P o c k e t CT

I went to the best Halloween party ever (that statement includes the awesome one I had in 1999)

Here is a weekend recap because everyone is combing blogs looking for recaps and I don’t want to disappoint. It is in bullety type statements because it all seems huge and lunch(es) is (are, it took two) short.

Thursday after work. Come home to Jan and Sarah over for dinner. Having to much fun to really pack
10pm chat with Karl on his radio show sort of pack.
11pm really pack
12pm bed
3am wake up
4am go to airport curse that I forgot my laptop adapter. Stop to pick leaves for costume. Drop off car, rush because shuttle is waiting.
5am curse that I forgot Adam’s gift of Wendell made maple syrup
6am try to arrange shuttle on iPhone. There is no shuttle, find that car and one way taxi costs same. Reserve car with 5 minutes to spare to board.
7am flight leaves, watch TED presentations about cool stuff.
10am land, pick up, car do not get wooed to a convertible
11:30am arrive at Hilton Way in Altamonte Springs which is not the Hilton Hotel
11:31am iPhone runs out of batteries, curse that I watched TED Videos
11:32am realize that I forgot how to live without iPhone I have even forgotten that I can ask for directions. Christopher tells me this makes me an honorary man in yet another way.
Noon find a Walmart that sells car charger
12:30 arrive at hotel and check in, see Dawg who says that he had a nap. Damn good idea
also find that there is a Trekkie convention at hotel. Oooooh Vulcon is mysterious and fabulous.
1pm get lunch take nap
3pm see Poppy and Dawg at bar. Meet Mike, Turnbaby, the person formally blogging as Fab, and Crys
3:05 realize they are all pretty awesome
3:30 go do yoga
4:30 go back to gang
5pm Karl arrives after being stuck in traffic helps me to choose cocktail which I always have a hard time with.
5:05 Lemon Drops are wicked good and I could eat like six of them.
6pm plan to pick up Delmer at airport, worried over traffic get sneak tour of Vulcon vendor area and are told that they will be very strict about badges later. Feel geeky special. Delmer calls to say in Taxi on the way Hooray!.
7ish change for Dinner
7:30 take shuttle to Bahama Breeze and have the best mojito ever (seriously… sugar cane stirrer perfect mint lime ratio, delicious)
8pm Crys and I have lots in common, Turnbaby is lovely to have on the other side of me. Can’t hear but want to hear all the other conversations.

9pm I save Fab from near certain arrest when he realizes that his shirt looks enough like the waitstaff’s uniform to impersonate one. I say “Just don’t touch the money!”
to 10pm Eat fabulous food. What this is a chain? I don’t believe it? Look for Karaoke by shuttle
10pm Back to hotel, compare Mojitos since the barkeep says it is her specialty. Plot how to crash something for Vulcon but can’t figure out where all the Trekkies are. Look up lyrics to awful 70s songs to sing loud (and badly)
10:30 go to bed since I am a total wimp

2am think of Jan since Delmer snores. Note to Delmer your life is in danger if you ever sleep near Jan. Wonder which is worse snoring or sleep wanking?

7am why the hell am I awake.
8:30 bring Karl coffee then go find breakfast with Delmer. Little joint that has a very friendly proprietor and good home fries. More yoga by the pool. Florida is making my knee feel fabulous. Glue costume together- burn myself a lot.
3ish go to lunch but then get called for lunch with lots of people. Go back to Bahama Breeze for more awesome food
5ish eat coffee to stay awake tonight
6 all ready think about offering myself to Trekkies as new character for next season.

hmmm I could make some serious cash offering fake photo ops to Vulcon attendees

7 go looking for Karl to do his makeup

8 go to party
play, meet, chat,
Play with my costume: buck horns with Hilly in her devil costume, sneak up on Becky to catch her halo on my horn, get it stuck in Jarrod’s big fro.

I start the Name My Costume Contest. This is where chat with people in costume (which makes their names harder to remember if I just met them) and ask them to name me because I neverwas before (I thought I was being clever, but it was tough to explain in the clamor and inebriation) In fact the only one I can remember clearly who named me what was this Miss Britt named me “whore” wave your crook and bonnet in the air you won.
I did karaoke, first time, clueless, so someone had to turn the mic on for me. Not a rockstar. I will leave that to Turn and Britt
I kicked over a drink (bad)
I danced swing with a flamenco dancer in stripper shoes. I said “you better take those off or I may break your ass” (even drunk I know I’m not a good enough lead to safely texas tommy a breakably-skinny girl in six inch patent leather monsters)
one or two more dances and I sit on the couch to rest, lay my head on the arm and I am out like a light.

Not a Rock Star, not a Night Owl

unknown time I am roused by an angel come on time to go. There is her yellow chariot and driver my skirt is starting to come apart and I am slightly worried about the effect my boring boy shorts will have on the Vulcon people. I hold it together (I think) we hit the elevator and Crys is asking me if I know my room number, I can remember Karl’s but I know where it is. Like a safety angel she makes sure I am in my room and flies away.

I hear Delmer come in at 4 and sleep until the hotel staff knock on the room at 9am. Geeze
Karl is looking for the wallet I stole from him, so I emerge early enough to say by to Sybyl Law and Karl. I hang with Mike Poppy and Dawg for breakfast

Collect Delmer and head to the airport eating tacos on the way.

On the way home I watch a bunch for TED videos and rehydrate. I didn’t barely get to say hello to Adam and there is never enough time to connect with everyone. But wow what a party!

“Do you want to go to Quaker Meeting today?”

“ummm,” I stall “well let’s look at the whole day first”

There is a possibility that may take four or more hours of driving. Its purpose is to be supportive of someone, more than participating in her roofing party. I managed to do the support part in a phone call making the trip less necessary. Then I have to quickly assess what I want.

“Well if I go you know I will be going as a spy. Are spies welcome?”

“of course” he is laughing.

I branch out into the story of Karen in Fez wanting to go into the mosque. There it is forbidden for tourists to go into the mosques. Karen is beside herself with curiosity, albeit spiritual curiosity. She somehow, and without lying once, convinces the carpet salesmen that befriended us that she may just want to convert. So he will take her to the gorgeous white tower with the intricate designs of plants painted and carved into it. She learns what to do: the washing, the recited Arabic, the kinetic parts of the prayer. She finds appropriate clothing. We arrive early and they leave so that I am alone when the call to prayer is broadcast. At the time I had no idea that it is recorded and was envisioning gristled old men singing into microphones across the ancient city. Their voice reverberating off the sun drenched stones of the buildings, walls, streets. I sit in the sun and wait. When they return, Karen is radiant. “I felt the same God I always feel.” She tells me that for all the practice she was somewhat clueless in there and all the women helped her kindly. That the space was incredibly beautiful and the style of prayer had a certain satisfying aspect. We then made plans to head to Marrakesh and continue our exploration.

I have told Christopher about this before.

“So what will this be like if I go?”

“Well basically you go and sit and wait for God”

“Wait? Like a queue? A God queue? Is this like a Russian line for toilet paper?”

“No, it is more like take a number. More like the DMV. You take a number and sit on a bench and wait”

Which was true. Except that the DMV doesn’t have cushions on the benches and it isn’t inappropriate for me to pull out my iPhone to read blogs to pass the time while waiting if I get bored. I didn’t get bored however, I just got flat butt syndrome that took a long walk after to cure.

Last weekend I was lucky to be able to go to the Technology in the Arts Conference hosted by Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. This was an offering so up my alley that I had a ridiculously hard time deciding on the break out sessions. On all of them there were at least two that I wanted to be at and on one there were four I wanted to clone myself to attend. So I armed myself with business cards and set out for Pittsburgh.

At the airport just off the plane I saw two large LC monitors one had an advertisement but one showed this.

Is this a premonition? – gosh I hope not.

I got on to the bus from the airport and got to my hotel with 15 minutes to spare until the first session. I had signed up for Online Video – it is easier than you think. The idea for the hands on workshop was that we would see some demos of effective video in the arts, learn a few tips, go out and shoot and then come back compile and post. My batteries were dead in my camera but I had a pile of them lucky enough it was a just out of the charger pile. I haven’t used my camera in a while so there was some doubt. I paired up with someone who worked for a dance company and headed outside. I asked a taxi driver if we could video him and was coldly shot down. Started feeling a little shy do decided to shoot the other conference attendees. When we got back it was on to Windows Movie Maker to string some stuff together. My camera shoots in MOV file type and none of the machines were loaded with quick time so we couldn’t do it. The instructors camera was the same deal so he quickly switched to his normal video making program Vegas something to do it. Now instead of a hands on workshop I am in a demo. Then he is having all kinds of technical problems with his machine. We wait and I am impressed with this guys attitude about the hiccups. He is unruffled, but I have been in the same place and it is tough having the room waiting on tech annoyances. After it is up he explains that he recently updated the version of the software so the whole screen looked different. He did a fine job considering. In the question and answer I ask about file formats and a software that can deal with getting files from many cameras, extracting dvds and dealing with different copyright lock downs. (I am not breaking copyright I am marketing events that are coming to town.) He basically validates that dealing with all that is a mess, there is no magic key software and that I should insist on standard formats. hmpf.

The next hands on session had all the laptops downloading a windows update at the same time so the internet was debilitated and no one could get into the software.

I don’t think the hotel internet ever really recovered. Presentations that were planned without it went off without a hitch. Many of the presenters were changing what they were doing on the fly. All with grace but I was feeling for them. The closing speaker was in IT at the Brooklyn Musuem and talked about curating the exhibition Click She would have walked us through the site live to show the interesting results of this exhibition but when the time came the bars would barely move. “I hate technology, I hate technology” as she switched to her screen shots, which to her annoyance don’t scroll.

So I learned lots from the conference which I am putting into a presentation for the rest of my coworkers and a few peers. Personally I learned that in my field there is a definitely a love hate relationship with technology. It is wonderful and fun when it works and keenly frustrating on the flip side.

Pittsburgh was sweet, although I saw way too little of it.

I thought the fountains looked freakish and toxic but I learned it was about breast cancer awareness

One of the presenters I was chatting with has a terrible form of OCD that forces him to turn paper napkins into flowers if they are around. He made three.

This tree was confusing to us at night since it was blooming in October! During the daylight I realized it was ceramic.

I have a business card that titles me Queen of LaLa Land. When I created this card I was thinking of that place in my head, the place that I think of when singing lalalala -la-la-la during chorus jig in Nelson. It was a goofy place in my brain. I guess some people also call Los Angeles LaLaLand and so it could apply here. Spending the weekend here I have been thinking queenly things. However I have to tell you that people haven’t really noticed, except the three happiness guy. I thought the purpose of my visit was to see my lovely friend Claudia. I was mistaken; it was mostly to sweat my tail off.

Friday I walked around a bunch. LA is a funny place.
Strip clubs have funny furniture, it looks even funnier in daylight in an alley

You can make a business out of resolving lice infestations

People are friendly and like to show off how many Beefalo sized men can fit in a little jeep. Here there are five. They were really really squished.

I took a bunch of pictures of plants and trees because they were neat looking or I just didn’t know what they are.

cut bamboo

Pretty

Cool tree

very blurry picture of a tree with thorns (don’t climb me tree!)

Here is Claudia and Shaahin. Claudia is wearing his hat. He is wearing the hat I made for Claudia on the plane. He told us a sad story about how his grandmother knitted him a superman sweater since in Iran no one could find the superman shirt that he coveted of his schoolmates. After gads of work they had a party to give him the long awaited sweater. It was pink and pale blue and the S was backwards. I laughed hard at the tale. I don’t think Shaahin will forgive me.

None of this is sweating related but I am including it anyway to be more queen-like, ignoring the rules I just set.

On Saturday Claudia and I biked to a yoga class at Liberation Yoga. It was fantastic, both to practice next to Claudia who is inspiring and the teacher, Christine, had a really great energy. Tried to do a new pose, firefly and I am figuring out Vrschikasana or Scorpion. Here is Claudia in it – see she’s inspiring. From there we biked to lunch and then cleaned up to go to the Bernini exhibition at the Getty museum.

The Getty is stunning.

white tile

interesting sections

gorgeous gardens

The Bernini sculptures were impressive but somehow I blocked out that we were going to see all portraits. The busts and paintings are wonderful but can not compare to the over the top wonderful sculptures that I saw in Italy.
Seeing this

Just made me want to see this again

Then our plan is to head to Pasadena and go to a sweat lodge. I don’t know what this is more than the summary of some native american ritual thing that is in a tent, with hot rocks, so that you sweat, a lot. I am told to think of something I want to purge from my life. On the way there I still haven’t thought of anything worthy so I ask Claudia about this. “Do you have something?” Oh yes she tells me. “can I copy?” I am kidding… well sort of. I really cant think of anything. She won’t let me though. I am looking for ideas and got caught up in directions and will we be late so I forgot to think about it more/call Robin for advice. Claudia was invited to this by one of her yoga students and doesn’t know any more about it than what I just listed. We drive down a quintessentially suburban California street.

“Should we have some sort of code to get out if it is freaky?”
“yes, how about I think we need to go, would that be OK?”

I am looking around the yard for what could be a sweat lodge – I have never seen one, and don’t think I can spot it. As we come inside I assess the house. There are cats maybe lots of them, there is native american dolls, wall hangings, stuff on the coffee table. There is a couple saying hello and I try to figure out who is who. There are plastic chairs lined up on the outside of the room, enough seating for 15 people. Then I turn and ask what is that?

“Oh I will let Doug tell you about that thing.” Doug comes out beaming and explains that the dodecahedron of gold plated copper rods are specially engineered to use the sound waves to align your chakras. The base of the table is filled with speakers and the speakers on the top balance out the high sounds of the music. He pulls out a CD of Rolling Stones acoustic covers and queues it up. I hope on. As “Paint it Black” starts building up I am feeling music in an amazing way. My whole body is vibrating with it as if it were incredibly loud but the sound is at a nice level. It is seriously pleasurable. Before I got in I was thinking of Diba and her a shiatsu massages using the rods to balance on but with this the music is the massage. I felt like I was in the machine in Barbarella.

More and more people arrived and then the evening was explained to us. Four parts, will be very dark in the tent, and a little crowded since there are more people this time. Doug will be outside tending the stones and opening the flap. You can answer people’s prayers with “Ho” which is a fancy native american feeling version of “me too.” We ask questions. Someone asks about the practicality of contact lenses, another about the kachina dolls. Doug explains he has 66 of them. He would have more but she got them all in the divorce. I’m not sure who “she” is but she left him seven in a little box he hasn’t opened since she sent it many years ago. With visible pride he explains about collecting stones. Then we are changing and going in. It was hot. I could squeegee the sweat off my arms. Disembodied voices called out there prayers and with each was water on the stones. The accents were interesting. The difference in this community and mine was easy to see. I found myself thinking about how this would feel in New England. In the quiet of winter with the sounds of the country. I think about what my community would sound like in these supplications. Some things would be very similar, health and safety of loved ones, but I imagine some others to be very different.

One part of the ritual, the one I didn’t prepare something to be rid of in my life was done simultaneously. Everyone was to call out their thing together so you couldn’t hear other people’s garbage. It got as loud as it was hot. Waves of people yelling things so that you could only catch some words: fear, sabotage, insecurity, no more. It sounded primal and awful and then would quiet and kick up again.

When it was over I laid outside with a towel on me and waited until I equalized with the world outside. Then I got changed and there was a regroup before the potluck. People talked about the experience. People continued to say “HO” to things. When it was winding down, it reminded me that my dishwasher often flashes that phrase.

“My dishwasher often flashes HO at me. At first I thought it was saying something disparaging about my sexuality but now, because of this, I will think that my dishwasher is agreeing with me.”

When we left I told Doug that I have nicknamed him “flapmaster.” He seemed to like that a lot. It is his new hip hop name to go with his Native American Spiritual Name.

Sunday I listened as Claudia taught a children’s yoga class and then we practiced in the garden studio of Liberation yoga. It was gorgeous.

Claudia asked me if I wanted to try surfing. We could go to Santa Monica and hit this famous Power Yoga guys class and then go to the beach. This sounded like a great idea to me. It had some big flaws though.

First off we came in late for the class because we got a little lost cracking up over this picture.

Apparently if you sell underwear here it is common to also make people feel inadequate. My stomach hurt from laughing so much and then we get to the studio. I get a mat which is so warn on the feet and hand places that really I would likely be more comfortable on the floor. I should have brought one. The place is packed, like sixty people packed and everyone is staggered and still going to hit each other. So this is the famous power yoga guy. OK then. He starts the class and at first I think I am hearing wrong but the whole thing is being conducted in rhyme. “Monday morning cobra nice and slow up to downward dog you go.” or something like “now look down your nose and just forty breaths hold that pose.” I had trouble not laughing, but apparently this guy is serious. In his rounds he came over near me, stepped on my hand to get my attention and said “you’re not supposed to pound!” My jump backs are getting better but I am not a floater yet. Sometimes my toes hit hard especially if the mat is word to the thickness of onion skin. I thought he had a lot of nerve. He scolded people a lot for looking around. This is something I do frequently. It is inspiring and I learn from watching other people. He can stuff that and his scolding me personally. He did have a very sweaty class though, but that wasn’t worth getting chided.

After we ate and went to surf lesson. I had no idea that surfing was so physical. As I lay on the board on the sand with the instructor telling me that I was to “pop up.” I was thinking seriously uh oh. This is to basically to a fast push up and spring into a balanced squat in one quick movement I was regretting the Dr. Seuss style class. The ocean beat the living shit out of me. I couldn’t get the board under the water deep enough to gracefully cut under the waves. I hit the bottom hard and scraped off a bit of my knee, I inhaled a lot of salt water. My eyes burned and the board cut my foot somehow. I got up a few times and stayed up until the wave slowed and I lost my balance. enough to get the feel of it. Shortly after I started I was too tired to do anything but try and fall off. I will have to go again some other time.

Today is hurts to lift a mason jar of juice and I will fly home tonight.

I am in Los Angeles, walking back from the knitting store and a young Indian man stops me on the street. I have hours until Claudia gets out of work so I am leisurely walking down the sidewalk.

He is smiling warm and lovingly

“You are very lucky so you know why”

I think, yes I am very lucky but am curious what he will say. His eyeslashes are so long I want to watch him blink. He has a blue cloth wrapped on his head.

“why”

“You have a very strong aura, it is very beautiful. Very strong. You are going to have three happiness very soon.”

This I like to hear, strong aura. He has my attention. I eat it up.

“Really?”

“Oh yes, and I see very good happiness for you three, in the next year. I can look if you are kind to show me your hands. Yes see here is your heart line.” He points to a mark at the bootom of my palm, “this is your heart line. You, you are very strong, you have much love but you think too much”

He is looking like he is channeling some kind of divine wisdom I can picture one or seven of the three hundred and fifty thousand Indian gods whispering in his ear exactly how I am. I also know that the heart line extends along the top of the hand, but I continue on for the entertainment value.

“You will not allow to be controlled. Would you like to see your happiness?”

He opens a little zippered folder and pulls out a tiny piece of paper. Hiding his writing from me he puts something on it and folds four times. “Hold this in you left hand.” I do. “Tell me a number between one and five” I am thinking “Orange” which is not a number, but apparently I need to not be controlled by his request. “Tell me a number between one and five” he looks a little impatient, “Oh I am to say is out loud?” I am giggling. “Yes, tell me a number between one and five.”

“I was thinking orange, just to be rebellious but ok. Six”

I am laughing again as I realize that this time I chose a number outside the requested one to five. This wasn’t rebellion but accidental. I am laughing to hard. He is starting to get annoyed with my giggles.

“Ok Ok you said I am full of happiness, it is true – see I am laughing. Ok four!”

He writes this on a little scrap of paper.

“Give me another number number between one and five”

“two”

He adds this with a box

tell me another number between one and five”

“three”

“ahh see” He crosses out the other numbers and writes down three. He then instructs me to open the folded piece of paper which I comply with. There is a three on it.

“See here are your happiness, you will have three happiness this year. You will get a new job”

He obviously has no idea that I totally love my job and it is very unlikely I will be looking for another.

“So, something is funny to me. You say that I will have three happiness like you can discretely count happiness. I am, in fact, full of happiness but it doesn’t seem to me to be something that you can count. It is like saying you will have three milk”

“I do not drink milk”

“Ok well it is like saying you will have three water”

I think now he is annoyed with me but began his pitch to help the poor people near his ashram in India. He was not satisfied with the dollar in my pocket. I continued on with him as he tried to woo me out of ten dollars but I bowed and bid him namaste.

So LA is famous for beautiful people. Here it is my aura that is stop-them-on-the-street beautiful or it is fun to say so even though it was a hokey scam