how i spent my MLK day

i went for a walk in the morning fog and bought a fresh baguette at acme. i strolled further on to get cigarettes, circled back, and stopped at REI; checked out the members sale in the back room (seriously, even a hi-tech camping pad for $15.00 is no deal if it has an unidentified leak). tried on a few jackets (what is my attraction to green? i need to switch it up to purple maybe. i'm still reminded of of the diesel military jacket i didn't swoop on at a second hand store. *sigh*)

i continued my walk back, stopping to check out a new gym that advertised boxing boot camp. ooo! checked the price, $ 150.00 for a seven week course. oh! i got back home and made a brunch of poached egg, banana, and pieces of baguette. so nice.

i cooked roasted chicken with quinoa to share with a co-worker, cleaned house, watched several excerpts of eyes on the prize (my favorite civil rights documentary), listened to mahalia jackson's trouble the water numerous times (god, i love that song and the way she sings it), posted gobs of MLK on facebook, read the new york times, goss on the dailymail, and generally chilled out.

i never cease to be awed by king and his words, even in a christian context. one of his speeches in montgomery, alabama 1965 he quotes a verse from james russell lowell's the present crisis so eloquently and epically that you feel it in your bones:

Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne,

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow,

Keeping watch above his own.

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

How Long? Not Long!

....listen for yourself and be moved.

mslisa

SF: the suck

i try to avoid being miserably negative, but SF as it is now - sucks. it's become one big gentrified west coast williamsburg. insanely overcrowded and overpriced. ipod people in skinny jeans everywhere. dog walkers. young white girls with that valley girl, overly earnest speech pattern. (really, where do they learn to talk like that? it is simultaneously dingbat and abrasive). in all fairness maybe, yeah i'm getting older and as you get older your patience for bullshit and (annoying) change dwindles to shit.

i remember when you could cruise a thrift store that wasn't packed with loud talking idiot hipsters and large extended families. things were super cheap. it was a chill way to spend an afternoon treasure and style hunting. now, i have to plan a day and get their early or else i'm on the parking hunt for a good hour of my secret agent life (and a secret agent needs to find parking).

see, i try to be real creative to circumvent the gazillions of change required for an hour meter just to rush to a place and rush back. that to me is no fun. i know these cross and side streets where it's 2 hrs of free parking, but get to the Mission after 11am on a weekend and you're gonna be searching for a minute. the suck!

the laid back days of SF are gone. it's all about competition now; for space, time, productivity, a good cup of coffee, a good deal. i almost got plowed down by two yuppies blazing up 14th st. (probably late to a brunch with their other yuppie homies). it kills me how all these progressive minded liberals have moved here from somewhere else looking for cultural diversity. 90% of the people i see in the city on average are white hanging out with other white liberal-minded people, their dogs and ipods, obama t-shirts, and sipping fair trade coffee.

boring! boo!

i was born here. this is my hometown. who are these invaders? tragic really, but alas, it is one of the coolest places to live if you're here on the left coast of things. they can have all the condos and artisinal goodies they so desire. i remember pickle family circus and the old russian ladies who made the best peroshki, the hippies hanging out on the haight, the potlucks and conga drums in golden gate park, grade school in the bayview, rollerskates, the funk mothership and missile pops. no, the invaders can't have any of those things. 

mslisa

black dog blues

here it comes again; the malcontent, the lone wolf, the black dog blues. i eat everything in sight and then a malaise sweeps over me. this lasts about a week or two before my cycle. the emotional grim reaper. i'm not very well suited to anyone's company. i simply retreat into myself and though i must fake it out in the world (working, doing stuff), i keep the brave face, smile, avoid deep conversation, but still maintain my ability for social interaction, although nothing too strenuous.

i felt it today dealing with the 6G clowns. seriously could snap a twig. the lady soliders on. it got a bit better. i made taiwo laugh with my 'gay ghetto disco' story from an adventure saturday night. i got loads of hugs from the kids. the day's classes went generally pretty cool. i indulged a fresh blueberry cheese danish in the morning. fuck it!

i ducked out though directly after my last class. i just needed to be home and coalesce; make a bit of dinner, wrap myself in jams and cool out. i go through this every month and just ride it out perhaps with some herbs, loads of tea, and vitamins.

what else can i do? prozac? *not*. i believe that most emotional swings can be adapted to through sheer will and conscious awareness or treated in a holistic way. like yoga vegan tacos or whatever. i have this vision for myself and i'm not a pill popper ill-equipped to deal with life or my own estrogen imbalances woman.

there's always the soothing vibe of oto and of course, dub.

mslisa

a series of strange encounters

okay, so now what?

the other day after a futile attempt to park in the garage at trader joe's, i found a spot a block away, in a normally congested part of town. i passingly glanced at a sign about 'permit parking' and ignored it. having acquired a few edibles i get back to the car about 30 mins later. some lady asks me, 'do you have a permit to park here?'

'no.' i reply.

'consider yourself lucky, normally you could get a $60.00 ticket.' (she had a curiously mocking tone as if to say; you didn't, but you almost did. hahaha!)

'i am lucky, thanks. what...ever.'

and off i go with my no ticket having self. the next encounter was getting bum rushed by some dude in the beat down church next to the school. i simply ducked in the lot to have a cigarette (and avoid the young dudes coming down the street). at first the old man was a bit puffed-up as if expecting me to be a psycho crackhead looking to jack the piles of junk in the back lot.

once it is clearly established this i am not, he then goes into some story about a dude who tried to steal the milk crates and cussed him out.

old man, i was just having a smoke and gazing at the feral cat back there.

on the way home, 7-11 for a slurpee. one of those rare occasion fixes - mmm! immediately i'm approached by a freak who first addresses me as 'bro'' then realizes i'm a lady and then calls me 'miss'. hits me up for change, bitches about the bleakness of his current situation. when i get back to the car he says i look like his niece. it seems in a matter of minutes a whole surreal relationship has evolved with this dude.

after being home for awhile, out for cigarettes, again some street skels chatter at me. this time i turn all channels off. i recall earlier this week, lisa, the hot mess chick i remember as a constantly fucked up metal hesher in high school, comes cruising by my stoop in a wheel chair with a busted leg. she's baaacck and making small talk. i slam the door to my flat in a very dramatic do not talk to me! gesture.

what is going on? i started tripping about the kind of human energy that is a reflection of you, which freaks me the fuck out. then i get a grip and ponder; perhaps my open and accepting nature is what compels these freaks to talk to me. then the pendulum swings the other way and i see them as some ominous foreshadowing of my life in the future. the ghost of crackheaded things to come.

okay, seriously. it's just my imagination running amok; my acuity to energy and signals. what is the universe communicating to me at this juncture? i don't feel at all that i'm headed to such a lowly state of existence, but quite the opposite. i also see signs pointing to india and rahjastan. so what's up with that?

odd frequencies afoot, but i'm choosing to just be cool and retain my humanity. 

mslisa