weekend

sigrid

sigrid visited over the weekend, up from rhode island where she's living. she and i are often mistaken as sister/brother and sometimes we play the part, especially when my hair is bleached blonde. dick mitchell, from new york, and link, from new orleans, also visited. all surprises. one the joys of living in our place, a spacious old mill building, is that people just show up, especially in summer, creating a nearly continuous parade of new and familiar faces. winter is almost the opposite. gordon and i had a kind of tense talk last night. it felt like a subtle fight. card: 5 of discs/scary mary: hard times, ill health, rejection

another reason to think about what you eat

male chicks

here's yet another reason to contemplate what you eat: here live male chicks are tossed into a dumpster behind a factory egg farm to die by suffocation, starvation or dehydration, because they're useless to an egg farm. think about where your food comes from! more fun at factoryfarming.com

card: 6. Lovers (gemini: that's me!)

Late Night

Five AM

I stayed up almost all night working on the Marsha P Johnson film. My friend Dennis Grady gave me a CD by Sigur Ros. Like magic their song, Samskeyti, inspired an approach to editing that turned out beautifully. I often find that rhythm and timing, musical notions, are just as important in moving images, even dialog, as they are in music. what makes a film flow? lots of the same things that make music flow. it also struck me how one has to remain open to everything to be creative. so much played into my editing breakthrough: there was an art gallery opening here last night, to which i went, to which my friend went, at which he gave me a cd, to which i listened after getting frustrated with my work, which then gave me an idea that worked really well. we're all in this together!

card: six of discs: having/not having

pix from the past

matt_face

my friend marco asked to see some pictures of me when i was younger. so, i started scanning them and here they are.

it occurred to me while looking through the photos that it would be cool to build an online autobiography using pictures, kind of like i do my blog.

separation

solo

gabriel and i are separating for a while. he's moving up to our friend jon appleton's house for the rest of the summer and the fall. we're still going to share a studio, so we'll see each other but we won't be living together. i feel both sad and excited. i feel failure and the open road. gabriel and i are going to check in with each other late in October. i do wonder if i'm cut out to be in a relationship, if relationship is healthy for me. this separation may help me answer that question. at the moment, i feel a long depression dissipating, a new excitement about my projects, freedom, the dark cloud lifting. i love gabriel, he loves me, but our relationship has been depressing both of us. i have asked myself, what does it mean when your lover goes away and you feel suddenly alive?

tarot: ace of discs: prospering, proceeding with trust, being practical.

new shirt

tiptopcafe shirt

i got the latest in upper valley wear today: a tiptopcafe t-shirt, in orange, to match my clogs. the orange threw off the white balance on my phone-cam. it doesn't take much. gabriel and i had an intense talk with jon last night. i realized how much my projections of gabriel have affected the way he is and how much i need to work on letting those projections go. i also realized how important spirituality is to me and that i'm seeking spiritual environments, nourishing relationships, deep connections. how strange it is that what i used to make fun of is now at the center of my life.

card: 7 of discs: taking stock, reaping reward, considering direction change

solitaire

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it struck me this morning how much life is like the card game solitaire. perhaps that's why it's popular. the game starts with the hope of resolution, completion, reaching solitaire nirvana where all the cards end up in four ordered stacks. but most of the time that doesn't happen. instead, after a brief flurry of matching and progress, most games turn difficult, reach impasse and have to be scrapped. but every once in a while, it all works out. so, how many couples end up with four neat stacks of cards? how many reach the impasse but refuse to start a new game? i feel like i'm shuffling through the remaining free cards over and over even though they don't change.

tarot: 2 of wands: boldness, doing what i want. the last two days: 2 of swords: stalemate: denying emotion, situation, hidng distress, being defensive.

fourth

column on saint gaudens porch

happy fourth. and happy birthday sigrid! i awoke in my tent on the faerie land, helped wave and jim collect tiki torches, walked the labyrinth with them, then headed north to white river junction. habitually, i turned on my computer, got sucked into chatting for an hour and then reflected upon how much a waste of time it was. but, the afternoon was redeemed by floating down the white river in an innertube from hartford village to the main street museum. the day was gorgeous, truly, blue sky, warm, the river gentle except for the boulders that smacked my ass, and afterward a relaxed cookout on the river. my faerie friend from new york, jade, came up from faerieland with his dog, scoot and hung out with us.

marsha "pay it no mind" johnson

marsha p johnson

last week my friend bunny gave me a cd of music by antony and the johnsons. great music. then my friend andy sichel calls and tells me he wants me to edit a short film of marsha p johnson, a drag queen from new york who saw it all from stonewall through the early nineties that andy taped in 1991 just before she was killed. then i find out that anthony and the johnsons are named for marsha and that bunny's son, nico, has been doing some gigs with antony. at destiny i met a friend who worked with antony on a play, doing lights. providence?

serendipidy

driving

so much happened today, and nothing happened!

i awoke in a tent on the faerie land in vermont about 10:30am. my watch alarm is broken leaving me at the whim of my natural sleep pattern. i strolled down to the kitchen, ate some quiche, strolled up to the meadow with jade and did yoga for an hour, then walked the septic mound site with peat measuring the slope there so that we can figure out how much sand we're going to need. then back to the kitchen where i met jai and dan harlow and we decided to go to dan's organic farmstand for lunch. lunch was delicious. the day was so beautiful we decided to go to rock river, a nude gay swimming hole near brattleboro. we arrived at four, the water was warm (well, relatively as someone from florida pointed out) and then i stolled the beach naked, met a nice blonde boy and had a wonderful late afternoon. we headed out at 6pm, i drove back to faerie land, dinner was just being served, a delicious and healthy veggie meal topped off with double chocolate german cake. an impromptu talent show ensued and i was handed a guitar and pressed to perform a song. since i really can't remember songs for the life of me, i concocted one about my leg hair being too hot near the fire and my orange clogs hypnotizing me, something like that. the night was warm, i lit a latern and sauntered back to my tent and put my head down on my pillow of rolled up clothes.

i'm feeling a tremendous lightness here on the faerie land, accepting myself, being myself, allowing myself to flow unchecked, uncensored. trusting myself is one of my biggest challenges. i trust my skills, but i so often do not trust my heart, which i know to be a lovely thing but which i so often fear revealing. returning home some of that lightness vanished and i drew a tarot card, the two of swords, a card about hiding, not revealing, not acknowledging situation. i must figure out how to bring lightness into my daily life.

groats

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breakfast this morning: oat groats (raw oats) slow cooked overnight with home-made almond milk. since my friend danny and i took a trip to tennessee and he imparted a tremendous amount of dietary wisdom to me i've been more conscious of what i eat, focusing on whole foods, locally grown, unrefined or processed. i find i eat less, eat more slowly. always pretending to be a scientist, i tried a vanilla oreo the other day as a control. it tasted great for about ten seconds then a horrible aftertaste developed and stuck in my mouth for about an hour. it's no wonder that one oreo begets another: the aftertaste is so bad that you crave another to get the high of the first ten seconds.

heading to faerie camp destiny today for a campover. back tomorrow night.

gordonesque

gordonesque

the burlesque show at the main street museum began what may become yet another annual parade of freaks in our freaky little town. the acts included live waxing, psychological strip-tease, body painting, dickram yoga, a hot spoken work piece, and brief class in vaginal spirography, all performed by friends and friends of friends. pictured here is gordon, a burlesque in his own right 24/7, dancing in the streetfront window of the museum like one of those boys in amsterdam advertising booty. a skinny dip romp into the white river (in the middle of downtown) followed the event, breaking all the town's nudity ordinances.

teddy and humpty

teddy and humpty

these are the childhood companions of gabriel and me. i had humpty dumpty and gabriel had a teddy bear whose eyes are different buttons. humpty was repaired many times too. in some ways, if i could keep nothing else in my life, i would keep humpty. he was my first pal. i can reimagine so much of my childhood being with him. whoever gets out of bed last gets to set them up. lately gabriel has set them with their heads butted. i wish i knew how to place them so that everything would work out, as if they held the magic to make our world harmonious. that's all i want.

community burlesque

burlesque1

well, since our strip club burned down last winter, the community of white river junction has stepped up to the plate with a home-made burlesque show this evening at the main street musuem. it's invitation only, so don't consider this post an invitation, just a reflection on how sleazy can be made wholesome! i was supposed to be in the show playing a student in an s&m yoga class but i didn't feel like making light of yoga this week. i didn't feel like making light of anything. i've been in a funk. but, now that the event is just hours away, i'm feeling fine and look forward to some community sleaze.

card: Princess of Cups/Listen.

gordito & juanito

gordon

gordon and jon came over for dinner tonight. being in los angeles and then back in vermont building butterflies and because it seems impossible to have gordon and gabriel in the same place at the same time, it's nice to have the opportunity to see him. he made the observation that almost all my friends either pay me money or i pay them money. it's making me ponder how i got into this situation. what would it be like to have friends with whom i have no financial arrangement? would i have any friends? he remarked that i have almost no space that's completely my own. this will change with the yoga studio. but it made me consider what it would be like to live in my own space, entirely my own.

jon is an amazing friend who inspires me. we're planning a documentary about his interesting life as a composer. we spent the afternoon going over his life, accomplishments, friends, family and lovers. i hope we can find funding.
Card: 11. Balance/Justice...This card seems very true for the day.

First Flight

Butterflies

we flew the butterflies at a wedding in south woodstock last weekend. they were a hit and looked fantastic set against the vistas from atop the hills of the estate where the wedding took place. the velvet and vinyl costumes in the 90 degree weather baked the puppeteers. they won't be performed in this kind of sunny weather where they're going in florida for nighttime performances.

LAX

LAX

i snapped this while waiting in line at LAX a week and a half ago. i first saw it in the seventies, and it seemed so cool then. now it seems quaint and is completely surrounded by bigger and more exotic looking buildings, though i don't think any of them compare in elegance. it says so much with so little.

i haven't heard from marco since leaving LA, but maybe he'll read this and send me a note!

roger called this evening while i was teaching yoga. he left a message saying he'll be moving to vermont on friday. it's going to be really nice to have him close again. i've missed him.

radiant

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this is the floor of my new yoga studio. i'm installing a radiant floor to keep my feet warm in the winter months. i have lousy circulation in my feet, either because i'm tall or because i froze them several times growing up in colorado and hunting at five in the morning in below zero weather. essentially, each space between joists (i had to level the floor--it was six inches out of level!) becomes a small heated chamber and the heat conducts up through the floor. the red tubing carries heated water from my building's boiler. the aluminum helps radiate the heat upward to the floor and seals out drafts. next step is to lay down plywood.

construction hunk

hunk-7_t

today a god showed up across the street from my office working on a construction project.i hope the the project takes a long time. If you're feeling voyeuristic, there's more of him here.

sleepless

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it's been a long week getting the butterflies ready to go out the door. i've spent the last few days over a soldering iron making delicate little connectors.

my friends roger and danny are in san francisco today for the screening of "Life in a Box," a documentary about the band Y'All. Roger was the cinematographer and plays a big role. i haven't seen it yet but i hope i will soon.

card: ace of cups

butterflies v2.0

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here we are once again building a set of butterflies. this time they're going to florida. gabriel (l) and ben (r) are working on a wing. this time around the bodies are neoprene and the wings are painted canvas. we're using lytec electroluminescent wire to illuminate them at night. i'm in charge of the electronics. our deadline is tomorrow and it looks like we'll make it. i like working on these kinds of projects, focusing intensely. dissipation in awful.

painting the love seat

painting the couch

back in vermont

david inherited this love seat from his evil grandparents. they had it apholstered in a tasteful plaid that we laid waste to with kitchen grease, cat hair and other unidentifiable stains. so, gabriel got out the gesso and painted it white. it's a little stiff now but looks so much more better. javier said, "i never noticed it before, now it's beautiful!"

Card: 12. Hanged Man

happy birthday louis

it's louis's 22nd birthday today. he's in new york city. love to louis.

vedanta temple

vedanta temple

this is the temple where marlene, my sister in law, and myself went this morning for a talk on how the divine is in everything and how to see that. i love temples and feeling the spirit of openness within them. this temple also gave me some ideas for building at the faerie camp i'm helping to design.

tub

tub

just before heading out to a hindu temple for a sunday morning talk i cleansed myself. if you look closely you'll see i got sunburned yesterday. i'm such a solar lightweight.

exotic plant #2

exotic plant #2

this is a passion fruit blossom growing on an enormous plant that's flourishing on my brother's garage.

exotic plant #1

exotic plant #1

these kind of beautiful things are all over the place here in santa barbara.

family photo

family photo

we attended a family party celebration of my sister in law's mother's 90th birthday. i broke all my "vows" and ate meat, drank booze, mixed all kinds of foods that i don't normally, ate cheesecake and even drank a diet soda. i felt bloated by the end, but my sore throat went away. perhaps all the chems in the food knocked it out. pictured is my mother snapping a picture of four generations of the family.

niece dela

dela

she reminds me of martha stewart both in her looks and her shrewdness. she's sweet and delightful most of the time and loves to do things again and again but if things don't go her way she employs a mind numbing shriek that would put to shame any smoke detector.

nephew dario

dario

he's a gemini, like me, seems to be interested in how things work, like me. it's interesting seeing how my parents behave with my niece and nephew. sometimes i can see how my own behavior might have been formed in the presence of their energies, some positive, some negative.

skate

skate park, santa barbara

marlene, my brother frank's wife, and dario and dela, their two kids, and i walked a couple miles down to the beach where we stopped at the santa barbara skate park. it was teeming with mostly adolescent boys, a few older guys (who were the most skilled) and one girl. it's a beauitful skate park just from an aesthetic point of view, with sensual carved forms of smoothly finished concrete edged with steel. most of the skateboarders adopt a cool and concentrated disposition not unlike the deeply religious.

frank

frank

my brother is pictured here, clearly in command of his faculties after open heart surgery. i was surprised by how good he looked. without prior knowledge, it would be difficult to tell he's been out from under the knife only a few days. he's got a wicked scar above his sternum, but in all other respects, he seems himself. it seems that encounters with mortality seem to bring clarity and what's come of my brother's is the will to become a pro golfer. i'm all for it.

downed tree

downed tree

marco and i took a hike this morning in the hills above los angeles. this beautiful tree fell and workers trimmed it's limbs so that it supports itself in this sideways fashion, rather tender, i thought. los angeles is unusually lush this spring because of abundant rain.

marco

marco

my flight arrived in los angeles about 10pm, i rented a car, drove to marco's house where i spent the night. i met marco ten years ago, lost track of him, then found him again last year. i'm so glad we've reconnected.

jet plane

jet plane

i'm on my way to california, here downing a cup-o-tea and a mediterranean wrap (not pictured) just before take off. they don't serve food on flights. you have to fend for yourself. fine with me. i never liked plane food.

california

i'm heading to california today to visit my brother who is doing well after open heart surgery. i'll be back in vermont on june 21.

roger

roger

roger stopped by to pick up danny's sneakers which have been riding in my car ever since danny and i travelled to tennessee together. roger and i, with knavin, roger's three legged dog, walked the tracks and caught up with each other. sharing with roger gives me goosebumps. we're not lovers anymore, but it is with a lover's sensibility and sensitivity that i share with roger. it sometimes takes me a while to open up, especially on brief visits. i love revealing my soft self but i carry a lot of armor.

danny and roger are moving up to montpelier in july, staying at nina's new house. i'm really looking forward to spending more time with both of them.

Card: Aeon/Emergence

Jinx

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It wouldn't be a hot summer night without the cat splaying itself as wide as possible. Some say you can use cats as thermometers. In this case I think the cat is also clearly a hygrometer.

Card: Prince of Swords

Sleepy Sunday

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One of the great features of the Main Street Musuem is its porch. Here the denizens of the mighty up and coming White River Junction gather and make witticisms. Not only do White River folk gather, but here in this picture is the famous New York interior designer Thomas Jayne. The more locally famous Gabriel and Angela sit to Tom's left (picture right).

alien

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i'm feeling kind of like an alien today, a mixed bag of emotions and thoughts about commitment, freedom, honesty, loyalty and sex floating through my head and heart. on the surface everything seems so normal and yet inside there's a sound of friction and chaos loud enough to inflame my ears.

i pulled the fool card from my new tarot deck created by my friend jai. seems appropriate. either signals a new beginning or foolish whimsy depending on how it's drawn. i didn't notice!

Card: Fool

birthday rose

birthday rose

joanne gave me this rose for my birthday. impermanence is beautiful.

moi via g!

here i am facing off to gordon's brilliant eye. he's so good. i love these pix!

frank

frank

my brother frank just got out of open heart surgery to replace a failing valve that was replaced about 15 years ago. so this was his second time through this ordeal. he's in intensive care now, doing well at last report. i might fly to california to see him in the next couple weeks as he recovers.

birthday

birthday

back in white river junction just a few minutes and i found myself at an impromptu birthday party. yes, it's my birthday. this may sound completely saccharine, but saccharinity is my present to myself today: i am truly grateful to be alive and have the friends i have. i'm feeling the love. g! is taking notes as we dine at the tip top cafe in white river junction. kim bought me a deep fried twinkie desert and a gorgonzola spinach salad. yum.

croc drive

croc drive

i got these soft rubbery shoes called crocs. i love 'em! i wore them all over the hills in tennessee and they held up great. i'm modelling them here against a backdrop of the interstate, somewhere in virginia, i think. it reminds me of the mona lisa.

danny on the porch

danny on the porch

danny and i travelled down to tennessee only slightly knowing each other. after just a few days together sharing in the peacefulness of the sanctuary i feel a deep and warm connection with him and i look forward to more time with him. he's a thoughtful, gentle and beautiful person that i feel grateful to have met. he's also a really great yoga teacher!

dazle's window

dazle's window

i'm also down here to check out the architecture at this commune. i love the way simple structures in the woods look, feel and smell. the raw timbers, especially when new, give a resin odor that's wonderful and the careful joinery and attention to small details is heartwarming. in this picture, a new space created by dazle shows how light can be beautifully captured a deep window framed by rough timbers. the walls are adobe made from mud and straw from the land. the wood is from the land too.

raw dinner

raw dinner

orchid prepared us a beautiful and amazing raw food dinner. lots of chewing! i'm inspired to check out alternative ways of preparing food now. danny, with whom i've been travelling, is studying integrative nutrition and we listened to a number of talks on nutrition while driving. you are what you eat!

gated

there are lots of beautiful gates at short mountain sanctuary.

i'm down here in tennessee attending a yoga gathering at a radical faerie sanctuary. we're doing yoga twice a day, figure drawing in the late morning, snoozing and massaging in the afternoon, eating great food and chanting, sitting around a fire and sitting in the sauna at night. i'm loving this!