heppy birthday

so it's your 21 birthday -finally!
and I wish you just the best of luck and love. the thing is, as soon as you realise it, you will see that you deserve all of it. why wait any longer for the world to begin? you can have it, your cake and eat it too! (lay lady lay still just makes me so heppy. I could listen to it days and days in a row and never get tired of it!)

most of all, however, I wish you plenty plenty of children to be around you and in your life, always and forever because you are the best with them!!!

and I wish for you to look at the sky every day and every night and praise the beauty of God in everything and sing a little song in your heart for every day is a good day to live and a good day to die. And continue blessing the world with your charme and your smiles and your love and your strength and keep asking for wisdom.....for when we ask it will be given to us. :) Just knock at the door, and there is nothing that is impossible, really...
And...children are everywhere!

You will be all right.


And I Love You!

why OH why

are babies and children so DAMN CUTE????!!!!!
Ah!!!!!!!
Today I felt like a mom. I felt the adorable weight of a baby on my hips as she was snugging her cute little face into the corner between my head and shoulders... Her tiny little hands held mine with a surprising strength and her eyes looked like two black seas. Her sister, four years old, has curly hair and reminded me of course of Dany, well, oh well, and she was the CUTEST GIRL ever! How she squinted her eyes when she was laughing, and how quickly she forgot aobut her crying when she fell and I told her a German saying that blows the pain - wush! - away!
The two little twin boys I am nannying are as well just overwhelmingly awesome. Sometimes, however, I have the feeling as if they were blaming me for taking their mom away from them. Well. It's not easy when the mom is actually still in the house. But both parents work from home so that makes it a little difficult.

Oh man, as I was standing outside the house, with the baby on my arm and watching for the kids playing in the street I overwhelmingly felt how everything that is motherly and female inside of me just streamed together in one sweet spot and rekindled the wish to have my own kids soon. It just would be great. I would be a great mom and it would be all I would want to do.
HAHA~!
But I am NOT KIDDING!
But for now I will just take care of other people's kids. lol
I am still waiting... for YOU!

why OH why

are babies and children so DAMN CUTE????!!!!!
Ah!!!!!!!
Today I felt like a mom. I felt the adorable weight of a baby on my hips as she was snugging her cute little face into the corner between my head and shoulders... Her tiny little hands held mine with a surprising strength and her eyes looked like two black seas. Her sister, four years old, has curly hair and reminded me of course of Dany, well, oh well, and she was the CUTEST GIRL ever! How she squinted her eyes when she was laughing, and how quickly she forgot aobut her crying when she fell and I told her a German saying that blows the pain - wush! - away!
The two little twin boys I am nannying are as well just overwhelmingly awesome. Sometimes, however, I have the feeling as if they were blaming me for taking their mom away from them. Well. It's not easy when the mom is actually still in the house. But both parents work from home so that makes it a little difficult.

Oh man, as I was standing outside the house, with the baby on my arm and watching for the kids playing in the street I overwhelmingly felt how everything that is motherly and female inside of me just streamed together in one sweet spot and rekindled the wish to have my own kids soon. It just would be great. I would be a great mom and it would be all I would want to do.
HAHA~!
But I am NOT KIDDING!
But for now I will just take care of other people's kids. lol
I am still waiting... for YOU!

remember

when you told me to download the Eagles' 'peaceful easy feeling' since it made you think of me and made you feel good?
this song makes me feel good, and i guess it's more the sound than the lyrics that makes me so heppy, but after looking the lyrics up i found them to be really - err, nice :)


my second day as a nanny passed and you will soon get the update about THAT! I have to really COME TO TERMS with that whole thing, so I wait until my first day frustration has settled. the second day was already better and i didn't choke or throw up or start screaming when the lady told me in all earnesty that the two carpets in the 'living room' (looks more like a *uhm* museum room, but OH WELL!) are worth like 'literally two cars!'

WOW.

okay but the boys are sweeties. and waldorf kids, i.e. they are very easy to play with. no jumping around from one thing to the next every minute. they actually can sit down and DO and PLAY something for a loooong time.

:)

santa barbara, oh santa barbara

I came to St Barbara to 'clear' my mind. You know. Give this little voice within a chance to talk to me.
Or so I thought. As always in life, it all turned out differently...
I spent the last couple of days with my beloved oldest aunt from Alaska. Amazing wonder woman. Sometimes I think my Mom is here, makes me miss her more and love her more and for some reason I start to get to know my MOM in a new way, because I get to know her sister!
It is fun-tastic. She is my birdy-aunt. I can relate! And we are spinning a lot of stories, it is incredibly inspiring and it does change a lot inside myself. Well, oh well, maybe it wasn't my little voice that I needed to hear but hers!!!!
So I am in Santa Barbara, in the triangle that is called 'the paradise'. This is how you get up here, when you take the pacific coast highway:

Isn't it just in-cre-di-ble!

So although I really talk a LOT just about everything with my gorgeous awesome aunt, I also WALK a lot at the beach and enjoy the sun and the full moon reflecting in the eternally crashing waves... they crash the same way, you know, as they did back when Homer wrote or told the Odysee!

So yesterday was full moon and my aunt and my cousins' daugther and I ran to the beach to be silly and fullmoony. Sang songs and danced in the sand... and there was a dad with his two kids who was fishing, and he just caught a fish when we arrived and we asked him whether he eats them or puts them back into the water and he said, oh well, we put them back, we don't know how good they taste! My Alaskan aunt just stared at me, (she is 64 but totally doesn't seem like that! or if so, just in the perfect positive sense) and suddenly she mumbled 'straaange!' and started giggeling and we had to run away because it was so hilarious and funny.

And when I came back from an extremely long walk today, during which I realized that my oldest sister is incredibly admirable and amazing in what she is doing and accomplishing with my niece's career I saw a seal on a rock!!! I haven't seen seals around here yet! Oh! so pretty!!!!!!! And I met Alissa and Kimberly, two adorable girls, half Italian, half American and Alissa helped me paint my aquarell painting and Kimberly was amazing in doing acrobatics with me~! I just LOVE kids. And I am just so helplessly un-business-savy, it's sad, almost. I could have probably pitched myself as a great nanny, and give them my number, i mean, who knows, they are probably filthy rich St. Barbarians! But i didn't because somehow I don't like doing it. WHATEVER! It was so much FUN!

and on the way back I saw all those birds... and I was just...

HEPPY

that's the kind..

..of art projects that i get excited about...

I could probably come up with an explanation why but I guess I won't now. It's three AM and I just had a gorgeous three hour conversation with my oldest aunt from Alaska. It was so exciting and interesting to hear about her life and her perspective on things. I can't explain how thrilled I really am. She is my 'birdy' aunt and we definitely share the love for those sweet beings on our precious blue planet:
she has actually an exciting bird project going on in Alaska right now, documenting and recording and filming the Alaskan singbirds...

and man, it took me 23 years to be able to talk to her for real, since we never really had a chance, plus, I was always just a kid in the flood of cousins that gather yearly in Alaska (well I did only once in five years or so but I mingled anyhow with the rest of the crowd)
I love my family, that's all i can say at this point. It is exciting to be part of a large family and man, it is funny to listen to all those stories - it is funnier than many a sitcom I've seen. She is probably right when she says that a docu of their family meetings in which they try to manage the heritage, the land and the childhood issues would make look the Osbournes normal.
And I understand and see my Mom suddenly from a whole new angle. Oh Mom I love you so much...!!!
so much for late night rambling!
Good Night everybody

the small and the powerful

I was never afraid to suffer. Neither did I deny when I suffered. In a way I think I've always been a very altruistic kind of person. As soon as I woke up from my beautiful childhood dreams I started to suffer: the extinction of animals, the plight of the whales, the pollution of the planet, the poor and the weak. It's hard for me to walk past a homeless person or a beggar, it is wonderful for me when i can at least give a comforting smile or word, in case they happen to look into my eyes when i walk by. It is interesting how often they do not because they are not used to being looked at like human beings. I just say hello or Good Morning to the residentials in Hollywood and it took one guy approximately three weeks to realize that I actually mean him when I say Good Morning.

I found this little story, accompanying a picture of a north hollywood homeless guy on flickr: (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.flickr.com/55/124554077_f1b3b19fc4_m.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/zollo/with/124554079/&h=213&w=240&sz=33&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=cvfmAadKiY25MM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=110&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhomeless%2Bin%2Bhollywood%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG) i know i know that sucks, but hey this link thing doesn't show on safari! hey, blogger! can you change that for me????

Anyways, here the story and the pic:

Homeless
in North Hollywood, he's
from Massachusetts, and said, "What was it that Three Dog Night said? Get rid of all the cars and all the wars?"

I gave him a cup of the sangria I was drinking, and he sat down at a nearby table to enjoy the free concert. My son and I were listening to the music, too, and he came over and showed us a little scar on his hand, and said, "Know what that is? A squirrel bite."

A few moments later, an elderly woman sitting near him came up to complain to me for giving him sangria,
saying that he smelled bad and now would stay. I didn't know what to say to her, and my little son was angry at her for saying that, knowing she has a shower in her home that Erik doesn't have. Then the woman complained to the owner of the cafe, who insisted that Erik leave, which really upset my son, who started to cry, and told me to please call the cops,
and have the cafe man fired for not being nice. I told him the cops wouldn't do that, but he didn't understand, and was upset most of the night. When we got home, he asked to see Erik's picture, and we both agreed that he has a nice face.



You know...these are the kind of stories that totally show a child's mind, well, at least how my mind worked too. And still does.
Mother Theresa is a woman who inspires me beyond words.
she is the one who pinpoints it so well: "You can’t do great things in this life…
You can do only little things with GREAT LOVE."

Great expectations often just hinder our doing. Everything has to be ready, this and that has to happen first and lalalalala. no! Even if we DO pursue 'greater goals' we still can and should do the little things with GREAT LOVE every day.


I think a lot about how much I love you and how I love and about love and how everything is alright.

I think about what I do and what I want to do and about how beautiful this world still is.
And I think about the small and the powerful. It's so funny how I met this girl in the greyhound bus to St. Barbara. When I travel I am always extremely alert and energetic, just thrilled to be on the road again. I feel most comfortable and ironically 'at home' when I am on the road. So you meet the right people to the right time and we were exactly the right people for each other. She studies international relations and political sciences and works in Mali for an NGO as a Grant Writer. It was extremely interesting to hear about her work and studies, since it is exactly what I want to do (spare the political sciences!). We both agreed on the predicament that although the powerful do have powers to change things in a bigger way it becomes less and less attractive and meaningful or senseful to go down this way since the real deal maybe, after all, really lies in the small. Just as Mother Theresa says, wherever God has put you, there is your vocation. I totally think she is right except for God has put me into a situation that is so blessed that I can choose where to go from there. I know that at home there is stuff to do too, but maybe I will go somewhere else. Who knows, but I guess what it boils down to is, that you just have to do what you do, but this with love. And if you become a figure like Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela then only because you did what you had to do. Not because you wanted to be powerful in the first place. But because you loved.

Good night everybody!

life and love

You told me once, i remember even where you stood saying this, that sometimes in life you have to choose between love and life. I was going to chose love I guess but somehow I wounded up with life here....
And it too, is beautiful, my love:

Thinking about this, however, I found this only to be half true, because for some reason life and love has never really been two different things for me. Life has always been intrinsically connected to love and vice versa. I remember walking down the street to Buehlers in my little black forest hometown, I was maybe 12 or so and I suddenly had this overwhelming feeling that my love for this earth and for this life expanded so much that I felt the whole earth ball under my feet and I lay down in the grass, with my face down to the ground and hugged aned embraced the whole planet with my whole heart. And I always loved the whole world and in the same time little details like little flowers at the curb or the beautiful details of a saddle...

I think I know though what you meant. Love between a man and a woman is special, it is not this unconditional general kind of love. It is more specific and being with a person demands at times sacrifices in your lifestyle or even in the direction you thought your life would take, professionally or socially.
The best example for this is the princess who falls in love with the poor man and decides to live a life in poverty but in love with him.
I totally would do that.
But then too, I think and feel that God wouldn't give us a mission in life and a man/woman that doesn't match it. Before we really know our mission in life, however, we have to grow up.
So since I am thrown back to life, back to what I am good at, loving the earth and life and these human beings unconditionally and generally, I take it that I need to grow up and live on.

So do you. And I wish you good luck and love with that. I wish that you, too, can love and live. Nothing's been lost. Literally nothing. Some possibilities maybe, maybe a child, but in the same time there are so many new possibilities and so many new children that are waiting... We are not the one's to judge, we are the one's to live and love the best we can and to become free in our spirit from the tyranny of body and mind... :)) Oh, and horsebackriding, did I say that already, is a really good way of training this discipline...



'On the road again, at the break of time, our precious little things, companions on our way, crossing borders we are free, to travel as we please, create a sense of time, whereever we may go, for we are travelling people, forever on the move, lalalalalala, lalalalala. I am telling you, freedom is a pleasure song, I am telling you, freedom is a pleasure song. ...'

This song I heard so many mornings when we went on trips with our class and my teacher would wake us up with the accordeon..... So many things I wish you had heard and seen and lived, too... with me :) But it is all good because...you know love isn't restricted to space nor time...this is for you too:


and this:

yes I wished you could have been there, but somehow you maybe are....anyways!

At the horse farm...

why

since the cafe across the street burnt down i am more and more to be found at the cafe solar. it has free internet access and i can do my online-german lessons there without any problems. kinda nice atmosphere except for all those busy laptop/powerbook people get on my nevers *laugh* since I am one of them I can say that we all suck. WHATEVER. I actually get more annoyed nowadays by people like me who always think they have to be annoyed by someone. chit-chatting on how much other people suck. It's like, doh, what ever mofo, just mind your own business. There is this guy for example, who has a crush on a very good friend of mine and he is totally judgemental on the guys she likes. Whereas this is totally understandable I still hate how he arrogantly notes, that this guy is changing his style to fit into which ever scene he tries to fit in. It's like whatever, let people go through their phases. Who cares that you guys are the same age and that you went through that years ago. Who cares? Does she like you? No! So, either she is not on your level yet and what would you want with her then...huh?
oh i am rambling. sorry.

so I had a really good time with my gorgelicious Amanda... I don't have pics of me and Klodi yet, but as soon as I have them I'll post them....until then, here some pics of our horsebackriding and beach adventures!~

oh there was a rainbow adventure too. we had to kiss this guy, since he was going to marry the next day.... and Jacob was really pissed that they let Amanda in although she isn't 21 either but, hey, she has tits!~!! lol. the world is injust and tittie-cramtion is not fair either but a reality... especially in Hollywood.

oh and we went to this exhibition at this galery where Amanda will exhibit her paintings *argh i m so jealous!* and met this guy who took all those iconic rock photographies...

and then i took my niece and my nephew and amanda and my niece's friend horsebackriding since my German student invited me to pay for me instead of paying for a lesson.... life is good like that!!! I love LOVE love horse back riding! It is such a good excercise of will, discipline, since the horses really react and feel immediately what you think, feel etc. and I love to be in Nature but everybody should know that by now~!!!

getting it slowly. getting LA

Although I still have to see much more of the United States in order to dare to actually say anything close to valid about it I get this feeling of slowly 'getting' LA. Meaning, I start to get the idea, I start to get why people would choose to live here over San Franciscowith such a nice and just so much more accessible escape like
LA is maybe in a way the most distorted and yet most pinpointing caricature of Western Society as projected in the world wide propagation and spreading of popular culture, entertainment 'post modern culture' , attitude and media.
It is the farthest off the modern European take on society and yet its youngest offspring and in turn, ironically enough, its most prominent, positively or negatively, influence.
LA is a gold mine, a modern version of the greedy, crazy, maniac Gold diggers of the old days, ruthlessly digging holes into holy mountains and the like, yes yes, everybody lives here with a dream, almost doggedly and grimly defending the idea of the American Dream at its outermost frontier. (well, lets not count the space for once, the NASA and their waste of money infuriates me and the justification of many NASA directed operations escapes my comprehension).
LA is where you get the crazy jobs, where people are crazy, where people are daring, living at the verge of schizophrenia, often represented in a crazy lifestyle, anything you can think of you will find here in its extremes.
My sister's lifestyle being the best example for that, the rags to riches story right there, in the middle of the dirty carpet where she and I sat many a night, sewing salvation army dresses into Oscar night wear for the red carpet appearences of my niece, giving her all the credit for having designed and created the dresses...Sometimes we also would change a 700$ piece into her own creation but that would be the exception from the rule.
After a year living here I start getting the allure of the car culture, the insane love of the Angelenos for their cars, I start liking the residential bums in Hollywood (yes, I do realize when there is a new bum on the plane!), the residential crazy people (once I have my camera going I would love to post some pictures!) and the miriads of actors and musicians and wannabe artists who try to make a fortune off the walk of fame. I don't know yet where I will go in my life, who I will become, but it is damn sure, that this experience is, after all, extremely important for me and this foreboding sense that I had back in Europe, that this experience would help me to understand and discover my 'American' roots which I always felt to be there, seems to be right in the end...

The thing is, my family is actually quite an interesting clash of those two 'Western' worlds, not amiss the compelling influence of both, Native American (and hence anything 'native' or 'tribe' related) and Hippy legacy. My mother coming from the wilderness and pioneer life in Alaska, with idealistic parents that escaped the dooming Second World War from Switzerland, living their own dream, subsequently the American Dream, bringing the native influence into our family by raising us close to nature and relating native lifestyle to our upbringing. My father coming from a Nazi background, a cultural rich Germany, bringing the controversy and difficulty and the predicament of the second generation and the Hippy legacy to the table, raking and stoking our interest in education, counter culture and reason.
He embraced the American musical culture while my Mom completely missed out on all the popular movements (she missed the beatniks, the hippies and of course the punks), pursuing her dream of creating a perfect little kindergarten, which she did and I am very proud of her achievements, as I am of my father's. He brought European culture and the importance of having roots (having lost his own) to our minds. He travelled the world with us, both intellectually, culturally and physically.

So here I am now, in the middle of Hollywood in this wonderful second hand bookstore on Franklin and Bronson and start forageing for philosophy books, books on war and art and religion. Walking the streets with the sudden realisation that I have to look past the present time and popular culture to understand the sense of life that people have here, to understand this part of America, to understand this caricature more accurately and to see where I find myself in it and where I want to go with what I know.

I heard there is a recylcing movement in Hollywood. :))

new pictures at least :)

well limbo sucks like always. I am working on getting work, still, and life turns on and on... Surviving PMS, being with my sister and her lovely crazy family. We had a lot to laugh. When you just laugh about the bad you just have a good time, you know...Some things that happen are so doomingly funny, so predictable and so hilariously 'us', characteristic for our family, that it cracks me up. Here some experiments from me and my lovely fourteen year old nephew who is getting into puperty BIG time. means: a lot of fun!

update from the frontier

It feels good to get stuff going.
Received my first paycheck, glorious day. Good feeling. Established an actual account after one year hiding money under metaphorical mattresses...the crazy days of walking around with hundreds of dollars in my belly wallet are over.
Have another job interview tomorrow, and, finally, after driving in California for a year with a lost German drivers license I finally made my Californian Drivers license. Past the test without problems and am the proud owner of a proper ID. yeah.
other than that I am still busy transforming like you guys out there too, reading (philosophy, literature and international relations related stuff), playing music, getting my pois soon...
Hope to buy a new charger soon for my Camera and you will get to see more pics. my sister indicated that her newly established film production company might need a secretary but this time around I am more cautious with promising things I might not be able to keep.
Anyways, the most important life lesson this time again is to spare the words where and whenever i can and give the power back to the word: mean it, keep it, don't waste it.
in this spirit I wave good bye and come back with other thoughts on other issues the next time around....

Oh, and soon you can see pics of my first off-school performance!

IT WAS AMAZING and a lot of fun. I felt the music flowing through all of us and we received many compliments that felt right and deserved. It was my graduation and it made me feel like I didn't waste time nor money here after all. Not really :)

so it will be one year

that I've been here.
one year.
creee-zy.

and Klodi will be coming back, tonight. And Amanda, to assure that everything is different.
I met Klodi at school, two weeks from now. The first day at school she came to the alley with Franco and I was about to leave but stayed with them because they seemed lively and interesting. Italy and Albania. And that very night she and I went over to Franco's where all the Italians met and drank espresso and stuff. My first night in Hollywood. There was a concert at MI and I slept at the Italian's house. Klodi and I became friends right there and then and we started a little family. We never hung out that much after all, due to me living in Santa Monica and still trying to juggle between trying to homeschool and be in school myself.
And then, one month after approximately, I met Dany. There were a lot of guys that were interested in me and I was open and curious. My 'wife' as I jokingly started calling Klodi knows it all. And she adopted Dany as her 'brother' (which now will be a problem for me but oh well) and always told me not to hurt him because he was sth special. Indeed he was.
I catch myself sometimes thinking about situations and how I should have mastered them differently. Less expecting, more acting. Well, oh well. It' s all over now baby blue.
Now I go and make myself a bank account and do my laundry and clean the house. You gotta grow up at some point.
Let's play later

me

I'm still the same crazy goofy me. The 'Gege' y'all know.

But listening to Alicia Key's "karma" just beamed me right back to Berliner days. and nights for that matter. subways. trams. busses, bikes, me running. in the same old worn out shoes. matter of factly i put black dock tabe around my left shoe. my left leg is a little longer so my left shoe gets worn out more quickly, yeah.
one of my teachers thought it's because of me tapping my foot so well when playing, lol, haha, I bet I do. *loses rhythm and tries to jump back on track*
well, i got distracted, lets get back to ME ME ME ME ME ME.
lol
oh whatever. I just wanted to say, that I FEEL FREAKING DIFFERENT. I bet you all do. This is a different Geraldine. This is not the same one you knew. Berlin saw a different me. It was intense too. I remember now. And exciting. And heart breaking. And...you know? It was another life. I am here now and I have all those songs to remind me of all those 'me's' I have once known.

I wonder whether you'd think I changed. Because they know me here as extremely goofy and gone berserk. You know, nuts. I have the feeling this never changed, throughout my short life's history. Isn't that how it always was? And yet, I feel so DIFFERENT.

It's not the same me anymore.

Life Changing, indeed. Reeve Carney and the Revolving Band

I don't know yet HOW but it WAS DEFINITELY a life changing evening.
OH MY GOD. Thank you for blessing these musicians. These people. It is mind blowing. It reconciliates me with being here. I was sitting there, jaw dropped and heart wide opened, thinking: Jesus, I am PART of this. I am here, and they are alive. It's not like I have to think, too bad I wasn't born in the 60's.
People who know me know that I don't get start struck easily (unless I accidentally flirt wiht MOS DEF and find out about it later, lol). I am love struck now. I am amazed. I can't describe it. I feel like X-mas. Every inch of these musicians was LOVE for, to, through the music. It was amazing. Almost every song somehow honoring and praising God. The whole attitude totally humble and serving this bigger thing, you know? Not pretentious at all. Just joyfully praising. Contemplating. Celebrating. Anyone, please check http://www.myspace.com/reevecarney out.
This is the first time in my life that I actually think that I am lucky to be in LA and in this time.
His brother is an amaaaaazing guitar player, his sister is the sweetest back up singer, and he made her sing a couple of jazz songs which she beautifully presented... Reeve's voice kind of reminds of Jeff Buckley sometimes and he plays blues liek... I don't know. He actually understands it.
This is a living band. Reeve Carney and the Revolving Band.
My German Student Theresa took me there and she is friends with them *lucky me!* and got me in for free and man... I don't know. what to say else. Just go and listen. Seriously. Keep your eyes open for them. They are in my humble opinion the future of Rock. The hope. That our generation is not completely brainlessly and heartlessly lost.

stupid people make me angry

In closing, Cheney said of the war in Iraq: "If we had to do [it] over again, we would do exactly the same thing." He also defended the success of the "war on terror," saying: "There has not been another attack on the US. That is not an accident."

It is not an accident, maybe. This whole war on terror and 9/11 story is so overwhelmingly exhausting that it makes me wanna scream and run away. How in the world could this happen? How can be such shrewd, cunning and insidious people be in charge? Oh, well, BECAUSE they are shrewd. While others genuinly work their asses off in their offices, trying to do something real good, saving people's lives etc.
The disproportion between their positions and their responsibilities and their decisions makes me throw up. Stupid people make me angry.

I will sit down and drink a cup of tea and think about it all in silence and then I will return to this post and try to write something that might make more sense than this emotional outburst of anger. I just read this article on the Senate paper on investigations in the links between Iraq and the al Qaida BEFORE the war (because now, there certainly is a connection) and this above quote is taken from there.
Cheney, you sure would do the exactly same thing all over again. I hope, however, that you will sit next time at the other side of the line.

They are everywhere...

I grow to belief, that in any city, in any part of this world, there is always at least one person that carries the light. I am positive, that we all have a spark of light in us, but there are everywhere, where I have been so far someone, who doesn't only have this spark, but actually managed to take care of it so it could grown and shine for us in the dark, so to say.
I don't even know his name, it could be anything, I forgot it again and again but his eyes are clear like a child's eyes and his words are living, they are messengers of hope, of love, of life, of God. Whenever I talk to him I walk away inspired. Everytime. His way of looking into things, of trying to acquire knowledge, than try to understand and then ask for wisdom, as it says in the proverbs, is full of love and care and it reminds me of my parents, my wonderful parents.
He is the living example of practice what you preach and of course i don't know him enough to not be able to say that, because I might discover discrepancies and what not, because he is not an angel. But is that important? No. What counts is, that he inspires me. He makes me awake. And curious. I want to read the bible, because of him. Because the way he talks about it is alive, it makes sense in a non-intellectual AND an intellectual way. He is like my dad. He is inspiring, quite simply.
All this denominational stuff, all those born again Christians, those that hand out flyers, etc, as good as their intentions are, I can't buy into them. It creeps me out, to be quite honest. When somebody pushes you towards something he will push you away. That happened a little bit to me with you, too, but it's not like you tried to push me, it's just that it pushed you away that I wasn't on the same page but I don't even think thats true. It's something too personal. Inspiring conversations refuel my spirit, my love, my faith. Tiring, restricting conversations don't do it for me.
As he explained to me it does make sense that there are evangelists, who go from town to town and preach in a way that addresses the sinners. Telling us how we are sinners and lalallalala. It's not for everyone, but some people are so deep down in the shit, that only something like this will awaken the spirit to come forth. That makes sense to me. See, I am not there. I don't need that. I need the inspiring part of it.
Anyways, it s all so uncomplete, what I write here. It can't capture what I just experienced.
And Ms. Davis sat there, with her beautiful smile. She doesn't exert the spirit of accusation or blame or anything at all, although she can't move her arms at all, sits in a wheelchair all day long and lives on the street. She just smiles. Wonderful. I gave her a head scrub and tomorrow I will take her to the hair salon. She needs it more than I do. And see, when my spirit is uplifted like that, it makes me wanna overflow like that. When I am down, I still try to smile, but I would maybe have rushed by and just give her a couple of dollars. But when you are inspired and iinflamed like I was tonight, it makes you wanna give. A lot. If you know what I mean...

thank you for this wise person. Everywhere. Walking the streets, unspectacular but wide awake for children like me who come with an inquisitive and seeking mind.

Thank you God for this wonderful encounter. those clear eyes. This inspiration. And I have a way to go.

Hollywood Hollywood

"Do you like living in Hollywood?" she asked with a sceptical expression in her face. We were skating into the sky, down in Venice and the moon was high, the ocean, we approached it on winged feet, and the waves crushed silver into the soft sand.
"Not really..."
"I couldn't do that. The air... I mean, it's so much fresher out here, isn't it"
I smiled. What are you trying to say? That I am stupid?
Looking out of my window I smile again. Actually I have grown to like it. The weird job opportunities you have here. Like teaching a young actress of a TV series to fake guitar and get a bunch of money out of it. For sitting around doing nothing. Or the smoggy-beautyful sunsets from Runyon canyon. Or the weirdos. Funny how you can like the most improbable things in life. Like dirty side streets that remind me of dirty Russia. Matter of factly, the proclaimed center of the entertainment industry reminds me more of second-world Russia than anything else. Is this, where the 'it'-ideas, the interface of modernity is supposed to have it's birthplace?
Please! This is the perfect mirror of our uprooted society and nothing else.
Welcome in Hollywood. You are in the United States of America. No, not Russia.
this is Hollywood!

morning excercise

It is early morning and I wake up by myself. This is the advantage of going to be early, I love to wake up without an alarm clock. So I do my morningly yoga sungreeting, stretch, get back into my body and turn on my computer, check my mails, wander into the bathroom, throw water in my face and brush my teeth. I am listening to 'Man in the long black coat' by Bob Dylan, and some of his new songs. ORange juice mixed with water gives me morning freshness and I sit down and wonder what this day will be about. A phone call to Germany, just because I can and my bigger sister is on the phone. I feel like x-mas for some reason and sit down on the bed, with the blanket around me like a tunika and say hey sun i love you.
There is a squirrel outside and I feel excited. What this day will bring? Lets see. ... I have to practice a bunch of stuff for my final exam on the guitar, I have to create a profile for me as a super nanny, I have to create a bank account, I have to get my Ah, by the way, the new plan is to get a second job as a nanny in the hills somewhere. One of my German students told me that you get minimum 1000 friggin $ a week as a nanny. And hey, am I like the super nanny or what? Just imagine, if that would work out I would have to work less than six months to pay half of my student loan back!!!!! (plus my Mom's loan)

Check this out:

I speak five (5) languages
I have babysitted ever since I was 12
I was a tutor in a circus for acrobatics, tight rope walking, juggling, moncycling
I was a leader of a greenpeace youth group and of a scout like youth group for years and years
I organized trips around europe with this youth group and was responsible for a bunch of teenagers during those trips
I was a homeschool teacher (nobody has to know that I sucked) and a tutor since 2003
I am a language and guitar teacher and I could teach flute and help kids with piano
I teach a famous actress 'guitar' and could bring kids on set once in a while (I bet kids around here think that's the real deal hahaha)
I didn't grow up here and have travelled a lot but I do have the American citizenship...

all I need is a drivers license....

So wish me good luck to get the right job at the right time!!!! :))

ACS stands for American Cetacean Society

Well, I think it will be lovely news to those who know me that I got the job as Administrative Assistant in the National Headquarters of the oldest cetacean conversation group in the world. :) It's relatively bad money and I could get probably a better paid job as a legal secretary or superstar, but it fits my shoe perfectly well and I am going to take the offer. I'll work on the legal secretary thing too because it will be just a side job kind of thing and very flexible which is perfect for me. That means that I am now a triple language teacher, secretary and musician in the same time. I will try and hook up with this guy who is teaching under previleged kids music for free. I could offer guitar and flute lessons....

It's funny because when I was a kid and a somebody would ask me what I would want to become later I would stubbornly stick to my dream profession to be a capitan on a Greenpeace sailing ship to save the whales and the world. Although my relationship to Greenpeace has grown old by now I think it's quite cool that I can contribute to the sysiphus efforts of trying to raise the public awareness of how important it is to protect whales and their environment, and to bring scientists, the public and public policies together.

And funnily enough the office is in San Pedro, past Long Beach. This means I ll HAVE to move around! An hour long metro ride plus a quite healthy bike ride awaits me...

I can't wait...

spiderweb

each of you guys out there will one day encounter PMS.
PMS, let truth be told, is a son of a bitch. Some are outreageously dangerous, when pmsing, like revengeful goddesses on a path of destruction, WITH a mission, I might add.
No matter in which variation you will encounter PMS, it is hilarious, in the end of the day.
It is a sobbing and a giggeling mess and it shifts perception like the best drugs only can. Life might suddenly make no sense whatsoever and at all and things that you usually can tolerate are intolerable, and spiderwebs everywhere.

That's just my two cents, sitting here with a towel around my head, coming from the shower where I just sobbed like there is no tomorrow and competed with the shower who can cry more waterdrops. I won and then, after the obligatory cold shower I predictably started laughing at myself like I am crazy. I am a mad woman.

- Lunatics!
unite...

San Francisco and the like

Well so I feel very much like an actor who is on stage but hasn't learned his role yet. I am hyperactively jumping around or pretending to be asleepe whilst all the time trying to attentively listen to the prompter (souffleur) in the hidden parts of the stage.
What is my next line? What is my next action? Raise a fist? Caress your soul? Give a massage? Read a book? Listen to a song? Answer a phone? Not answer a phone? Procrastinate something? Cross a street? Talk to somebody who turns out to hold the next line for me, the next cue as to what to do?
The internet doesn't work properly and i get schooled in being patient.
Bob Dylan helps me along the way with a wink in his eye and I throw heaps of emotions on the floor and try to laugh at them. The best I can do.
While I am trying to feel as an actor at least and not as a mere marionette I ponder on explanations for the why's and how's of the things I do and not do.
For some weird reason evverything always has to make friggin sense to me. So I try and find out about it, I mean, whatever, a woman gotta do what a woman gotta do.
That is why I think about San Francisco and how I tasted a different life up there. It was bitter sweet and full of dreams and ideals and possibilities.
But then I decided not to go there after all. Cut it all off. I mean, if God's index finger is going to point directly to San Francisco and a thunder-like voice will growl and howl in my ear that I have to be there, voila, I will go there. I am not going to argue with the Chief in Commander. Seriously.
What did my little smart head figure out about the meaning behind things here? Behind the decision not to go to SF and surround myself with people and an environment that is actually more on my wave length than anything I've seen so far from California (which is, admittedly very little)
Well, check that out: I will stay here in the city of Lost Angels because I figured that I might as well take things more seriously and lear how to swim. To do what I really want to do no matter where is the art that I want to learn. And the best way to learn that is to stay here because this environment and these people just don't really appeal to me.
A supporting environment is good and fine and everything but actually, I have had that for all my life. After having complained so much about it I am going to tackle it now and take LA as it is and make the best out of it, on PURPOSE.

So keep updated as to how this fight will go. I will try hard.

cellphones and freedom and the like

Yes I have had a cellphone ever since I got convinced by my former Boss at the four star hotel Europe in Basel, Switzerland to get one despite my inherent and vehement repulsion against such device.
You get one because you think you need one and then it needs you to need you. It becomes part of your dress code. Believe me, I've had my cellphone in the shaft of my right boot (as sported in LA) and recently in my tigh bikini-balcony-bra-like thing I wore and yes, it fitted neatly inbetween my breasts and it buzzed quit pleasantly whenever somebody tried to get a hold of me.
Funnily enough, recent developments in my behavior, however, have led to me not answering the phone all the time anymore. I've had it, to put it simple. If I don't feel like picking up when Brian calls, I won't pick up because I am in a conversation. No more 'Sorry, I have to take this!' kind of bullshit.
As if secretely manipulated from a parallel universe my phone charger started detoriating together with my cellphone attitude. First there was a crack and then it was lose and now it is broke. Great. No more charging, ha, and my phone died.
So what do you do in LA without a cellphone?
Well, let me tell you first of all: it rules all those people out who don't REALLY want to get a hold of you. Because there is always e-mail and I have to admit that having 24/7 internet access is almost as bad as having a cellphone. But I digress. Let's get back to this phenomenom: freedom.
Yesterday night I drove down Hollywood Blvd on my skateboard and caught myself touching my pockets as if my phone was in there and I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss the buzzing in case someone called. Ah! It's dead! DEAD!
And believe it or not, a feeling of relief rushed to my head. I felt so free, it was ridiculous.
I think the best solution will be to have a home phone with an answering machine. And going back to the healthy division between spontaneity and planning and keeping words and promises.

A little trust in people who will help out if you really need it.
A little more concentration on what really matters.
And a lot more freedom from needy people.

Amen

Mos Def - amateur star struck

Ralphs at Sunset and Fuller has been known as the "rocker's-ralphs" back in the days and even today you can spot here and there a celebrity go about their shopping - because, -surprise!- they, too, are just human beings who need to go shopping, and no, not all celebrities live like kings and queens back in the days with servants and slaves and what not but they actually DO stuff by themselves.
So does MOS DEF and as the wretched pop-culture illiterate that I've proven to be I of course did not know how he looks like. I guess I've seen pictures of him but totally forgot about it because I am bad with names, period.
As a portrait painter I memorize faces very well though which leads, however, to embarassing situations such as me telling random people on the street 'oh my god, where do I know you from? I forgot your name!' just because I watched them on the bus or so and I guess more often than I'd like to know it really comes across as a really stupid hook-up line. (matter of fact Mr. Asshole was one of those people. He thought I was playing but I was serious, and it all led to this mess which is another story though)
Well, good that I didnt' say anything to HIM for that matter because yes, he looked familiar but lets say, he just looks like someone I really could like, ya know? Like a person you see at Ralphs in the Cashier's line and you think 'holy moly, this guy really looks NICE, like a person I would like to know' *smirk* you get my drift. So I kept my mouth shut as far as stupid hook-up lines are concerned.
However, I have to admit, that I was in a really giggely mood. I just had been on Runyon Canyon with wondermazing Amanda and felt really refreshed and refueled with good energy and we were going to buy yummy food you know?

So we stand in line and I start talking shit like usual and this in a not so quiet voice 'oh no! Kate gets a divorce! man, you know Chris really looks better with a beard. Dont ya think? And anyways, I was really wondering why Jen and Vince don't get engaged yet. Really. dont you think so Amanda...'blablablablubb, my voice throbbing with sarcasm and scorn.
Amanda just stood there laughing at me while I was pretentiously making fun of the tabloids and how people are actually interested in that kind of shit (she and I know that we, too, read those tabloids in our darkest hours tee-hee! so nothing for bad fellas!) and MOS DEF was just standing right in front of me and I kinda flirted with him, smiling at him and he looked at me and smirked (HE SMIRKED!) and read sth in a little book or so. So as we are waiting I start talking even more shit like 'Oh who's that woman that was spotted at Ralphs with Amanda Zelina? is it her new guru and lalalallala'
Suddenly Amanda whispers in my ear 'he is a very famous actor'
I am like 'oh really' and start laughing. So much for celebrities. I am such an illiterate.
She thinks a little and says, 'wait, yes, he is...ahm, Mos Def'
I AM LIKE WHAT?????
I know Mos Def the musician first ya know! but i didn't know how he looks like! And I thought I'd never be star-struck but man, I didn't know it was him and I liked him just like that, you know, his persona. He is not a pretty pretty boy, ya know, he has a big nose, but he looks awesome in a different way. Like someone interesting.
When we got outside Ralphs he drove by in a pretty cool car and smiled at us. man I guess he thought I knew who he was but I so didn't. And I so did embarrass myself but unfortunately he ll probably never know that... lol
it was fun to float on a wave of star struckness for a couple of moments ;)

Ralphs, in Hollywood

morning prayer

he said you could help a lot of hopeless people and I fell down on my knees and cried. you look at me with resignation and say fare thee well my love. where is the hope that I could have shown? shhhh, murmurs a voice, close to my heart, hush hush, lullaby. sinking into the chaotic mess of my mind I try to dig and dig and dig and find this space that is supposed to be empty and peacefully quiet but I can't find it, i can't get through!
Finally I go sleeping and my mind is upset about the disturbance, unusual one, it just won't calm down.
I can't sleep I complain and her voice is soothing and clear 'should I take a taxi and come over?' no, no sweetie, it is all good. Good night.
And then I disappear. In the morning my smile is overboardingly refreshing. I smile at myself and say hello my love and I love myself for real in that moment. in a good way. and then his voice, good morning, i love you, whispered, as if still in a dream.
I embrace the moment and let go: good morning prayer.

it's time to...

gather the remains of this feast, of this fight, of this battleground of love and life.
I try to pack my stuff and look around: what is it, that I forgot?
Let's count the luggage and the pieces of shattered mirrors:

- A wonderful meaningful summer in Slovenia, 1997, Castle Borl
- A diploma as a manager's secretary and the feeling of utter incompetency with regards to that, lack of experience
- A wonderfully intense year at the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin, Pankow
- Painting sessions with Bernadette, she studies medicine and islamic sciences
- Kim Koester and Kaspar and Friederike and Theresa and Bernadette in Berlin
- Dany and grounding in the middle of nowhere: finding back to myself, losing myself, finding back again
- Klodi and her wisdom
- Amanda and her wisdom
- One year of Musicians Institute

One year of nothing in front of me. I feel like a stranded captain in the middle of a vast ocean. I lost my compass and my watch too. But the stars are still there.

It's time to gather everything together and leave this battleground for a while. Find something I truly love to do.
And yes, I realized and learned that it is not necessarily for everybody just about what to DO but sometimes it is very much the environment and the people you are surrounded with that will fuel your creativity and what you do.
And to go to these places or deliberately not to go there is up to us.

I don't want to drift I need to find this place now. Where is it? I don't know.
Can you please, just, show me - one sign?
I will try and keep my eyes and my ears and my mind and my heart open.

How money is spent in Hollyweird

As I stated before, in Hollywood you FAKE it when you can't make it.
Never has it occured to me, that helping people to FAKE it therefore is a great market niche for unscruplous people like yours truly naive black forest native.
Just for the heck of it I posted several different job offers on the infamous craigslist (a really great invention!) and went over my days as usual. Until this guy mails me and asks me to teach Julia Roberts' niece how to fake playing guitar.
Now this girl happens to be the Emma Roberts of the Nickelodeon series 'Unfabulous' (hever heard of it but oh well, i am a nasty pop culture illiterate) and has apparently put an entire ALBUM out already, which serves as teh soundtrack for the series.
Wait a minute, did I just say, she has an album out? yes i did. ok. I just wanted to make sure. she is fifteen or so. and she has no idea of singing or playing guitar really. it's amazing. really.
and - it is amazing how they spent 225$ on me for sitting around doing NOTHING. we sat in with her for like maybe 15 minutes all in all, going with her through three songs and then I had to be on set to stand there and motivate/encourage her.

People go like shush! hush! don't say anything wrong! lalallala, she is so great! Emma Roberrts!
And behind the doors 'oh well, just try to motivate her a little, she has a terrible voice and no sense of rhythm but yeah, lalala' and I am like 'wow, so I can't show her how to do it better?' 'no, that's what you are here for!' but then this songwriter Jill takes me to the side and says, she really can't take in so much at one day, just make her look as if...

you get the drift!

when we left i looked at Jill in a very baffled way and she laughed and said, i know, it's an unthankful job. and ridiculous.

I just shook my head. Four hours of doing nothing, free food and 225 $ as a reward for that. Not bad. This city is crazy. The industry is crazy. Those people are crazy.

lets milk crazy cows

blues and important continental shifitings

it is early, kinda, and i am all busy keeping my eyes open. but the blues is good. Albert King thanks for playing so beautifully!!!! Brian calls and says he's gonna get me early out of school, we were planning to go to Laguna Beach today with Amanda and i thought it was a good idea yesterday evening but now it seems less brilliant and all i want to do is play guitar all day long. Oh well, but there is definitely something to getting out of hollywood when you get the chance man. I haven't been out of here for so long. oh well.
Yesterday night Amanda called and said she'd go for a walk after having cried for one and a half hours on the phone with her parents and I asked, well do you want to go on top of the mountain, because that's what I'd do but she wanted to go drink a coffee or wine somewhere so I took my skateboard, met her half ways and went with her to the French Room to honor my wife and my lover.
So the news are: she is leaving. She will leave Hollywood and for some reason this decision shifted something inside of me and made it so much easier for me to say: okay, I am leaving too.
The thing is, I hate decisions but I have to come terms with that. I have to come to terms with my personality. If I am a fish who goes for what comes along the way, trusting that this is how it is meant to be, it is okay. So I won't bother anymore about a crazy ass cool job in a top notch international corporation law firm but try and get the job offer in San Francisco or see if there is something in New York for me so as to be closer to my sister Alexa.
Stormy monday. They call it Stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad.
Staying here has been very difficult for me in terms of trying and making sense of it. I wanted to stay here for him but things worked out differently so Plan A doesn't work. My wife is coming back but I can't swim in the same river twice. I can't stay here and pretend everything is the same and cool. LA has been friendly to me and now it is time to move on.
But there is so much to do still. oh my god! Hey world, I am coming!

little girl, listen to me

The most important thing, that I've learned here is probably that - surprise! surprise! - everything happens for a reason. I mean, you can lament only so much about how much of a loser you are. How you wanted to do this and that when you grow up. There is no point in whining because a rose is a rose and a tree is a tree, a brook is a brook and an ocean is an ocean and the atlantic ocean is not the pacific ocean.
Of course I admire and envy those people who already know what their path really is. I mean, those who have a path that is very obviously specific. People who are involved in great social projects, who follow their urge to help and this and that. Who make a change by being a change etc. I am not even sure whether I do that. You know? I am confused. Now, my big sister could easily say that that's exactly the point and I need to do something about that. But - well, oh well. I am on my way. Ha. It is ironic how much I've learned through this mess. It's been an extremely beautiful and introspective time and the downside of it was that I seemingly wasted a lot of money on a music school although I won't become a porfessional musician (at least that's my guess) and other than that have pretty much BEEN a loser in terms of being of help to my niece and my sister. 'My own personal little development country' as different sisters would put it similarily to each other. My oldest sister said 'well, by helping us you help the world too because of the charity work we'll do and the greater impact we'll have with a bigger voice'. I don't doubt her aspirations and admire her greatly for the work she's done. My other sister was more concerned with my niece's personal growth and health, just as I was and said, it doesn't matter whether you help one person or many, it's as important.
Little did I expect that me too, haha, needed to help me first. I need to grow up. Great. I've said that many times before. It's like losing weight, it doesn't happen in one day. If i could I would undo the damage I might have cause, I am so sorry and embarrassed for that.
Little did I know that more than my niece I would wound up trying to help my love. Which, in the end, makes more sense too because an aunt is an aunt and a lover is a lover. You know what I mean???? that was something that was bigger than we were. I hope I can catch up with my niece. Some day.
Now is the time of gathering. Pieces, lost, little girl, do you remember? Pieces, shattered in front of me, sun reflecting golden in the sherds. Reticent I am. Talking too much. Hush, lullaby. Please be careful.

Tori Amos is the biggest inspiration in terms of people in my life right now. And Amanda. And my brave little niece and her brothers. And my biggest sister in her struggle and her husband in his.

Little, girl, listen to me. This has come to you because you need to learn how to be a captn and a warrior. You need to accept that your work won't be of a specific trade but it will concern bringing different threads together, on the same table. That's it. Be careful in how you are. Your' rough edges don't need to resurface just because he's gone. Be soft and strong. As you go.

what i love

I love Tori Amos. And I love Sinead O'Connor and Tracy Chapman and Skunk Anansie and Lauryn Hill... I don't care whether or not they are lame or not. Whether there ultimate motivations are whack. Or stupid. Or whatever. People always seem to know why other people do things. They don't. They don't know. They might judge, yes, they can, and if it is up to me they can do that until they are old and all they will be able to do is to stare out a window, probably widowers, and watch and judge all day long anything that happens to happen on the street out there.
When I am old I want to laugh with children.
You can do whatever you want.
Just, don't kill cockroaches. Or flys. Or spiders.
Please.
These days especially I love Tori Amos. "Jupiter" and "sweet the sting" are in my head, I am reading about her right now ('Piece by Piece'), she is so fascinating and truly inspiring. Funnily enough she has a background that I can completely relate to, as far as I can see at least. Her native american side and her christian side. This is pretty much what I grew up with. In a probably very romantisized way and it is was her task and it will be mine to come to terms with that and find what is beneath all those layers.
"Josephine" has been haunting me since I was 17. The warm summer rain on my face when I was in his arms for the first time. The airplane to Alaska, how I looked down and thought about love. About him and failure and my heavy throbbing heart.
Juli's fucked up car. Josephine. 'Not tonight Josephine' was all I knew about the lyrics back then and that was all I wanted to know then. It was always NOT TONIGHT for me and him. Pedro. And then I grew up a little more but never enough and I arrived in Hollyweird, I see in retrospect that I have been really not much of a help to my oldest siter, I see how ridiculously not grown up I am yet. And Josephine came back to me.
As a song and as a theme and now I know what it really is about. It is about the NOT of a wonderful being coming into life.

When somebody does something that they have to do, that is their vocation and even if they are not immensely known or popular for it - if you stumble upon them and see what they are doing, persistently, consequently, you find true inspiration there.
So I will leave and I won't go down this way. I won't be another Tori Amos but I certainly will become myself.

black and white and pink roses

It's about time to light up. The morning is sweet and the sun greeting better than coffee. I get up and stretch, hop into my jeans that I stole from my 16 year old niece -yeah! - put my notebook (the diary) and Tori Amos' book into my bag and jump on my newly-bought skateboard on my way to Miss Wonderful-light-up-my-day Amanda.
You know, it's funny how life sends you the right people on your way at the right time. I don't know what I would do without her. Seriously. She encourages and supports my take on this love, my struggle to fight the heart break and turn it, instead into an expanding heart. You know... From far away another red-haired lady helps me on my way, I am guided and nurtured and supported by those beautiful women, it is incredible. Thank You. You, up there, in there, around here. Thank you.
So I wave my hello to my friends far away and try not to kill too many people on my way down Hollywood Blvd. It is early in the day so there are not too many tourists. My still not very skilled moves on the skateboard are potentially pretty dangerous.
But fun.
At Ralphs I stop and by the pink rose. It winks at me like a witty lover and I know I have to get it to Amanda. Actually I was going for sunflowers but it's so seductive I can't say no. O-juice, one croissant, just to uphold the tradition of breakfasts and some rasberries, a plum. Ready to go. She still sleeps but her sunshine smile already flirst with the day as soon as she opens the door in her PJ's. A little later we go get coffee at terrible starbucks with the starbucks gift card that those German backpacker girls gave me as a thank you gift. As we walk by a nail/hair studio we stop, spontaneously. Pedicure for her, please, and finally, my legs should get waxed. A little pain here and there :) but smoothness just feels oh so good and the treat too.
'Lame' Jack johnson plays. I feel reminded of days that belonged only to me and me only. Yes. I move on.

Full Moon

I didn't expect it, but it was a strangely comforting and warm and delicious and wonderful and candle-light awesome feeling to read obi's comment to my puppet show post. That someone watched the full moon and then went and read my post and actually enjoyed it, feels probably like this tickely feeling when your men loved the food you've been preparing for him during the whole day or something like that. I don't write to please other's really. I try to please myself and of course that's the most difficult thing to do and actually I am rarely satisfied. But other then that pleasing thing there is the 'i need to get this off my chest NOW' factor that helps me to deal with my personal issues before I plunge back into this crazy world.
I don't know. I guess I am just happy right now and I'll write later more for the satisfaction factor ;)

peace and onle luv always

Jay

The Puppet Show

We met him on the strip on Franklin, where my wife used to go. Byrds, next to the old bookstore. The moon rose behind a thick palm tree and the clouds kissed the night sky. Chinese lounge music from the 40's. A woman's voice, trembling and heartbreaking and he let the puppet dance to it, in despair, pain, agony. With shaking hands the puppet reached out, he was shivering like in uncontrollable pain - then collapsed like a house of cards, beating his hands against his head, crouching on the floor like a desperate person reaching out for help, for a little water in the desert of our desolate souls, for bread in our overfed homes. In a dramatic final fit he threw himself against the light, it was as if I heard him crying, sobbing from that place deeply hidden in our chests and then one last look and one last fist against the imaginary sky and he sank on his back, he fell, in a final resolution, giving in to the forces that tore his life and his heart apart, facing the sky and the sky only.
Now when you looked at the puppet player while this drama happened on the little wooden table in the midst of Franklin Ave. inbetween a couple of busy bars/restaurants, with chic LA chicks and wannabe directors, you saw something even greater happening. You saw a man totally absorbed in what he was doing, compassionately guiding the marionettes moves with fingers and hands shaking ever so slightly, his eyes following the unfolding drama on the little time and space refuge he had created. The sign on the floor read: The Puppet Show - give me what you can, in coins, in bills, in old letters or even older knitters (what's that?), in dust of pockets or a stone from the street. Give me what I deserve.
Amanda and I stood in awe. He was so intriguingly involved in his creating a very profound emotional performance that he captured the innocent beauty of God's children in his hands. He looks so hot, we whispered and we meant it very profoundly not in an obscene way.
Then he changed the puppet. Now it was a big one, with a dark long coat. In her meager hands she held a cigarette and danced to the slow blues that was playing now. Every now and then she would take a drag, and then slowly blow the smoke into the sky. Inbetween drags she would cough and almost die it seemed, from the smoking and then, swinging back, look at the cigarette in her hand as if at a lover, a person you have known for so long and all you can do is look at her with forbearance and indulgence, loving, hating, an addiction that you learned to love like a husband you can't get rid off.
He would drag the smoke through a flexible tube and as he later told us, the old tube got really yellow and all in all this performance was a big turn off to smoke yet in the same time beautifully and precisely capturing the ironic beauty of smoking.
As the smoke was still curling up behind his shoulders we left. I think maybe we should invite him to sit with us I said and so we did. We went back, invited him and then sat down outside this very sweet restaurant. We had some wine and the moon looked gently down on all the people.


And the magic is still on the streets. And the beauty is still happening.

Le Gurp

I remember when I was young. We went to South France, to this camping site called 'Le Gurp' close to Bordeaux.
Now, Bordeaux Red has always been on my top five colors and I was maybe 12 and I loved it. It was in the days of my first uncertain steps alone into this big world. I just had passed a month alone in a French Family in rural Southern France close to Toulouse where I had met Amanda. Amanda was this girl who knew German, but i lived with a family that didn't know any other language but French. I didn't even know how to ask 'why' in French and I tell ya, being a 12 year old girl in a big French Family is nothing but one huge big fat adventure.
They would talk until late (that was 9 or 10 PM lol) during dinner. The conversation flooded over my head like a tsunami, I think I couldn't really communicate until the last day but when I returned one year later I understood all of the sudden and miraculously a lot of French. It's great being a kid and learning languages like that. I think mostly we communicated body style. I remember how I learned the word 'gros' (which means fat or big) when we had a tickle fight. hahaha. Oh my. it was meant to describe my little chubby self but to be honest, I wasn't chubby at all. I have just always been big.
Anyways.
Le Gurp. We went there with Amanda's family and the second summer we went there with my two elder sisters who had been to Finland the summer before, all by themselves.
As we drove down the road to the camping site me and my brother and father were extremely excited. We leaned out the window and yelled 'Le Guuuurp! We're coming!!!!'
For some reason it was a great disappointment for me, when my sister Juli, to whom I always had looked up, found it to be 'not that overwhelmingly awesome after all'. It was as if she just had declared myself as a failure. Lol. Children.
We learned how to dance rock'n'roll there though and I studied every day Algebra with my dad. I wanted to THINK.
The black boison berries were delicious and many an hour past by with me and my mom picking berries. The stone pine trees smelled lovely and my dad got overwhelmed by diarrhea one day and had to take a shit right in front of our neighbouring camper. It was hilarious. We laughed for hours about the incident.
My brother Gawan, Amanda and I spent hours jumping down the dunes, I cut my toe and saw a boy flying his kite and I was nervous to talk to him. 12 years old.
I had a body that was fit and lean and I was all into sports and being tough. I have a picture of me with Amanda at the beach. The wind blows into our hair and we look like we are going to conquer the world.
Le Gurp and the time in North Spain in the Pyrenees (we left Le Gurp early to go there I think) is the smell of my life right now. I constantly have it in my heart for some reason. It is connected to my love and to how I am right now. To what I do. It is incredible. I don't know whether I have to go there - is it calling me? I don't know. It sure was a beautiful time. As it is now. In all its messy glory.
Let the ocean teach you...

gorgeous female friends

So I ask him:
Don't you like Amanda??????!!!!!
He said:
No, no, I do, like a friend I mean, but not like that you know...
I said:
WHY? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE????
He said:
Well, everybody has a taste...

Okay, now: you have to understand. Amanda is not just anybody. She is like one of the most gorgeous-t female friends I have! She is just a blast, as a person, as a woman... you know... good inner and outer looks to put it that way. Check her website out to know what I mean (click the title of this post). And it never crossed my mind that there could be someone who wouldn't fall head over heels for this gorgeous woman!

I said:
Oh my God! Give me five!!!! :)

Because: it might be me talking cliche again, but there is something significant to the fact that my Italian friend talks like that. I know, I know, everybody would talk here like that maybe, but the difference is: he is actually really good friends with her. And something that I've been missing here a LOT, is that it just seems less conventional and normal to have a good good friend from the other sex. The idea that this is possible without an underlying, maybe hidden sexual attraction doesn't seem to exist here in the plural.

I could have jumped in his arms in that moment. It makes me plainly happy to meet someone again, who has this spirit...And his friend from Spain with whom I had been talking about his girlfriend that is going to visit him next week ALL the way from Spain, feels the same way about that issue as we do.

I am just saying....