food for mark twain

Doctor to me:

"I've had to tell people they're going to die and see them realize that they've just been existing, and I've had the privilege to watch people die - and it's nice to meet people like you - who are already really living their lives with intensity and meaning."

and, later that night

Random guy, Dan, to me, while waiting for the tube:

tentatively, "Are you famous?"

Ha.

That should last me at least a month.

sunday ballerina


"A pain stabbed my heart as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world."
- Jack Kerouac


The painting of the "winged figure" and girl is an unfinished work by Brian Kershisnik - I took this picture of it at his studio back in January (don't worry, he said I could).

dada dharma bums

ahhh... memories.

The Scene: late spring 2007; kasey, corina and me ensnared in the "party of our lives."

the whole lot of the pics from this crazy night went poof when my computer died that december. i'd completely forgotten that i'd uploaded this one on a random website till i gleefully came across it again the other day.

it was nice to discover a remnant. and mischievously remember...

my heart pounded for a full three hours


"Sometimes it is necessary to make a confrontation – and I like that." - Louise Bourgeois


Photo: Rodney Smith


oh... if you only *knew* what I did yesterday.....

A Quest

"Mexican food is like, the freaking Holy Grail for you guys" an annoyed Brit recently sniffed at a group of Americans discussing, for the umpteenth time, where you can get decent Mexican food in London.

I had to laugh at the accurateness of her caricaturization. It's true. The topic of Mexican food - fresh, tex, and authentic - and how there isn't any in London is discussed ad nauseam by US expats in the UK. Blame it on our former proximity to Mexico. Apparently native New Zealanders have a comparable complaint about the lack of good Thai in the UK - but while the passive Kiwis rarely pipe up about their unquenchable yen for their preferred ethnic cuisine - Americans go on and on and on - and rather loudly.

As a person who consumes chips and salsa rather than saltines when my stomach is unsettled, I'm one of them. Where are the black beans? The decent tortilla chips? The taco shells? The rainbow of salsas? *Sometimes* a grocery store will stock a rather pathetic range of Old El Paso products - but it's the type of thing you have to grab and horde when you see it. Yes, there is a definitely a problem with securing Mexican foodstuff in the UK.

I recently ventured to Tesco in search of the one brand of picante sauce that they occasionally carry and discovered that, not only was it NOT on the shelf (running out of products is just standard in UK grocery stores... onions, milk, broccoli, M&M's, water - all that and more has been unavailable at one time or another) BUT the price had also been hiked to exorbitant ridiculousness. Seeing this, I said, "Enough is enough!"

I went straight home and looked up recipes for picante sauce. What you see is my first attempt. Decent - not fantastic. I think I need to try a recipe with more vinegar. But I'll continue tweaking and will let you know when I've come up with something that I deem "publishable." Given that I go through about a jar of salsa a week, it shouldn't take too terribly long before I've conjured up something that could be in league with the elusive holy chalice.

Salud!

a signpost for unwitting rainbow men

"They always like me right before they go gay." - Kasey

drifting and sinking

You know when the water is coming in faster than you can either paddle or bucket it out? When you're so consumed with the notion of outright survival that when you pause and take a breath you think "Wait?! Am i even headed in the right direction?" swiftly followed by "Don't think - just go - it's the only way you're going to make it out alive."

yeah. that's me. right now. this week. this month. this moment. and, i kindly ask the rain gods, please not this entire year.

excavating old landlords and coordinating documentaries and holding down five jobs and spreadsheets and squatters and business strategies and fuel caps and leaps and legal battles and giving to the WSPA and writing and attempts at writing and holding up my end of family and friendships and merrily, impassionedly, frenziedly, we go down the stream...


The emblematic photo of my distress (only the indifferent male subject looks much more tranquil than I) by Eugenio Recuenco.

i have this thing for leos


"How many people can you love before it's too much? she said & I said I didn't think there was any real limit as long as you didn't care if they loved you back." - brian andreas

beautiful illustrations by angela barrett (from beauty and the beast - no less)

summer lovin'... had me a bla-ahst

In the window of Books Etc. there's a display of paperback novels with black covers and a Gothic countenance written by the likes Stephanie Meyer and copycats - the sign above them reads: "Paranormal Romance."

This is now a genre?