Way Down Under
Working in Antarctica, travel, and the rest of it.
Sunday, June 04, 2023
Back Home
Wednesday, November 02, 2022
Tiny House and Thirty
I just bought this tiny house - about 6 weeks ago. In that 6 weeks I have gone through a huge gamut of emotions and some serious buyer's remorse...over the past year I have curated this very interesting life: lots of rock and roll shows, lots of juicy contact with new friends that I see when I go out, good movies at the film society and epic, epic travel! I went on a 24 day cruise that circumnavigated Iceland and traipsed through Greenland, Newfoundland and Labrador also. It was just incredible - very fun all of the time. I got back from that trip end of August after a brutal Texas summer...I was so miserable and was so happy to be somewhere cool.
When I got back from that trip I had my September Taos painting workshop looming on the horizon but I didn't feel like going. I hadn't had that much fun in May, but I had had a deep process in the painting. I thought about it for a few days and then decided to save the money and not go...so I was looking at two weeks before my job started and I came out to look at the tiny homes here at the tiny house village that I had been looking at for several years. I looked at a few for re-sale, then I came and toured ALL of the brand new homes for sale on the Farm side and was seriously thinking about a couple of them. I went home and mulled over all the info...and just felt like I wasn't ready...none of them seemed perfect enough. But I had seen this one house that had a for sale by owner sign and no one was talking about it - so I was sitting around my apt trying to figure out what to do when I saw that I had taken a photo of the sign and called the number and a guy who the owner hired to help out (not a realtor) told the price and I gasped - it was 30-40K less that than the brand new ones, and had some add ons that are pricey and I really loved. When he sent me the photos I was like I Want to See it Right Away! Short story long: I saw the house on Saturday a half hour before the open house was to start, and on Monday I was at my bank wire transferring the $ to the owner's bank account. We both had a week off of were getting everything buttoned up FAST so it was mine...by the next day it was my house. She handed me the keys and a giant binder with all the manuals and I had met some neighbors...for a solid week before work I moved carload after carload of stuff over there...bought a bed and a little couch and made it live in ready. It was adorable, but something didn't feel right...
By the friday after I bought it I spent my first night there...I was uncomfortable and didn't sleep well, was cranky in the a.m because I had no coffee. I raced back to my apt and felt like I was coming back to my HOME...my sweet, giant quiet apt I had live-in for 6 years....the longest I had ever rented an apt. I had never had a lease for more than one year..then I owned a house for 9 years, a condo for 4, rented in Oregon for a couple of years, and bought the mountain cabin and lived in it for 3.5 years and sold it a few years later.
I came back Saturday to stay here and there was a loud party at the Mexican neighborhood attached to this one and I freaked out...I packed up my stuff and RACED back to my apt. For the next few weeks I would stay at the house for a few days, just JONESIN to go back to my apt. In my mind and heart that apt. was EVERYTHING to me...it was my new Antarctica! This special, deeply soulful home for me that I needed to get pack...I went on a whirlwind of activity based in fear: going back and forth with apt. management on leaving or staying (they management sucks bad so that is why I was going to leave anyway)...looking at apts. near my old apt. so I could have my super convenient place to live. I pined for that apt. and my big bed and private upstairs like a homesick child. I have never actually been very homesick...but I was homesick BAD for that apt. In the midst of working hard, looking at apts., having a realtor on standby to sell the house before I even moved in, I had lunch with a friend who said "you never have to spend another night there" and that made my body relax so much that I just stayed in my apt. a few days...what happened after I got that huge dose of permission is that I became curious about the house: I thought about it's brand new cuteness...the over the top beauty of the design, the sparkling new washer and dryer and icemaker, the no shared walls, my own little parking spot right outside my door...close to town, but also sort of in the country. I am sitting here now and I love it..but my heart and soul went though one of the saddest and toughest times ever with this change.
I was so afraid I was going to have to change my personality, give up my rock and roll lifestyle, sit out her and be fat and hang out with boring people...it felt so far away...but it isn't...I am right in town..just a few miles out east...
The second issue is the front door, back door! The front porch is gorgeous and all the neighbors walk around and visit each other and gossip and they are not my people...I had been making myself go out front and hang with them and bond with them and I felt like I was supposed to be doing that. But when I come in and just hang out in my bedroom like I did when I was in my apt. I do much better and feel more true to myself. I have done somethings to try and fit in and they have made me miserable. I have to really listen to my guy and stay inside if I don't feel like interacting with them. Not all the houses have a back entrance...mine is my saving grace - I even have a full, private back porch. I open the blinds in the morning and sit in bed, drink coffee and look out the window at people walking by...I am getting more used to it. I can stay in town after work and go to a show, movie or meeting.
The first thing that made me go in shock about this place was that a few days after I bought it a FIREPIT was installed directly in front of my house. Everyone but me loves this...all I can think of is noisy people - it looks like a KOA campground out there - fucking hell! It might be okay...it might get used in the winter and people might be quiet at it, but if they are loud, I am not going to like it.
When I decided to stay out here and no go back and forth to the apartment, things got better for me..I accepted that this is my home...this is where I live...when my job is over I will decide if I want to stay here or move back into town...or move OUT of town. I have fun trips planned next year! Taos in May, British isles in August, and I'll throw in a couple of New York and Alpine trips to boot. May fly to Pittsburgh to go check it out - but Austin has been really good to me these past 6 years...just lots of epic fun and lot of super busy going out and having a blast. I love my life.
And yesterday, I had 30 years continuous sobriety. Hell Yeah.
Saturday, November 27, 2021
Hard 29
Sunday, August 15, 2021
West Texas (I also went to Santa Fe)
art installation in the desert |
my beloved Antelope Lodge |
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rainbow |
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Marfa, TX |
the coolest store ever! Haven't been our here in around 15 years and it has been a terrific couple of days |
I went to Santa Fe first but that deserves it's own posting...or maybe not...I was with friends there so had a very different experience than when I'm on my own like I usually am when I'm out here. This is my first solo trip without Fergus...I spent more time out doing stuff than I would if he were in the car...but not that much more stuff...it would have been difficult as it's not cool enough to have the windows up and it rained so much I couldn't have left the car windows open.
What feels really different this time is that there is no urgency to moving out here...I know that when the times comes (if it does)...then I can relaxedly move out here and do my artwork and watch beautiful sunsets. But will I like that? What I've loved most on the trip is the driving...getting from point A to point B in a luxury car and really enjoying the drives...I like the intensity of these road trips...it really suits me. I notice that I like to be interacting with people a lot in shops and during transactions...I probably over-visited with 4 shopkeepers today, but I did buy something in every shop so I guess they were okay with it. There is just so much to talk about as I've been coming here so long and watch the changes.
And on this trip I've been dreaming a lot...sleeping deeply and dreaming a lot..a certain kind of dream that I haven't been having before...dreams with the same theme: of really wanting to connect deeply with someone in an intimate way...since things have opened up and we were maskless for a a few months my life was really ramping up in the going out and meeting men area. I was having a lot of really good intimate connections with people and feeling like something could happen. There was one particularly good night where the flirtations was strong and intense, but he said he wasn't "really single" so no numbers were exchanged but I ran into him a few other times at shows and meh. Then I met this tall tattooed German guy who was striking and intense, and we really bonded over some deep intimate talk of what it's like to be OLD and single. I dunno - I don't know what I want..or maybe I just haven't imagined it yet...maybe I just haven't opened myself up to the possibility that there is someone out there who wants me exactly like I am...someone easy and fun and laid back and loves to laugh. Someone Texan and goofy but hip and darling too...and most of all, someone who treats me like the one he's been waiting for all his life. The beloved. Now I read a lot of Rumi and Hafiz and do all the spiritual practices that tell me that the one I am waiting for and the beloved are MYSELF, and sometimes I really feel that. Sometimes when I'm "on the beam" I really feel at one with the universe. I feel on the beam on this road trip. I get to perform again this weekend. I get to do fun stuff and travel. I get to love the people I love. I get to drive to Alpine (via Lubbock, Santa Fe, Cloudcroft NM) and it's an easy trip...very very easy. And I relaxedly get to decide if I'd like to buy a home here. It could be really nice! But 3 hours to the airport! Oh well, that would be another road trip!
Tuesday, December 08, 2020
Sixty
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
5009 Miles
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Nineteen Eighty Four - Rego Park, Queens
It's fall of 1984 and I'm living in a basement apartment in Rego Park Queens. I found it by looking in a newspaper, finding an agent and giving my parameter of $500/month rent max. I still remember this unusual guy and he said "I have a PALACE for you..it's an enormous PALACE! He drove me to this kind of ugly 3 story newish building in the heart of Archie Bunker style Queens houses. He took me to the basement, and it was indeed, enormous - enormous and fully furnished with a vintage 50's stereo cabinet. There was a little window over the bed that let in light from the backyard and he sold me on the value per square foot. Also it was close enough to a subway stop to get me to my job at 61st/Madison so I signed a years lease. Without going in the stürm and drang of my first few months in the city, here's the cliff notes: I moved to NYC upon graduation from UT in late summer of 1983. I stayed on the Upper East Side with G for a few months and decided I needed to live on my own. I had mailed out tons of resumes to film companies and got a few letters back, and some calls (pre cell phone and internet days kiddies!). I ended up getting a job with a high end watch wholesaler who had been handed my resume because it said I spoke French, and the company was based in Paris. My boss was a chain smoking, smolderingly handsome Portuguese man named Carlos. This was my first non fast food, first big girl job, AND it was in NYC and I was excited/nervous. I wanted to be perfect and was terrified of authority and of making mistakes. A condition that would haunt my work life for many years.
For six months I went to work 9-5 every day in stomach clinching fear, mostly hungover, and not knowing how to do my job very well (and not knowing that I needed help or how to ask for it). I had only an electric typewriter, and my boss would yell at me constantly and was always on the phone schmoozing to people in French or Portuguese, wrapped in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He was trying to get his watches in all the high end retailers in the city and I was writing the letters to the head buyers. He said they looked like crap and made me redo them. I sensed that he liked me and was trying to have a jokey and fun time with me but I couldn't go there. I was a highly boundaried (not in a good way) employee who felt I was so below a boss, and deathly afraid of making mistakes. I can't even really remember why I was so scared but I think I had to do a lot of accounting stuff with an adding machine (10 key by touch!)...and I am not confident with my math abilities so when I didn't know what to do instead of asking a question I would just get scared and hide what I had done. Carlos would eventually find a mistake and blow up at a me. After he blew up he'd be over it and ready to joke and laugh...whereas I would be completely traumatized and would not be able to recover until I plunged into the Irish bar across the street from my office every evening. (The antics at this bar I could write a book about - I had to stop going because of how much trouble I got in).
It was unfortunate that it took a very long time (my last boss I was terrified of was from 2000-2003), but I no longer cower with bosses. I have several male bosses now and I get up in their faces and bare fangs if they overstep. I say NO a lot. And it works. They respect me. O the suffering I could have avoided if I'd learned this lesson as a wee one. Punch back at the bully. But to continue...
I hated going to the office and just got sicker and sicker fantasizing on how I could escape or quit. It never occurred to me that I could just quit - I was so obedient and conditioned to focus on a powerful and scary person's needs and to squash my own that that was how I was at work. Outside of work I had boyfriends, lovers, friends come stay with me from out of town, wild debauched early 80's new yorky stuff (white) all around me and had what I thought was fun at the time, but looking back I think I was pretty lost and just didn't know it because I was so busy feeling like a trapped animal by day and going wild at night. I recently told a friend who knew me at this time (he was in grad school at NYU) what I was doing on my weekends and his mouth was hanging open in shock. He got serious about his studies after we hung out my first few months and I was off onto the dark after hours underbelly at night.
I am finally getting to point of this long (yet endlessly interesting to me) and rambling post: one Sunday about six or seven months into this job I decided I was going to call in sick on Monday. I had never called in sick to work (and now, 36 years later, can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I have called in sick, and most of those times I was not actually "sick"). Something in me just said fuck it I need a break from this relentless cycle of hell of this confusing job world. I was nervous all day planning how I was going to do it and what I was going to say, and early Monday morning I left a message on the office answering machine that I was feeling ill and wouldn't be in. Then I unplugged my phone.
I had noticed one of those old art deco single screen movie theaters in my neighborhood and that was where I was going to spend my day. I decided I would go to the afternoon feature no matter what the film was. I was a terrible film snob at the time and did not see current Hollywood fare but told myself I was gonna go no matter what was showing. I walked to the theater and bought a ticket for "Footloose". I remember how cheesy and goofy the film was and how silly the music but I didn't care. I had decided I gave no fucks for Carlos and his stupid watches and this Monday was my own and he didn't own me. I wish I could remember more about the day but what I do remember is going back to my basement apt. and seeing the red light on my answering machine blinking a bunch. I had about 14-30 messages from Carlos. He had been compulsively calling me all day, utterly dependent on me and my cheap labor (I had looked at the file of applicants when I applied for the job and they had all asked for twice to three times as much money as I had). His calls were ridiculous and creepy...acting like he wanted me to call and talk about what I was doing (so weird to me), but he was scared I wasn't coming back. He needed me. And I had flipped him off by being not contactable.
I did not call back, and don't remember exactly what happened when I went back but shortly thereafter I got the euphoric news that the company was being sued and they were high tailing it to LA in 6 weeks. I had an out! Carlos begged me to move to LA and offered to buy me a car and partly subsidize an apt. I said no, but that I would go out to set up the office for two weeks. It was a hideous/hilarious two weeks of me staying with some friend of his (and her kids) in Beverly Hills, walking to work dressed in all black, having to hide in the home as there was some ex driving by threatening to shoot everyone in the house. I hated LA and knew that I would. My last day of working for Carlos ended with me treating my hostess to dinner, and while at this fancy restaurant she was telling me a story about a recent date she'd had (I had just drained a giant smoothie from a glass-this is important), she was describing his physical appearance saying he had a "lump" and I said where was the lump? And she said no, what is the word for it (English was not her first language) and she stood up and pantomimed a person with a bum leg. And I said do you mean a "limp?" And she said YES, A "LIMP!" We started laughing so hard that I started gagging...I still had smoothie in my throat when I started laughing and the gagging turned into I was going to throw up...she looked at me in alarm and held the empty smoothie glass under my mouth for me to hurl into. I filled up the glass to the brim. Goodbye LA! Never heard from Carlos again.
Yesterday when I was thinking about this memory before my writing class I started googling stuff in Rego Park, and I think I found the little theater I went to. Just like before I moved where I am right now, I have getting very very sentimental about a place I have lived before...looking at the house I lived in on google maps and seeing my subway stop. I don't know why this memory is so compelling to me but this is the 3rd time I have written it out in several weeks...it feels like time again to jettison the cobwebbed Austin life of the known and move across country again. And why not? I never lose anything when I do this -. I just seem to gain, and I must be wired so differently than most people as they say they cannot imagine "uprooting" and moving somewhere and leaving all their friends. This is my soul's magic place...gleefulling getting rid of my stuff, packing my car and moving across county. If I have ONE friend there I am good - I will start forming a tribe or life pretty quickly...the clan I left behind in Oregon are some of the dearest people to me on earth. Six years in Oregon - only fond memories (though my diaries from that time show a screeching internal hellscape).
As a solo movie goer for my entire adult life, and as a daughter of a mother weaned and raised by solo theater outings (she has told me she went to the movies every day after school) it was (and still is) a solo act that has seems to have a high feminist and self care component - it's an act of courage for people who say they could never go by themself, and in these times especially, a few hours that one is utterly unavailable.
Postscript:
Some other things that happened at that first NYC job: I was sent on missions to interesting places all over the city for various errands. I slinked around inside what felt like the walls of Grand Central Station to find this ancient darling man in an ancient dusty office repairing and tinkering with old timepieces. I was sent to Hell's Kitchen (early 80's, scary) with a suede briefcase filled with expensive watches handcuffed to my wrist up a rickety walk up next to an abandoned building to meet "some guy" who wanted to buy "some watches." I was sent to luxurious high rise offices with views of the city that made me swoon. Carlos' famous finance (main model on the Price is Right!) came to the office and Carlos called to tell me to hide his condoms and cigarettes in his desk. Janice glided in and threw her mink into my arms. These are the things that stick with me...it was all good - the horrible and the beautiful. I almost miss being that naive and young and being so besotted with a place that I would put up with anything to be there.