Silence is golden, and confusing as hell but reveries from the 90s will make it all go away

I guess being such an extrovert, and such a very very loud, passionate one at that, is that it takes every fiber in my being to understand introverted, quiet people. I can be ranting and raving and screaming about something- in a good or bad way, and expect the same reaction. From everyone.

Highly unrealistic, a little arrogant, and extremely hard to control.
I just finally at almost 27 started really trying to listen and not just wait for my turn to speak. And not out of a selfish, I-care-not-what-you-have-to-say, but my excitement outdoes my patience, my mouth is ruled by the first mentioned, and I am so glad I am finally slowing down, and really absorbing and listening with patience and full attention.

But I still find it very hard to not see a huge explosive reaction from others regarding things I feel warrant one. Silly girl, I am. This shall be my next goal.

Or when I get very excited, and then the person I am telling this to, isn't very reactionary, but then later goes off with much enthusiasm about something else, well I just did that to them, so I guess it should even out. Instead I feel cheated. I shall work on this. Maybe if I just read these wise words a few times... http://heatherchristenaschmidt.com/2011/10/26/the-five-types-of-interruptors/
  

I cannot believe how pubescent and angsty I feel while delving back deep down into my music "past" and finally throw on some TOOL. Yes, yes, love them or hate them, it matters not to moi, as I am a hardcore fan, alas, and henceforth, I spell their band name, in all capitals. Every time. Even when no one is looking. Or I write a message in a bottle containing a note reading something along the lines of "Help! Stranded on desert island! If you cannot make it, but can somehow reach food or TOOLs to me, I would be much appreciative!"

It just transports me. I see it as a soft, dark, brooding waltz of memories swallowed and/or tossed and jostled upon waves of memories.

I remember the first time I was ever given any TOOL to listen to. I was approx. 16, and behind a dumpster at a Burger King, walking home. And when I first heard "The Grudge" kick on, I slumped against it, planted my feet firmly against the rain-battered pavement and slouched til my knees were a rest for my forehead. I pulled up my hood and didn't move until the last note of the album was done. Yes, I am aging myself, it was a Discman I was listening to this life-changing music on. *giggles* Oh those were the times, I must say. And now, I must say, all those years- these years (?) later, I indulge in my most favourite music and find the tears coming, oh yes, you fucking drama queen, and wallow in all of my mystic emotional soup. Some music doesn't just stimulate your sense of hearing, it can't help but overstimulate all of you.  Why always always always am I transported via "Spirit-Expressway" to the Pacific Northwest. Why not.. Spain? Why not India? Why not New Zealand? No no, when I close my eyes and surf on the tidal wave that is 5/7 timing signatures, and the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, it is to that vast Evergreen-blanketed land. The smells come back to me in full strength. I am reminded of what the Bagelry smells like at 6am on a Monday morning in the month of March, even turning the sharp winds of winter to breathe in and take a break, read the paper, enjoy a cup of coffee and an assiago cheese bagel from the place emitting all this amazing aroma. I remember "Number 9s", which consisted of driving in DB's Tiburon with of course CC/MA down the Lost-Highway-esque nighttime, dark roads, telephone poles "dotting immensities" (which reminds me, to below show off my talent for memorizing Kerouac, "Mad Road Driving" which I memorized at the not-so-tender age of 17, maybe 16. Those years are blurred) doing at least a buck-ten, dazed and confused, young and abused, in the company of a wise old alley cat disguised as an aging  neo-hippie- extraordinaire, (he often would wink his third eye at me, leaving me all a fluster) and blaring whichever "Number 9" was on that moment's cd. Ce De, en Francais. They were mostly, ah, you guessed it, you trickster you, you clairvoyant, TOOL.

I remember the soundtrack to life in the subdued/exciting "oyster dome" of free-spirited youth. Had undertones of extreme personal danger, as The Dr. of Gonzo Journalism himself once wrote.

Ah yes, Mad Road Driving. With no further adieu;

Mad road driving, men ahead

The Mad Road, lonely, leading around the bend into the openings of space towards the horizon Wasatch snows promised us in the vision of the West...

Spine heights at the world's end, coast of blue Pacific starry night - no bone half-banana moons sloping in it's angled night sky, the torments of great formations in mist, the huddled invisible insect in the car racing onwards... Illuminate.

The raw cut, the drag, the butte, the star, the draw, the sunflower in the grass...

Orange-butted waste lands of Arcadia, forlorn sands of the isolate earth, dewy exposures to infinity in wide space, home of the rattlesnake and the gopher - the level of the world, low and flat...

The charging restless mute unvoiced road keening in a seizure of tarpaulin power into the route, fabulous plots of landowners in green unexpecteds, ditches by the side of the road... as I look from here to Elko along the level of this pin parallel to telephone poles I can see a bug playing in the hot sun...

Hitch yourself a ride beyond the fastest freight train:
Beat the Smoke...
Find the Thigh...
Spend the Shiny...
Throw the Shroud...
Kiss the morning star in the morning glass...

Mad Road Driving Men Ahead.

Pencil traceries of our faintest wish in the travel of the horizon merged, nosey cloud obelisks in a dribble of speechless distance, the black sheep clouds cling a parallel above the streams of C B Q - serried Little Missouri rocks haunt the badlands, harsh dry brown fields roll in the moonlight - with a shiny cow's ass. Telephone poles. Toothpick time. Dotting immensities.
The crazed voyageur of the lone automobile presses forth his eager insignificance in noseplates and licenses into the vast promise of life - the choice of tragic wives.

Drain your basins in old Ohio and the Indian and the lllini plains...

Bring your big muddy rivers through Kansas and the mudlands, Yellowstone in the frozen North...

Punch lake holes in Florida and L A...

Raise your cities in the white plain...

Cast your mountains up... bedawze the west... bedight the west with brave hedgerow cliffs rising to Promethean heights and fame...

Plant your prisons in the basin of the Utah moon...

Nudge Canadian groping lands that end in arctic bays...

Curl your Mexican ribneck, America...

...I'm going home. ...going home.

- Jack Kerouac

ps, your random pics of the day. Be forewarned, I have unleashed an undesignated huge quantities tonight for that is what kind of mood I am in.

Kerouac in his calm-on-the-surface, neon glory

Vancouver in Fog

Beirut Gig Poster

Deceased Royal of the Kingdom of Allthingspretty

Nogales, MX. A place I inhabited for a brief, drug induced time

Chuckanut Drive, Bellingham WA, Circa. 1914

Strapping young lumberjacks. Bellingham WA, circa. 1913

Hindu Goddess Devi

Julie Verhoeven, artist

Layla and Billy

Miss Van.Graffiti Artist

Morphine Album Cover

sigh. moving .gifs.

Aging with grace and and a dash of creepiness.

90s Barbies!!! Erin, pictures just for you, as per request!!! :)

So today, after a horrible breakfast, I swear my mother is cursed and always ends up with the worst service and/or food you could ever have, the girls and I walked across the road to this store that said "Elm Street Garage Sale" in Broken Arrow. OMG. We found an entire box of barbie clothing that I had when I was growing up! We bought the whole box for $15!!!! We have been dressing them all morning, what a nice Satruday. And watching Beauty and the Beast. Again. Lol. Here are some pics we took, I think their new barbies and pretty stylin. I swear I saw all of these clothes at Rue 21 in Plano, Texas! Hahaha

Oh I wish I had all these clothes! Oh and a 19" waist, right hahahaha

Love you Erin!

Dallas, Anticipation, and a ghetto thrift store I dream about

So, it's a little late to be talking about it now, but  I went to Dallas, Texas during my kids' spring break from school. My mum, myself, and the girls took the four hour drive, so that we could get away from this dustbowl we now (against our will) call home. We went mainly for two things; 1. A hotel with an indoor swimming pool for my little mermaids and 2. IKEA/ and or the Outlet mall. I guess that's three things.

The drive up there was four hours. And what a nice drive it was. When we drove there, the sky was tinted the color of a bruise, giving way to periodical showers. My favourite type of weather. We passed through Eufalla, and for fleeting seconds at a time, I could squint out to the horizon, where mini-mountains and rolling hills could magically appear to be driving on Guide Meridian, in Lynden/Bellingham, Washington. I want so badly to be in that landscape again, it makes my bones ache.

Note below, the first picture is Eufala, Oklahoma. The second is Chuckanut Drive, Bellingham WA

It is hard for my Mum and I to even taste reality and confront the idea that we live in a place without so much as a semi-spacious body of water. There are no mountains, hills, evergreens, or misty valleys to admire in Tulsa. You get flat, beige-with-sticks to look at. I remember the first night I ever arrived in Tulsa, it was 3am, and in the morning I went outside and in the sunlight I remember thinking "where did the earthy mountains go?"

Eufala, Oklahoma

Chuckanut Bay/Drive, Washington

When we got to Dallas, we had a pretty good time. We cleaned house at Rue 21, and The Children's Place. As well as IKEA. I took some pretty neat pictures at that ode-to-Sweden-home-decor-store.

fabric banner at IKEA

Family Parking space, at IKEA

Two-Story tall IKEA sign..no seriously, it is

Tired after three hours of lighting fixtures, picture frames and couch cushions, Desi stops to take a well-deserved rest

The ride there and back were actually my favourite parts. We stopped in an old, run down part of Oklahoma, or was it Texas (?)  It all kind of blended together after a while, and I was screaming up and down for my poor Mum (she is the kind of person that does not like going anywhere where people's junk and cars in the yard take up more space on their property than the house) to stop at this thrift store, that I only saw the sign for. She is so sweet, she obliged, but alas, the store was closed. Located on the corner of Decrepit Street, and Ghetto Blvd, it was literally a single wide trailer PACKED to the ceiling of what little treasures I could never even begin to surmise.

So now I dream of it, lol. I would literally be willing to make the three hour drive for nothing but to spend all day going through every basket and bin in that place. Someday, thrift store, someday, I'll be back for you.



Above, the Thrift store sign and the buildings they called neighbors.


So that was our trip to Dallas.



In other news, I get to go see EDDIE VEDDER on April 23!!! At the Brady Theatre, in Tulsa.

The theatre was constructed in 1914, and renovated in 1930 and 1952. Used as a detention center during the infamous Tulsa Race Riots (oh yeah gotta love the midwest) in 1921 and is on the national register of historic places.

The Brady Theatre, formally known as the Tulsa Convention Center

I really don't know what I am more excited about- seeing Eddie Vedder or getting to go with my dear, dear friend, James. Ooh him and I are going to have the most fabulous time ever. I'll be thinking long and hard about which outfit best screams "I-am-a-90s-grunge-child-who-loves-flowers/i-am-trying-to-impress-you". We'll wait and see.

I must say on a parting note- CONGRATS, again, to my amazing friend, Britt Hannowell. Who I have had the pleasure of knowing since I was 14-15 (?) Britt you'll have to give me conformation on that, for sure, for GRADUATING and becoming an RN!!!! You get it girl, you are a wonderful contribution to the human race and I hold my breath for the day we can reunite in my beloved Bellingham!

xo