Journal Entries
Magic in a cowboy hat.
Posted Apr 28, 2006
I have found my future Paradise in St. Petersburg, Florida.
It's almost time to Head West, probably in July. I knew I wanted to be Tampa-ish, closer to my nephew and in a place with a different social dynamic than here. After working a couple days in Clearwater I spent Sunday with my dear friend Quintin who's just moved to St. Pete himself. He'd not had a chance to do much more than work, find the bank and grocery store, so it was an Exploratory Mission for him as well.
St. Pete just *feels* right. To get there from Tampa you bridge a few miles of glassy, gorgeous water. That in itself is awesome, a perfect way to start and end a day of work, so different from the madness of I-95. The town itself is lovely, lots of older houses with verandahs and gardens. It looks like human beings live there, as opposed to the Planned Urban Developments of obscenely huge and sterile McMansions and condo enclaves that are cropping up all over Florida. It shows character instead of zoning laws. There are plenty of parks, a thriving art community, and oldish architecture that's lovely to look at, rather than just whopping great clods of cement and glass high rises. Parts of it remind me of Key West without the seediness and debauchery, parts remind me of St. Augustine and the causeways feel like a better version of where I grew up. 
I 'doused' our way to a laid-back restaurant on the water, found what we were looking for atop the pier. Ahhhhhhh. Guy playing guitar and singing, horny margaritas, fish sandwiches. Sun and lots of sparkly all around, but on the water rather than on the people. We got sunburnt, poor Quintin's head was glowing. So I decided we needed commemorative hats for the occasion, and Quintin wanted a cowboy hat. He decided that *I* look good in cowboy as well, and since I didn't already have one, why not? I'm Heading West, after all.
I decided that I'd start wearing this hat here at home as a reminder that I'm going to wide open spaces, a place where people default into considerate, and who you are isn't measured by whose logos you're wearing. I need to get myself re-balanced before I make the move, definitely don't want to import the aggressiveness that's infested me here to my new Paradise. So my hat is a reminder that I'm detoxing my soul in preparation.
There's a funny magic in cowboy hats, at least in places where they aren't done. It's easy to start conversations with people. I've decided that since I'll be leaving here soon I want to get out a bit, do some of the things that I used to enjoy before I got so caught up in making things. I want to leave this place with a feeling of fondness for it. So, last night I went for ice cream and cocktails on the beach. Sat on the wall and got sticky while watching a quite good Spanish guitarist playing for the restaurant across the street, then went to the Elbo Room, my old hang out, for cocktails. It's a dive, filthy bathrooms, live reggae, all sorts of people go through there. The ambiance sticks to your feet, but it still has it's own charm.
Vodka tonic in a plastic glass, ultra-hootered woman (she bought the jumbo size) in mini-bikini dancing on an invisible pole with anyone who'd buy her a drink, navy lads (town is filling up with military in prep for the Sea and Air Show) middle-aged, sunburnt folks from Kansas, tourists from all over the world, local boozers. It's a good place to people-watch. And of course, it's a good place to ambush innocent bystanders and convince them to participate in the Questions For God project. 
Especially when you're wearing a cowboy hat. So I did that for a while, collected some fresh questions to meddle with, and in ambled the Guy in the Black Cowboy hat. His Sunday-go-to-meeting hat. 
I *knew* I'd be talking to him before the night was over. Sure nuff, just after the girl next to me mentioned that Cowboy was awful cute, a drink from him arrived in front of me. I tipped my hat in thanks, finished with the couple I was involved with, and went over to introduce myself. He seemed mostly harmless, for a redneck, so I invited him to come join us on my side of the bar.
His name is Ricky. He's from the northwest tip of Florida, down here for work, gobsmacked by the goings-on. He'd never *seen* such a place. He lives on 180 acres with his entire extended family, has no intention to ever live anywhere else and has never *been* anywhere else other than work missions. He's the 'bad boy' in the family because he doesn't always go to church on Sunday. He's a character from a Carl Hiaasen novel, incarnate. We talked about God, religion, politics (very briefly, that was *not* a good place for the two of us to dialogue) and life in general. Turns out, when I asked what kind of work he does, he's a grave digger and his out-of-town work missions involve corpse repo. He does his job with pride, and a sense of respect for the dead. He makes sure to wear a clean button-down shirt, doesn't like the idea of dirty, sloppy-looking gravediggers planting people. Just doesn't get much better than that, in a surreal reality! He was surprised that I didn't skitter away when I learned his profession, apparently almost everyone does. I dunno, it's necessary work, and there's no problem with job security. He said most people don't see it that way.
He told me about his initial difficulty coming to terms with the idea of the people in the boxes he plants, the heartache he felt when he was planting little, two-foot boxes, that he'd finally stopped thinking about the people when he learned that one of the boxes contained a young woman--younger than him!-- who'd blown half her face off in her suicide. From that point it was just about digging a big hole in the ground, putting one box into another box, then putting the dirt back where it belonged.
He told me about the time he learned that bulls can tap dance. He'd impulsively decided to participate in a rodeo, got thrown very quickly the first time, learned that everyone was given a second chance, and that time the bull tap danced on his back. His six-year-old son was there, watching. The boy wouldn't speak to him for three days because he thought he'd watched his daddy being killed by a bull. He doesn't do that any more, though he *would* if the right circumstances presented themselves. But he wouldn't bring his son.
He wanted me to tell him where to find a gay bar. Not to go in, just to look at it from the outside. He's never seen one. I didn't think that was a good idea. He didn't seem like a fag-tromping kinda redneck, but he obviously didn't think gays are just folks, either.
I told him he'd make an excellent character for a story and he gave me permission to use him, if I want to some day. I told him he has a story with boundless potential and he liked that idea. I don't think it had ever occurred to him before.
There's 
in a cowboy hat. I'm looking forward to finding it. I think maybe Odetta Flambeaux has emerged.
Lawdy, this new persona of mine is gonna be a hoot in the developing!
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Latest reply: Apr 28, 2006
What the hell is going on here?
Posted Feb 2, 2006
Ok. There's something going awry around here in south Florida, I've been feeling it for several months now but have been thinking that maybe the thing that's changing is mostly me with a smidgeon of my environment going unbalanced. It *feels* like I'm living in Puerto Rico again, the way people do business, the way people can't seem to be relied upon to uphold very simple commitments. It's agitated, inefficient and stressful. But I've kinda been thinking that it's just *me* becoming hyper-sensitive to stuff as I float further and further away from 'normal' concerns and deeper into a zone of focusing on what *really* matters, and is enduring.
It's not just me feeling this way, though. Talking about it to some other people, they're feeling the same thing. A number of them are also planning to leave the area, and it's not something we'd even really *thought* about a year ago. There's some kinda underlying agitation going on here which is bigger than all the overt little irritants. Tonight I was talking about it to a friend who's mostly pretty reasonable, and she mentioned the real possibility that this chunk of Paradise might be under water in the not-too-distant future, and it gave me the willies. I mean, is *that* why I suddenly feel driven to get the hell out of a place I was in love with six months ago? I dunno. Could be. I have always had intuitions, didn't always follow them, though. This one is huge and undeniable, and my reasons for deciding to scoot have been more about people expecting me to speak Spanish rather than them learn English, and about the yeah, yeah, yeah f*cking *agreeing* to everything, with no *intention* to follow through. And part of it has been that I've come to realize that I have to work too much to keep living in a place that I once loved being a part of, but now I'm mostly a hermit painting in my apartment, and I could just as effectively move elsewhere and do the same thing I *am* doing, but without living in an environment that's making me nuts, a place I sequester myself from. I can still come back and work and visit periodically, and I'd not be missing anything but the stress.
So. Tampa it is then, for the near future. I need to teach my nepphie some things about self-reliance, just in case the world as we know it takes a dump. I think that's going to happen, one way or another, and within his lifetime for sure.
I'm relieved to have reached this decision. I'm not very happy to be seeing it in a bigger-picture kinda way, much easier to just think that I'm getting old and crotchety. But I guess I can't just 'unsee' something, once I've seen it. I'm not a republican, redefining terms doesn't make unacceptable things ok. I don't even need to be right about this feeling of impending doom, would *love* to look back on this journal one day and laugh at how wrong I was. But I don't think that's gonna happen.
So.
Meanwhile.
Things I can do to influence my immediate bubble of Britta's World:
1) I must not exacerbate other people's stress, or feed my own with frustration/anger because there's a very good chance that they're acting the way the do in response to the same stuff I'm feeling, but they maybe aren't as aware of it as I am, because their lives are so stretched out running the gerbil wheel.
2) I must continue to paint, because that's what keeps me stable. I can see me painting away in the aftermath of the most dire circumstances, just because so much of the other stuff beyond survival simply won't matter. (No, I don't think it'll actually come to that, btw. I hope.) But there *is* something divine in doing something so inherently useless (in a practical sense) when your world goes upside down.
3) I need to start thinking about a broader way to be Useful.
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Latest reply: Feb 2, 2006
The Patience Project
Posted Jan 18, 2006
For this year I decided that my personality-develpoment project would be Patience. It's something I've always had remarkably little of, and while I've learned over the last few years to avoid being a total bastard to the people in front of me, I still have the charming habit of yelling at things--the vacuum cleaner, devices that won't work the way I expect them to, and traffic. I'm one of those head-about-to-explode-from-screaming idiots when I'm alone in my truck. 
Yelling doesn't actually make me *feel* any better, and I can get myself in quite a state when people are piddling around in *my* way. So the outrageous behavior needs to stop.
So far this year since I set my goal I've been even more agitated than usual, and that's common to have huge upsurges in whatever you want to change about yourself before actually settling down and *doing* it. I decided yesterday that I'll get myself over the traffic problem by just leaving ten minutes earlier. That way if I'm blessed with *every* *single* red light along the way it'll not make me worry about being late. And if all the old, doddery, people who really shouldn't still be piloting a car, or if all the snowbirds and tourists in the county meander around on the road in front of me, I'll be on time.
So, this morning I was on my way to work, mentally congratulating myself for having taken control of *my* end of the project, and thinking about how *simple* it was, when some @#%$ **&#@! decided to cross 6 lanes of traffic, on his bike, just rode out there where there wasn't even an intersection and the light was green and we were going pretty fast. GAAAAAAAAAAAAA! So I flipped from self-congratulatory, smug, sane person into instant raving lunatic in less than the space of a heartbeat. 
Realized in the midst of warming to my rant that....oops... I'm not supposed to be *doing* that. Made me laugh at myself, and realize that maybe I haven't *quite* mastered the patience objective yet.
This might be the most difficult project I've undertaken. But I'll get there. Just have to be patient. 
Discuss this Journal entry [28]
Latest reply: Jan 18, 2006
Happy New Year!
Posted Jan 3, 2006
2006.
The ocean told me this year would be less traumatic than last year, tiny, glistenig wavelets curling their way down the shoreline rather than last year's turbulence and chaos and squalls. Comfortable temperature with a fog lying off the horizon to the north.
My soul needed that reasurance as my next year shall be a'shakin' and a'groovin'.
My personal ground is prepared, my seeds are gathered and sown. Now time to nurture (consistently) and reap the harvest.
I've been lying fallow the last couple years, regaining my essence, practicing gently for the moment when my life, every moment, is what I am, now. The future--it's here. I'm ready and fearless, just in the mode to Do and to Be. And my world is encolored, and my universe is Color ensounded.
I'm not sure that's normal, furthermore, I don't care.
I'm in this weird mode where Mother of God is singing and strumming and humming the universe alive. It's awesome. Sparkly.
Life *will* move, that's what it does.
For now, I want to stay here, and I want here to be like a wavelet, curling a silverish swooshlet kissing the shore, moments of indescribably sweet and subtle Now, touched and gone and indelible.
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Latest reply: Jan 3, 2006
Thanksgiving
Posted Nov 24, 2005
What an extraordinary day! Just in case something catastrophic happens, life is about perfect now. 
I'm having an open house today, will be serving fondues. I've never made fondues before, but am I concerned? worried? even a little bit anxious that I'll end up with cajun-style, charred and blackened goo? Nope. It'll all be fine. And if I somehow manage to ruin one I'll dump it out and make another.
The apartment is clean(ish) and ready for guests. I'm not running around stuffing the usual piles of papers and stuff into shopping bags so I can cram them into a closet out of sight. Nope, got everything *put away* yesterday!
I've had my shower. I'm dressed. I need only a little touch of makeup because my face is looking pretty good without massive reconstruction. Wooooohooooo!
I'm having one of those mythical Good Hair Days! Not just a not-too-bad-hair day, but a GOOD one!
The weather is divine. Sunny, coolish, dry and breezy. The wind chime is singing, the flowers in my garden are looking lovely.
The 
*didn't* decide to do her typical wait-til-mama-has-vacuumed-and-mopped-the-floors antic of having an attack of yarking up hairballs all over the place.
This is a day to be thankful for because normally when I have a get-together at my place I'm still wildly dashing around nekkid, trying to get this and that and myself presentable, and dealing with spontaneous eruptions and explosions of difficult-to-clean substances ten minutes before I've told people they may begin to arrive.
I still have more than an hour before my deadline, and all I have to do is prepare the table and start gently getting the fondues going. The idea!
The world might be going to Hell in a handbasket, and sometimes it's hard to find things to be thankful for (aside from the ol' standard 'it could be worse') but today all the little things that are in my control *are* in my control! Woooooohoooooo! How cool is that!
And ya know, I don't even really think I'll be struck by lightning. It would mess up my hair.
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Nov 24, 2005
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