Mark, What Hath You Wraught?

What a weekend this has been. Friday night Sheldon started throwing up. First came all he had eaten then bile-by Saturday he hadn't eaten or drank anything for a whole day and what was coming up was like no cat yak I had ever seen and smelled terrible. by the evening he was listless, wobbly and cried if I picked him up. Sunday morning he got worse and I took him into AIMMS on 9th avenue for emergency vet service. 2.5 hours of waiting was hell-and while I was there another woman's cat literally died in the carrier in the waiting room. they ran every test, blood work, x-rays, ultrasounds, put him on an IV, gave him fluids, medication and held him overnight. He improved slightly from the fluid but after calls back and forth and another trip back to Arguello Pet Hospital, it was confirmed that indeed there was a blockage, fluid painfully built up in his system behind it and needed surgery to be removed.

Surgery was Monday but they couldn't fit him in at Arguello so he went back to AIMMS. After a year of steady improvement in the behavior dept now he is handed a life threatening blockage? If I could afford my own place this would have never happened-everyone knows what a neat freak I am. A big fuck you to the slob roommate for leaving bags of trash/recycling in his office overflowing with loose candy wrappers for MONTHS instead of simply taking them down to our recycling bins-which the cat of course eventually explored and, due most likely to Pica, he ate. $5,000+7 car trips across town and three sleepless days later my cat has a 4" suture on his shaved belly, a cone around his neck and a drug habit that would make Lohan blush-and can't jump, clean himself or eat without assistance because of the cone. I can't I remove the cone lest he rip his stitches out.

Disturbance At The Kitty House? And I thought I was going to finish that Dead Can Dance article this weekend? I'm wrecked and its only Tuesday! Oh honey the FUN we have together! its a laugh riot! really....I need a drink!

Tweed, Sending out good energy to you....

Well, Tweed is at the vet tonight. I think this is the first time He has been away all night without me so he probably scared. Fuck...I'M scared. Vet said he is indeed under weight. When he was in there in August 31st he weighed 10.4 lbs. Today he weighed only 9 lbs. That is a huge difference in just under three months. One kidney is swollen and he had some poop on his rump and paws. Signs that he is too tired/weak/sick to clean himself or go the bathroom without effort. I had sensed he was wobbly a day ago and thought it might have been because he had just woken from a nap. Combined with the lethargy and bathroom issues, lack of eating and general change in demeanor I just knew something was wrong. He had to go in but it just shot the whole day, and though Bart was cool, I feel shitty for delaying the project on a day we could have worked a whole day. Blood and Urine Tests tomorrow probably, maybe x-rays....sigh.

In a boat without a mast again, trapped in a time without time, between time. Suddenly everything is slowed down. time stops but, in a matrix-like fashion, some things are running on their own systems. Going through Josquin's old medications last night just set me off and today didn't help, being torn in so many directions and so by so many degrees. I just couldn't deal at the vet. I could barely keep it together and thought when I was finally able to go, that I could get outside, dawn my dark glasses and cry a little(ok, a lot) but when I finally got outside, it was overcast, dark and the air was moist with low fog. Glasses would make me virtually blind. fuck it, I'll just walk through the park and cry...so that is what I did. the nice thing about GG Park is there are a number of places to step off the well trodden path and smoke something. I realized it was either that or bump into another tree because I was crying so hard I couldn't see straight. I finally got it together when I hit the pan handle and came across a huge group of quasi homeless folks, street freaks and Occupy This Sidewalk Park people and I remembered where I was.

I went to Amoeba records to just look around. I thought some low grade retail therapy would help. There is a new re-issue of a single by morrissey with unreleased demo as a b-side I picked that up used and bought "the Crazies" a horror film from a few years back I wanted to see but was unwillingto fork out $20/popcorn for it. $3.99 however is a lot better and seeing as I really needed something to take my mind off things, nothing works like an off the wall post apocalyptic disease/zombie movie set in a small town. Well, that and some rum and coke, some herb and lots and lots of cleaning, washing, totally cleaning my curtains and redesigning my window treatment. Matt Johnson...sell me some wisdom, baby...

"No more blood
and no more pain
in our
kingdom of rain"

Today I finally bought myself some razors, paper towels and sponges. Bought a pretty cool antique looking Marconi style light bulb at Cliff's for my super tall triangle stand lamp. Now I just need to get a shade for it. I should just buy a cheap used harp and find some wire and make my own shade. Something modern with clean lines. I was thinking tall and cylindrical with some cool cut outs so it throws a pattern on the wall. (stop me if it sounds like I am going to clutch my hands, gasp and make a scrunched up face...where is my fucking NYTimes article?).

Oh Tweed...I love you with all my heart and hope that you are feeling better tomorrow. I am sorry I wanted to leave you at the vet but Daddy was paranoid you were so sick that you might die if he took you home without vet people around to save you. I PROMISE I will pick you up...er, later today and bring you home. I know you will feel better. I'll have your blanket warm and ready for you when you get home.

Deep breath...

another Deep breath...not of air....

Sigh....hang in there...everyone!

The Post-Josquin World

Ugh, I'm just a mess. Taking Josquin's body to the Vet to have him cremated was like an out of body experience. There were other people waiting there in the office when I arrived. The clerk asked "Can I help you?" I answered yes, and that I 'had a body for them' because I couldn't manage to get the words "Yes, I have my dead cat in a box here wrapped in a towel. I just watched him die not even an hour ago now I have to say goodbye forever" out of my mouth.

You could have heard a pin drop. Everybody knew-and once I confirmed that "its Josquin" people realized it was not some roadkill but my beloved pet-it stayed that way. Luckily he took the box away quickly-and I didn't have to linger on thoughts about holding his dead body. It was just a shell a that point, albeit a furry one! I managed to keep it together long enough to mumble something about a credit card number(thank you honey) and where they could reach me. "He said "Sorry about your kitty" and said thanks, grabbed the receipt and walked out the door. 15 feet later my face was drenched. I felt this huuuuge empty space open up in my life. Josquin had always been my cat-I picked him out myself-and having spent so much time and energy and emotions in the process of caring for him this last year-I felt like a ship cut loose from its moorings. I decided to walk the 2 miles home through the city shrouded in fog, through golden gate park and the beautiful pan handle full of trees and flowers. I took pictures and thought about places where a small token portion of his ashes will be spread. The rest will stay with me, but I don't know where I can keep them. I can barely look at pictures of Josquin right now without bursting into tears. I hope I am able to pull it together to make a small pictorial memorial of him....and let me tell you this cat was a serious ham...and very pretty to boot. There are a LOT of pictures...so it will be both funny and sad, poignant and beautiful.

Tweed has spent a good portion of the day looking around the house, as well as last night. I think it is starting to dawn on him that Josquin is "not here" anywhere. Having grown up together their lives were, for better or worse, fairly intertwined. He has to be feeling the vacuum like I am. Several times now I have seen him standing in the hall pointed toward the door. His bed sits empty near the patio door and no one comes to clean the top of his head while he is napping. Life will be different now-for both of us. I just have to give him enough love for two right now. Hold steady kitty...hold tight.

the best way to mend a broken heart is to fall in love again-I will have two cats again-but a new friend for me and Tweed. I'll admit I already went to the SPCA's cat page and looked over older cats. When I looked at Tweed and Josquin's adoption papers after Josquin passed, I realized they had been adopted in October-which isn't that far away but not tomorrow. Maybe Josquin was just being timely, making way for some other cat to be a part of my life, not unlike Bruce, Bob and I. There are forces at work that cannot be explained. The way the universe folds on itself is not privy to me-but I'll keep at it. As long as I can have cats. :)

Frank Tovey 1956 - 2002

When I was a teenager I was so influenced by Frank Tovey and his musical pen name Fad Gadget that he released records under that I produced not one but 6 videos to his music(he had none at that point and he was unlikely to ever get anything on MTV). Firstly he taught me that I could make music no matter what I had or knew how to do-I could figure it out myself if I really had something to say. Two-he taught me how to put what I felt into my lyrics. The human emotional element of my writing can be partially traced to his heartfelt and humanizing words. They helped me work out how to say what I wanted to say in my own lyrics and gave me the validation that I had something to say in the first place.

He died far too soon in 2002 at 48 from a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed heart defect but he changed the way most electronic musicians make music-including building his own synths back in the day-that his influence is more like an under current in nearly all dance music. I wish he was still alive and making music. He was a real artist-he never compromised his vision ever-and was unique by miles. Undefinable, a true believer in the magic of music and the word. Thank you thank you thank you for making my life easier and for chasing the blues away when I most needed it.

Memories & Mermaid Lovers

proof that nostalgia is a powerful force in the nature of our existence, a capacity crowd of folks-a mix of adults who were kids when the movie originally came out, a few of their parents, now all old and grown up, plus a smattering of small kids who were being indoctrinated, er, I mean...turned on to the masterplan. The reason they caught my attention was that as they excited the theater they were STILL singing, wearing fake paper gold crowns and generally appearing for all intensive purposes, to be having a blast.

Spaceman Down

was going to post something on facebook about my family and realized it sounds too sad and would likely only elicit sympathy responses, or worse-more comments from my sister and the rest of the 'family', neither of which I want. It just has not been a good day today. the only daylight I saw was through the window in the bathroom. thinking about food makes me feel like throwing up. Otherwise I spent the day in bed, pulling the covers over my head and wanting the world to go away.

Dealing with my family has become impossible. My mother has now come to the place in her addiction/OCD/Hording that the home she lives in is no longer habitable, nor is the house the business has been in habitable-the house doesn't even have a working kitchen and only one toilet and no shower or bath. The house she lives in has one working toilet and a bathtub-each one in a different bathroom. the house is full of dog poop and urine smell from the dogs she doesn't clean up after, unsanitary levels of bird dust from the 20-30 birds which all still live in the house, which she also doesn't seem to be cleaning up after. Add to that moths which live off the waste bird seed the birds throw out of the cages and on to the floor and what is left of the carpet. The rebuilding from the fire she caused has never been completed so there are holes in the walls, the ceilings and floors in both homes. There are also holes in the walls in every room of the house-not from construction but from rats and mice which have for years come from all over the neighborhood to feed on the birdseed as well. There is construction debris all over the house, the backyard and what is left of the garage. But wait! there is more! Have I neglected to mention she has been shopping pretty much non stop since the mid 1990s? And not things she needs or has ever needed. Two very rare Limited edition Eames' Rosewood bentwood screens(at $7,500 a pop) and a solid walnut stool, also by Eames($900) sit in the dust caked boxes she bought them in 14 years ago having never been used or even enjoyed. Of course its hard to enjoy them when they are surrounded by 47(and counting) large danish floor lamps, 12 full dining table and chair sets, 7 headboards(for beds she doesn't have), hundreds of troll dolls, thousands of christmas ornaments(though she hasn't had a tree in over 16 years), and hundred and hundred of cardboard boxes from orchids she has bought that sadly, mostly die in the boxes they come in because they never actually make it into the greenhouse-one I helped build over a summer as a teen. Not that it would matter as she has not properly cared for it and just about everything that isn't epiphytic is dead. This is how she lives, day in and day out. She spent the insurance money from the fire(she caused)on ebay instead of finishing the repairs. So she took out a loan(at 64) against the house itself to 'finish' the construction. She should have just repaired what was there and left it at that.

But if you read this far you know THAT would be too easy and pragmatic. Instead she decides in the middle of winter to totally expand the house, moving the front out 10 feet and expanding the kitchen by 3 times its current size. Then buying a $5,400 refrigerator when a $500-$800 would have been overkill. As it stands now the house is semi-finished and really, if the truth was told, not safely inhabitable. and she is out of money, even claiming to my sister that she is broke, not paying her bills, not taking care of her animals.

Funny...last week she managed to spend over $1,000 on ebay on what? plants, more furniture and...wait for it...xmas ornaments-even though last week she sent out an email saying she wouldn't be having christmas this year. Which is like Siran Siran saying he won't be visiting his homeland this year. of course she didn't send it to me directly but through my sister.

That would be my sister who has for the last 16 years lived in the THIRD of my mother's homes paying $600 a month for a 4 bedroom house. a house that should rent for $2,400 or more. In fact she was saving so much money she was able to buy a car-but not just any car-a limited edition Pontiac trans-am millenium model, a sports car. Shitty on mileage but horrendous on insurance. Of course because my sister was working for my mom and her partner's business she got ALL that gas paid for-for free! All she had to do was pay the car payment and even got a reduced premium because my mom added her to the company insurance policy. While she was getting paid $24 an hour!! She lived the good life, partied, went to Vegas, went on trips with her friends and got two purebred dogs-pomeranians. I later found out she was also doing the same thing for my brother who drove a cadillac, lived at home and made good money working retail-she even paid his credit card bills

Oh yeah, I should mention that during this time I was living in my car or sharing a flat with 5 other people, eating Ramen noodles and ricecakes and making $8 an hour-barely getting by. When I asked my mom that christmas if she could take me grocery shopping(I was literally starving, eating at Glide memorial,etc) her reply was "Well, things have been tight with the business, could it wait until after the holidays?"

That year the company posted revenue of over 2 million dollars.

she kindly offered to fill up my gas tank-not out of her pocket but from the business' account. I accepted but later regretted it as she never forgot to remind me of that fact for years and years. So I got $22 worth of gas and my brother and sister got thousands and thousands of dollars of free gas, insurance, food and free AAA coverage, costco cards, VIP tickets to see Phantom, you name it.

Oh, I would have gotten a costco membership too-Susan even gave me the card with my name on it-like everyone in the family got. However, when I went to use it I was told the card was no longer valid-at the register with a cart full of stuff.

Me: the account is closed?
Agent: No, it says here its still open.
Me: then why doesn't my card work?
Agent: Well, only your card was canceled.

I didn't understand so the nice agent turned her monitor to face me and there it was "Account holder J Davis called to terminate card: Steve Davis from account". So she didn't forget, and it wasn't a clerical error-she did it on purpose. Why?

Why? yeah, why. Here is why...because years ago I recognized what was happening with her OCD when it was just in the early stages. Everybody knew something was wrong but they were all benefitting from her so everyone told me to mind my own business- mom was "fine" and I was the homosexual weirdo who had no right to tell other people how to live their lives. When I turned 30 I finally broke down and tearfully told her how concerned I was about her, her life and weather she was happy or not-because to all concerned she clearly wasn't happy. That I loved her. Her response will stay with me until the day I die.

"fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Its my life, my money and my business. I am perfectly happy. mind you own fucking business and stay out of mine."

Sigh....

Now here we all are roughly a little over a decade later. My mother is almost broke, the houses are in shambles(including the one my sister lives in)and her physical health is fading. She claims as many hoarders do that "the stuff' she owns prevents her from doing anything about 'the stuff' in her life. My brother lives out of state in Texas("as far as I could get away from this family")and clearly wants nothing to do with Susan or I and thinks we should leave mom to her own devices. And where is her partner of 30+ years during all this? Like all dysfunctional people he kept enabling her until he too realized what was happening and started drinking to numb the pain of having to deal with her, her constant nagging and belittlment-and her rage. Now he, after 50 years of smoking and 4 heart attacks he can barely manage being alive and Susan-who thinks of him as her dad-thinks he will die soon because he has resumed drinking. now the fun part! my sister want me to 'fix this'. situation.

My sister has made herself out to be the martyr but she is far too immature and emotionally volatile to handle the situation appropriately. She sends email after email attacking me for not doing enough NOW, YEARS after I was the only one who said she needed help-even going as far as trying to get the family to hold an intervention at the time. Now I get attacked for trying to reason with Susan. Her emails have wonderful supportive statements like "You need to get up off your ass and start acting like you care about mom-I can't take care of her all by myself!!"

and at the same time stabs both Stuart and I in the back in emails to Mom that include things like "2 weeks ago i reached out to my brothers...YOUR SONS n was flatly denied when i asked if they can help u. When u are ready to stop trying to control everything n accept help let me know."

So she's passive aggressive, hostile, angry and immature. Wouldn't YOU take help from her? yeesh! But I have to help "fix it" even though I tried and tried for years otherwise I am "just like stuart". My FAVORITE person in the whole world to be compared to-excuse me while I light my face on fire! As if! If anyone could be said to have done LESS than Stuart I haven't met them.

And its the holidays. Yay! right? well, I'd like to be all sunny and ice cream but right now its just darn near impossible. Getting out of bed to change the cat box is about as much energy as I had all day today. The apartment is FILLED with storage boxes of various fullness. every surface has glass nic nacs on it-my beautiful birchwood shelves sit cluttered with packing supplies and more of Mark's crap as does my standing bookshelves. Even though there is room for more books I now have to store stuff in my room because I can't actually GET to the empty spaces on it. The kitchen is a mess and almost too disgusting to cook in-making a meal there means I have to scrub everything before I can even start to cook-I even keep my pots and pans in my room because I got tired of reaching for them and having my hand come back covered in greasy dust. I can't get the mildew smell out of the bathroom-what the fuck is it about chinese families and carpeting bathrooms?! I'm a very clean person-a neatnik-so I spend almost all my time at home in my bedroom-with the door closed. I am broke because work has sucked this year more than any other and I just can't seem to find a full time job. What jobs are out there I am either not qualified for or over qualified for and with everyone else out of work...its not been great. i could really use a break from it all, really.

And yet, behind me sitting asleep on the bed are two cats-one of whom almost died this year because I was too broke to take him to the vet-who love me no matter how fucked up my family and my life is. And then there is Bob, who I wouldn't have made these last several months without. and Friends-I have some really great ones. So much to be thankful for-I just wish there wasn't so much rain right now.
-------------
Oh, and I just pulled a flea off tweed. Great! now I fleas to deal with too!

Thoughts on a Lizard

There were two lizards once.
They didn't have names.
Just lizards really,
not big ones.
Just simple
alligator lizards.
Part of the ecosystem.
Eating bugs.
moss, other smaller lifeforms.
Everyday they were there.
I would find them.
Everyday.
Some days sunning themselves.
ravishing in the
scorching sun.
Other times
hiding in dead
christmas trees,
hidden as if
branches.
sleeping,
for the fog
must be lifting
I saw them.
Many places
adjacent to
where I was working.
thinking.
smoking.
breaking from
the tyranny
of lifting 50lbs
bags of cement
no place to vent,
no one to hear
my desperate cry.
anguished, trying
to figure out
what was wrong with me.
why couldn't I be
purposeful in my
existence?
Why was I left
hobbled by doubt
and here
where two lizards
bathed, eating
mud and bugs
achieving a level of
perfecting I
could never know.
I fed them.
Gave them crushed bugs
to eat.
playing my
own part
in the bigger scheme
of things.
I admired their
persistence.
existence
on a much simpler
plane-freed from the
notion of nothingness
of emotional turmoil.
not embroiled by
tribulation.
Beautiful, eternal
perpetual and
timeless.

I figured the lesson was there before me if I wanted to learn something. I still think about the level of calm these two lizards(obviously a pair-a male and female-their skulls are very different in width from male to female)exhibited while I either held them or moved them repeatedly. I often acted in their own best interest over my own while cleaning a rather large yard side area full of debris, including making sure that no cement dust was left on the soil-which can burn their skin and making sure I checked each large piece of trash or dead wood as I scrapped it-so that they didn't get 'bagged' or crushed in the removal process. This caused a few stirs with Mark but I don't care. The animals were more important to me. They lived with truth and I felt deserved the right to live. The chance to let nature take its course, not be wiped out by one man's carelessness. IN my mind there is no greater life form. all living things have a value and a worth. Even though I eat meat and consume my fair share of resources as a human being-I like to think that I do my best to co-exist with nature and my place in the food chain and to show other living things I come into contact with respect-even when I might be eating them.

I referred to them as Jack and Jill because they were always on the hill together.

And yeah, this IS that lizard.



Look at that Stare!! Like he wants to kill your whole family and THEN burn the house down. Notice to the mice-you WILL be eaten!!

This is the female.



even though she was smaller she was still a good 11 inches in length. he was almost 12". There is probably a crude dick joke in there but I'll let it go for now. ;)

I'm 38 Years Old Part IV / Ink & Wash

All shots within a 3.5 minute period. One single 65 watt back reflector and a clip on light from a hardware store. Ansel Adams my ass. Where's MY museum on 4th street?

Bastards....

I AM A CAMERA

Suddenly Everything Has Changed

God, everything feels so heavy right now. I feel like a child who doesn't understand why things are the way they are, and my heart is hurting because I don't know how to change things and make them better. Where is superman when I need him? Or just someone who could tell me how I can ever find happiness that isn't tainted. At the very least how to keep from making things worse or at least stop caring if its fucked up.

I thought it was already hard and heavy and overwhelming. now it all just feels out of my reach, like I've failed again trying to make other people comfortable, trying to make a relationship stable that isn''t built to be so. what on earth am I doing? I have never felt so lost in my life.

Creativity of the Modern Age

Its coming soon, and so is this.



There a show and a book on the way too! Really.

Fidelity

well, we've never spoken of love
and with that I am okay.
For me the things
that used to mean safety
all at once begun to change.
I used to think I needed
my life to be a certain way.
But all things change,
As I have changed.
I won't be that way again.
I used to hold stones in my heart
for the time I spent away.
Propping up people,
just trying to maintain,
fighting to heal others
while ignoring my own pain.
But if there's one thing I have learned,
Something I have taken from it all.
Its that you can't protect your heart
from sadness or limp along
Laughing while others watch you fall.
Its a real life when you realize
No plan will ever catch the man.
You got to pick up what you need
Learn to march on again.

Jazz Butcher And The Genius of Pat Fish

"the room is swaying like a boat
but I'm still afloat
and that's a matter of fact."

-Pat Fish/Jazz Butcher

The week and the weekend have all blurred. Everything is happening all at once-good and bad. The choice is mine to see the bad things as potential lessons and the good, lessons on perhaps what to do again in the future. Goodness, I am playing a lot of Jazz Butcher records lately. Thanks Mike!

"Give me mounds of water and hills of air...You and I, we'll dive headlong into joy and despair."

Photography and the Last Sin

Of Autumn and Magellan,
Of birds and beaches,
Of hands and sand
Worn down by the sea.

I was out with a friend today taking some photographs(I was the subject not the lens man today) and basically posed. Not something I was thinking about much, but I gave it a go. Hopefully I will get to see the photos fairly soon. I was a little art starved, not having taken any photos of myself or anything else in almost two weeks-which is pretty long for me.

I decided to rip off a few shots and see what if anything I could come up with. I got in a few self-portraits and some nice floral images. I'm exploring the limitations of Blogger and photo usage to see if I can make this a photo blog as well as stuff about Art and Life. My engines are revving with ideas. time to put the rubber to the road!

Life, Love and Anger

The job search continues to be interesting and vexing. but that's neither here nor there, considering the state of things. I feel pretty good, at least on most days I know I am smiling about something. And that's a nice thing to understand about what this year means-transition is not necessarily always good, but neither does it all have to suck. I mean, sure, I could probably stamp my feet and wring my hands and woe-is-me, but it would not achieve very much.

And as much as I think I have fought the good fight with the perpetually 'developing' relationship that instead developed into a lot of heartache and eventual friendship, there comes a time where its better to just move on and consign the lessons to growth rather than looking back in anger. I have learned something very important about myself this past year-that being angry about stuff in the past has a lot to do with not expressing on whatever level....and the real healing has come from manifesting what has really been bothering me. Not that I see it as blame, more so as a means to recognize that I DON'T HAVE TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S FEELINGS. Only my own...

Also, I think despite everything I am finally learning how to relax. Sometimes its work, and I think I am getting better about doing that work now. The situation with getting my credit card balance paid, dealing with my Ex(He's now dealing with prostate cancer though its observational at this point) and just generally trying to recreate my path post-relationship has been pretty illuminating and, if I am honest, still a little sad. However I am okay with that. It means there is still plenty of work to do. Living so far away from "home" has also shown me I need to get on the ball if I am ever going to come back. But I won't be angry about it anymore-that's my responsibility to overcome. As always listening to lots of music...where so many of life's most difficult answers lay...

If you can't tell your sister
If you can't tell a priest
'Coz it's so deep you don't think you can
Speak about it to anyone....
Can you tell it to your heart?
Can you find it in your heart
To let go of these feelings
Like a bell to a Southerly wind.

I Love Everyone.

The First Note (Part Deux)

Well, I figured It was time to start a blog somewhere now that I am off of IAM/BME for what is seemingly a permanent basis and obviously not keeping a diary any other place of note. Also, this will enable me to post comments and perhaps pictures, moving the place where I communicate most effectively with the outside world. Life is in flux....and I want to dive into the swirling haze and reconfigure my path. This blog will hopefully be part of that new design.