that jazz. Right now I can barely stand up or sit back down due to extreme extreme back pain and stiffness. I cant even put on my own pants or socks.

Looking forward to summer!

wowee airbrush

http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/bikini1.html
scroll over this craziness

then try the side ones

sigh

eyebrows and ponytails

I overplucked my eyebrows, big time about three weeks ago. It is easy to do. Just start plucking and go overboard and look like an idiot!

This takes time to regrow but they are looking alot better now. My natural eyebrow shape is very pointed and slanty, and somehow I ended up with more rounded, which looked horrible on me. The eyebrows are the frames of the face, and I am usually pretty good at this. You can tell if you did your eyebrows wrong if you look expression-less and wierd. Which I did.

My hair is finally long enough for ONE PONYTAIL!!!! I am so happy. Yes there are wispies but that looks cute if you have an actual outfit on. (With pajamas, not so much. )

Now I have a more sophisticated option for continuing to grow my hair and have the little bangs. My hair grows really really fast and I am certain that by this Christmas the memories of the little choppy Bob hairdo will be amazing to even recall.

I cannot wait until I really do have the long long hair that I crave. I will have two braids or one ponytail or one bun and I just love that. Hooray!