"I'm evil & mean spirited." he said.
"Have an old truck and love to crash into little cars for fun. BUT, when I see the "baby on board!" sign, I always refrain. Soft spot, I guess."
His regard for others only went as far as infancy.
At what point do you decide that what got you this far just won't take you any farther?
When do you finally loose the death grip you've got on that portion of you that's failing?
You know. If you let go it will certainly free up your resources and all of that energy can go into something that seems to work and just might flourish.
When my cousin, Isabelle, and I were much younger (when we were all much younger) we spent one Thanksgiving at a Bed and Breakfast in Sacramento.
As I recalled, it was lovely and the rooms were named after famous painters, poets and composers.
With My Aunt Renee, Isabelle and I put on a play.
We painted faces on our chins in such away that when we layed on our backs and hung our heads over the edge of the bed our chins would become puppets who shared the same mouth as our own.
We laughed and laughed and had a bath and we were all there, together and happy.
Years later we are all much older and family dynamics have shifted. However those fond family memories inspired me to book the Mozart room at The Amber House Bed and Breakfast in Sacramento this Easter Weekend.
Two weeks of simple spaghetti for dinner saved enough money to revisit memories in a special place with people I love. It was worth it.
Fondly and Affectionately,
Celisse
I'm learning to not give a fuck about people who don't give a fuck.
Is it strange that I would legitimately enjoy omnipotently watching and listening to a conversation between the men that I've loved and have loved me?
Those who have gone.
To hear one speak to the other about a quality, movement, way of being or belief that they enjoyed (and to hear that the other found that to be their biggest annoyance, or agree to the love of it) might be one the most interesting social experiments I could ever think of.
Rather torturous, but incredibly valuable.
I never liked James Dean he was a dirty thing from Oklahoma with a dirty mouth. I don't even know if he was from Oklahoma, I think so though. He pretended he was.
Dont write that. I love Oklahoma. Don't say it's a dirty state. James Dean was dirty but not the state.
Don't say any of that Celisse. He's dead, he can't defend himself.
- Jeannie
Just as I began to fall asleep she says, "Everything is going to be okay Honey but your not going to be able to do it alone."
Today our team went on a quick afternoon outing together to the Ferry Building.
10 or 12 of us walked in rows of two or three in columns of three or so, and I trailed at the back.
My eye caught a folded piece of paper in the back left pocket of a friend walking ahead.
"I wonder if Mac is worried that that piece of paper in his back pocket will fall out?" I said to my row.
Minutes later I notice Jim to my left kneel to pick up a folded piece of paper from the ground.
My Father once called my Mother's Mother, "The poorest Republican" he had ever known. If there was one thing I learned from her, it was how to present.
A show of dignity and prestige.
I can spot the highest quality dress on a rack of shit in the Goodwill to wear to work. I can sort through rusty nails at the flea market and find a shining pendant to wear around my neck. I was trained to spend a dollar and make it look like I spent much more.
"It's all in the presentation," she says, and she is right.
We share a bed for now in her quaint studio apartment near the lake tightly filled with all her grand, old furniture from the past. At least until I can find someplace affordable to live. She washes her face while I sew a black button back on to my Goodwill dress and place it back into one of two plastic boxes that I'm currently living out of.
In the morning my 70 something year old Grandmother will dress and drive an hour and a half to her job caring for two rowdy, four year old twin girls. No retirement, just hard work. I'll go to work as well.
I'm not unhappy, most of the time, however I do wish that not one member of my family - My Mother, My Grandmother, My Sister or My Cousin had a worry in the world.
I've not had the good fortune of being around wholeheartedly decent men as fathers, but I'm hopeful that they exist.
Excommunication with no invitation.
Peel off the square sticky top to uncover the holes. It's the same can you've always known.
Comet.
It's like reading Kafka because I have nothing better to do.
Taking a bath to make the porcelain dirty just to have the pleasure of scrubbing it clean.
Here's to wishing that someone was here to document this.
Riding allows for a lot of alone time. Just you and your inner dialogue debating which road to take next. I'm still not as confident on the windy roads as I would like to be. The truth is, I may never be confident on the windy roads but I'll take them anyway because I like a challenge, I like to get better. One of the best pieces of advice a friend has ever given me was this: Keep your eyes ahead to where you want to go and your bike will take you there.
Who me? No way.
I attempted to teach myself how to play the guitar a few years ago. This is about as good as I got.
well, i finally caved in to love,
and, am now - in it.
his name is steve.
our friendship, our relationship has been unabashed.
he was the first guy i kissed just a few weeks after ending my seven year relationship,
and we had love for one another then.
he loved me enough to respect that i knew i needed time to learn, to be alone.
he was well aware that i had every intention of going on what i called, "a sexual rampage," and he left me free to do what i needed to do, experience what i had hoped to experience.
we always saw one another, and he was never jealous or demanding.
he just loved me and let me be.
he understands that i have a creative interest, a liking of and an affinity toward all men and the things they do. all people for that matter.
i like to be around people, take their photograph, understand their thoughts, activities and behavior. he lets me do that.
he appreciates this.
so, it was also just recently, also, that i decided that i had been letting pain drive my creativity for long enough.
and while it was fun while it lasted,
and i got some good art from it,
it was starting to wear me down.
i made the conscious decision to start finding art and creativity in love. i want to.
to preserve painful inspiration, i had built a tall wall to block out love and embrace loneliness, and i sat on the wall, feeling quite lonely, and kept a watch out for a knight in shining armor but he never came.
and he was never going to come.
and it just got too lonely sitting on that wall waiting for nothing.
it turns out that he has to be that knight in shining armor after all because he let me build that wall, he let me sit on it alone, he let me look out at other princes yet he still admired me and cared for me and kept me safe from afar and i always came back to him.
there are a few things i would change but they are superficial and not worth worrying about.
i'm just picky and i'm sure, if he could, he would change that about me too.
and now i do want babies, and a cute home and a farm and to be able to write and be creative and grow.
to grow with him.
i still want to build my empire, and live creatively but i don't think that it means that i have to live in pain anymore, i can can build it out of love.
love should only help my process and make my dreams flourish.
i've been talking to girlfriends about babies,
and they are like: it gave me a schedule, it gave me routine, it grounded me.
those are three characteristics that i believe you absolutely must have to achieve your life goals.
and if your life goal is starting a company or producing an epic shoot, or whatever,
you need routine, a schedule and to be grounded in your ideas.
having a child in itself is an epic experience that i want to have and hearing that it will foster qualities that will only help me achieve my larger creative goals makes me see that it really is all possible.
Apparently tonight is the last night at Pop's but it's always the last night at Pop's.
I may not have my own home right now, but I have an amazing family and support system.
For the moment, I get to spend my mornings and evenings with my Grandmother. We fantasize about how we would spend our time if we had nothing but time to spend. I love looking at old family photos and hearing the memories that accompany them.
She still has the couch she's sitting on in this photo, although it's been reupholstered. Along with this photo was another of Eric in a buggy that Jeannie made for him. (She reminds me later that the photos were taken in Astoria, Oregon and Eric is just three months old).
"Everyone in the neighborhood loved it and wanted one for themselves." She tells me, "See the duster? It was yellow and coco brown."
Just a few months after this photo was taken she went with my Grandfather, Edwin, and their three small children to live on the naval bases in Yokosuka and Yokohama, Japan.