flee, chase

the documentary, Unknown White Male, is about a man who woke up one morning with total amnesia.  apparently, when this happens to someone they enter a fugue state - the period of time when they have no memories, no identity, and no cognitive awareness of it.  they are wiped clean.  they've never fallen in love, been hurt, felt snow or danced.  they have no sense of humor, no identifying personality at all.  people in this state are prone to wandering and if they go far enough for long enough, they end up creating a new life, completely unaware of their previous existence.

i've been waking up from dreams lately feeling fugal.  the kind of dreams where you experience insane depths of emotion and wake up unable to identify your life.  i manage to go about my day, but i feel like an understudy marking the part, waiting to return to my real life.

the images here and in the last few posts seem to reflect this trend.  the feeling of being stuck and unstuck all at once.

strictly commercial

dam fam, portlandia

i go to portland every may for my darling nephew's birthday.  he holds my hand, he laughs at my dumb jokes, he screams when i chase him, he's amazed by nearly everything the world presents him with, and i love him like a madwoman.

while i'm there, i also get to see my rockhouse brother (fig.2b), my psycho mother (fig.1a), my surro-sister/besty, her banjobilly husband, and their glorious baby boy (fig.3b).      

(i love putting pix in 'tychs like this, but blogger miniaturizes the bastards.  please click to enlarge and improve.)

fig.1

fig.2

fig.3

Y E S

POSITIVE AFFIRMATION.  POSITIVE AFFIRMATION.  POSITIVE AFFIRMATION.  ETC.

somewhere, somebody's new year to do list

my brother, my best friend, their boys

this is alden and jonathan.  i got to spend some brief yet quality time with them in portland, oregon.  

i'm not sure how i managed to get so many pictures of alden without his new tron lightcycles.  he got two for christmas and you'd think that would be one too many, but you'd be seriously wrong.  

this is colleen and elliot, two beautiful portland babes.    

the szabo party

spent a glorious thanksgiving afternoon and evening in pasadena with some truly delightful people.  

and dogs.

thomas and shawnté

at the criminally beautiful, surprisingly historical cascades park in monterey park.

shawnté in a fast german car.

frailty, by any other name, etc.

She is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
~Wm. Shakespeare

lies

the nature of technology

the surprise of los angeles is the wide variety of trees.  when i arrived here, i smelled eucalyptus for the first time.  i picked the brittle, green/blue leaves and put them in jars.  i was confused by the bark, shedding from the tree like snake skin.  i'd never seen a tree that molted.  why the hell does it do that, anyway?  there are pine trees and palm trees and citrus trees.  i do wish for more broadleaf trees, but i'll take what i can get in this arid, impossibly unforgiving climate.

the surprise of los angeles is that, though it qualifies as a "megacity" -  the 14th largest urban area on the planet - it offers an embarrassingly minuscule metro system.  moscow is the 17th largest urban area and has an expansive, beautifully designed public transportation system.  go on, see below.

trees, trains, what's my point?  maybe i don't have one.  in fact, let's rely on that.  what i DO know is that i spend a fair amount of time fantasizing about trees and wishing i were in one and not in my car.  

below are my au naturel dreams.  in order: moscow in the clouds, melbourne in the woods, and tokyo with flowers.