are you there, god? it's me, christina.

the season change was anything but smooth this year, and the bizarre, florida-esque hot rains segued quick and clumsily into overcast, breeze swept evenings that merit the first donnings of fall's scarves and sweaters. there's a bittersweetness as of late that seemed to be originally stirred up in unsettled dreams that quietly bled into my waking hours without warning, and I've tried to greet it with as much patience as I can muster. I've been in cruise control, but I have no idea where I'm headed, and every time I think I want stability, reliability, and responsibility, I balk. somehow I can't seem to wrap my head around the idea that a routine would behoove me immensely, even though I know it must be true... it's frustrating to have had the other shoe dangling perilously for so long, not knowing if the drop is an empty threat. how do you go about chasing a goal if you're not sure what it is? is it as simple as attempting to discern the difference between bravery and foolhardiness? and then either way, resolving not to care?

of all of my accomplishments, I am most proud and fiercely protective of my freedom and independence. I don't have to answer to anyone, I certainly don't want to, and I go where I want, when I want, why I want. I make my own deadlines and I break them accordingly. while this lifestyle has suited me in the past, I wonder how it fits into the ways I want to grow, and if it does at all? am I capable of allowing myself to rely on more the occasional kindness of strangers and the ineffable, whimsical wiles of chance? I am not faithless, but I have two dueling split sides to my personality, and that is my dreamer versus my realist; what I hope for, and what I know, my ideals battling my fears. so many major aspects of my life are on a knife's edge and I know that whichever way I fall, I have no guarantee of landing on my feet. in fact, given my track record with grace, it's likely that I'll end up with a deviated septum, a busted heart, a pride hematoma and a broken bank. but, being a pussy didn't get me where I am, and for the most part, I like where that is. today I'm trying to bear in mind that if the chips are down and the dealer always wins... it's probably time for me to learn how to play poker.

flying by the seat of my whimsy-pants

I'm going to try and give this blog CPR this week. bust out that binaca and get ready to make out, internet!

here's an excerpt of a letter to b:

my trip back to the bay was short and sweet, but also made it evident that I'm mentally detached from sf in a pretty official sense. things in new york are magnificently and unbelievably lonely at times, but the frenetic energy of the city and the golden rat race that everyone is a participant in (willing or not) lends it a unique charm. it truly is the mecca. and the other day I stepped in dog shit on ludlow in the lower east side and when I looked up alan cumming was chuckling at me. where else could you poo your shoe in front of boris grishenko?

this newfound clarity hasn't come without a smattering of strifes, and the past 5 months were more of a growing charlie horse rather than just your average pain. there was nary a psychic banana to ease my mental cramps to be found anywhere, high or low. my parents might call the past five years 'directionless', but I read this article the other day that detailed a newly identified common life phase that I'm fairly sure I'm in the throes of. it's called "odyssey", the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood, where a "young adult" transitions in and out of school, cities, relationships and the like.

if the odyssey years are to be considered legit, then consider me to feel a hell of a lot better about my intemperate emotional flailing and hesitance to commit to anything, be it higher education, a person, a hair color, a brand of cola, etc. I suppose just the word "odyssey" resonates, as well, because I really look at my Big Picture as a grand experiment, a voyage, an epic that I write as I go. odysseys don't always go smoothly, they don't guarantee an ideal storybook ending, in fact the most famous one, ithaca is at peace in the conclusion, but not without some shit getting SERIOUSLY fucked up. so, maybe new york is my troy, and I've rolled myself in via a giant virgin america metal bird, and the war I wage is really one of personal growth and a righteous quest to find the best slice of pizza in all of the 5 boroughs. yes, odyssey is so much better than "quarter life crisis".

odyssey years: legit... or just a nice way to call someone a fuck up?

also, julia davis:

devil may care

friday morning: discuss.

woke up to more passive aggressive post its on the fridge after drunkenly demolishing my roommate's leftover pizza last night when I got home from an evening about town that smacked of my trite and exorbitant first year in town as dj motley c. I suppose that's what I should expect from cruising around to hipster bars to flyer for a band called the downer party in a car full of barely legal dudes in leather jackets driven by a 19 year old girl with a sonic youth tattoo who I didn't care to ask how many sparks she'd had. nice kids, admittedly, one of them being max scoville, who has barely begun his excellent san francisco adventure... and it's fascinating to see that the kids are indeed alright, but they're still doing the same old shit. somehow I became the docent of my own milestone memory tour, passing the crunk station, the marrakesh joint in the tl, the old arrow (cum matador), the thursday night beat poet society at 16th bart, delirium, 330 ritch, and finally, the rickshaw. looking askance at its menacing orange door, I knew it was time for grandma to go home-- I don't play that game anymore. as much as some things never change, I'm no longer dolled up to get a photographer's attention for my 2 minutes of myspace bulletin fame, I don't have room for your glossy 4x6's in my purse, and the drug dealer is not invited to my afterparty. motley c and the girl gang formerly known as 3P is finally dead.

I'll never forget this blurry exchange from a couple of halloweens ago, spun out on god knows what and dressed up as an electro ladybug. sometime around 4 in the morning I passed stefan who was laying on the floor in a hallway of the warehouse with his head and shoulder propped up on the wall at an unnatural angle, drenched in sweat so that his dyed black bangs were slick and plastered across his furrowed forehead, wearing a dress shirt that could have benefitted from a proper wringing. I'd stopped and knelt down beside him, trying to heft his dead weight up into a posture that might do a double service in being more comfortable and also making him look less like a wasted burnout.

"what are you doing still here?" he asked.

"party goes 'til 6." I replied.

"getting your twenty bucks worth?"

"I was on the list."

"smart ass."

"what? I was!"

"no, I mean, what are you doing... still here." he widened his eyes dramatically as he asked. "because you need to get out."

"I am not sure I follow." I could feel my stomach lurching, full of pills and some acerbic alcoholic concoction.

"you know," stefan snorted, a signature character tic, "you know why I was such a dick to you when you first came around?"

"because you're an asshole?" I smiled sardonically.

"yeah, and also because I know you're too good for this. you're wasting yourself on this. take a look and tell me what you see." a rivulet of sweat streamed down his pallid cheek, his face stern. "I see the same old people doing the same shit. I'm 38, and I know, I know what they've already taken from you, but it's not too late. these people are vampires."

we sat there, locked in a stare that felt an eternity long with our dilated pupils boring into each other.

"I'll go when I'm ready." I said, incapable of mendacity.

"he's not coming back, and you won't either. look, I'm sorry. I don't want to see you around anymore, and I mean that in the best way possible."

"I know. but for a second there I thought you were just being a dick again."

I stood up, adjusting my wings. a group of people scuttled by, trying to find an inconspicuous place to do key bumps, stilettos glinting like switchblades with their faces bearing uniformly blank, unctuous expressions. later on when the warehouse was shutting down, lindsay, maren and I were standing in the middle of polk street and flagged a cab that was hotly pursued by a girl dressed as a zombie who was sobbing hysterically and banging on the trunk, wailing about how she'd been waiting longer than us. I turned back around, avoiding eye contact with her as I asked if my friends thought we should let her in.

"honey," maren said prudently, "good girls don't hang out in the tenderloin at 6 am."

milking it for free

2008's whirlwind end and 2009's beginning on wobbling bambi legs have left me bereft of a sense of assuredness of anything except that the time is ripe to get a firmer grip on the bull's balls. the winter doldrums still set in despite all of the overwhelmingly wondrous and unexpected adventures of the past few weeks, and I'm trying to claw my way out. as much as I appreciate the beauty in ephemerality, my nostalgic streak counteracts rationale; sometimes I forget that moments can be kept, but not held the way I want to. hedonism isn't about buying the cow.

it's a struggle to stay in stride, but today (even despite having woken up at 4am having gone to bed at 2) I'm meeting up with brent at mcsweeney's and will get some new projects to work on for wholphin, and next week I'm going to start job hunting for a restaurant gig to start saving money for le grand city swap.

the prospect of the wild blue yonder that is the world beyond the city by the bay is daunting, but it's imperative that I continue to learn to be self sufficient. by summer, a good portion of those that I call my closest friends will have scattered across the globe to embark on journeys of all kinds. some are merely running, some are searching, some are creating, but our common denominator is growth. I'm willing to show myself that I'm ready by taking some action.

as for the resolutions, I'm doing okay. the green phlegm goblins I've been hacking up have made it pretty easy to involuntarily quit smoking (day 3), but I'm going to have to throw on an addendum, which is to lose the weight I gained on birth control and didn't drop when I got off of it. this is probably do-able providing that I'm willing to give up delivery pizza, insomnia snacking, laziness, and beer. maybe I'll fill the voids with baby carrots, DIY pedicures, yoga and prozac.

here's a few snaps from the last week-ish.

mm & me (thanks cass!)


back to sf from christmas in the 707


rufus copping a cheap feel on NYE

pornament fiesta with the girls

disco ukulele dance at teatro zinzanni

life, as a cabaret

chris vick turns 28 @ the 811

my favorite room in all the land! my favorite goose!

the Womanizer Dance

lyds, ghostriding the basement

schleepy

me 'n tobs

ms. lindsay, my new year's kiss

memory is a fickle siren song

oh, sweet, merciful christ.

I'm in such a pickle, but I can't think of the last time I wasn't fervently trying to make relish. when was the last time I wasn't managing a disaster? when weren't kosher sandwich slices of zesty misadventures assailing me with clammy, green passion, a passion that steadily builds and grows like an epic concerto conducted by an unrelenting deli maestro? I suppose I've always had a knack for manifesting unusual situations and wacky, once-in-a-lifetime, cinematic undertakings that give me material for my writing. it's uncannily reliable.

sunday night with my best friend at a gay bar suddenly becomes moonlighting as an art student from LES new york, leisurely relaxing in a penthouse suite on the top floor of the westin st. francis, surrounded by original picassos and two homosexual vintage san francisco socialites with an affinity for nose candy, persian cats, and kate moss's plastic surgeon. a birthday party at the clift turns into a hyphy phenomenon and when we're kicked out at three am, tripping over a veritable sea of empty bottles of korbel, we're singing as we're being manhandled by security into a misty tenderloin morning holding hands and twirling through the gutters in our evening gowns. everyone else's blockbuster nights are my precious gems of spontaneous and fantastic magic that I collect for my jewelry box of shocking tales. every corner in this city has a story, every day that I choose not to waste has the potential for extraordinary excavation. I claim these things with as little ego as possible, because I believe that these spectacles (wonderful and heartbreaking, respectfully) find me just as often as I seek them out.

what is the point of being satisfied with anything unremarkable? I don't go on dinner dates, I fall in love with my roommate. I don't eat peanut butter and jelly, I order a super al pastor burrito with extra cheese and black beans on a tomato tortilla. I want to live the shit out of my life, because I know all too well and have been taught all too painfully, you never know how long you've got. you could get cancer. (hell, I did.) you could go to a party with friends, have a fantastic time, and then never wake up. (jorge did.) you could jaywalk on mission street and get hit by a semi-truck. (I actually have never known anyone who pulled that one off.)

jon's father passed away last week and I've never felt so desperate to take care of someone in my life. I wanted to jump on a plane, flee to his side, wrap him up and hold him, keep him safe and take the pain and fix everything. unfortunately, none of the aforementioned rescue techniques could be executed, for several reasons not only limited to proximity and the nature of the source of emotional ruin. I couldn't bring his dad back. I love him, but I can't put us back together. but, oh god, how I wanted to. when he came home to pack for an extended stay down south with his bereaved family, watching him leave again felt like chewing blown glass christmas ornaments. my heart broke seventeen times. (give or take.) afterwards I laid in bed for hours, completely immobilized by sadness, listening to the sounds of our empty treehouse. there are so many things to mourn, and I can take those feelings and really iron them out, let them coarse through my veins and leave permanent traces like a tattoo. I thought to myself of a response to jon's querying my transparently sad eyes, months ago, and it's simply that some feelings never go away. I can't un-feel falling in love, just as I can't un-feel the loss of it. I can't un-feel constance. this relationship has swung to both ends of the spectrum just as everything else in my life has, there are highs and lows and I carry them with me with pride. I don't regret anything about the ballad of jonstina. we are real and flawed and human and beautiful, and also doomed. we've moved beyond beating the dead horse and now we're just hanging out at the glue factory.

the time for me to take my leave from treehouse is looming, but I'll look at it head on. a new chapter is on the horizon, maybe even an entirely new book that promises hundreds of crisp, blank pages, eagerly awaiting to be filled with san francisco fairytales and a tragedy or two.