rubber rain dance*

Yes folks, we've done it now! Yes we can and yes we did! Creating a more perfect union, with a newly elected black president at our helm. Freak OUT!!!!!

gifninja.com Create custom animated gifs at gifninja.com!

(I'll leave the plug for gifninja intact, they are providing a valuable service to all us good and privileged folks don'tcha know)

I feel stirrings of non-embarassment, at being American-born. I've never been moved by presidential campaigns and photos of their families, and I admit to being pretty much head-down and go about my own business during the recent election fracas, but I did see a photo of Obama's family on a postcard sent to Marsha, and I did watch the our new president's acceptance speech on TV last night, and I like that they do make a pretty picture all together. It's the Togetherness that moves me and I think he's the most sincere politician I've ever seen.

I wonder what will happen next. I wish for a fabulous sort of bifurcation, on a micro if not macro scale. The more I talk with people who are active in community, permaculture, and sustainability, the more I feel a sense of hope and excitement. It's not enough for me, I'm realizing, to just not watch the news. I need to be talking with people who are choosing sustainable methods of living in their lives and communities, because there really is positive change afoot. You don't hear about that on the news. It's good to see and experience it on the ol' grassroots level.

You know what I like about being back in Eugene and Oregon? The water tastes good here. It smells, tastes, and feels good here. Also, they sell kick-ass rain gear. See above: it's my new sunny rain rubber! I traded in my old REI Elements jacket for something...efficacious. This baby is solid. And I can fit five layers underneath for maximum warmth (see above). One of these layers includes a top-notch Columbia Sportswear lined reversable jacket that I found on the side of the road. Under that layer is a knit black hoodie that I found at CalPolyTech on campus, nobody claimed. I'm gonna Freegan my way around the world, just you watch.

okay more later, children are arriving and that means cacophony!

*also happy election dance, also happy four days of no smoking for Jay dance

empty yourself and let the universe fill you

That, my friends, is my morning yogi tea tag mantra and it is mightily apropros of the metal concert I attended at the Oak Street Speakeasy last night. RAAAAAAAAAAAAHHWR!!!!

I worked my last day at the Library yesterday ("worked" being a relative term), handed in my badge (severed the umbilical cord), and walked out the door without looking back. That's not to say I didn't feel a twinge of oh my god what have I done-ness. On my walk home, I was asked if I wanted free dinner near the fish fountain, I think because I was wearing a backpack full to the brim with a coffee mug hooked on the side. Wasn't hungry, so I donated a loaf of Trader Joe's dumpster dived bread given to me by my former house mate Blanche and chatted up the kids who put the weekly saturday dinner on. Cool...

I was looking forward to Bat Makumba all day - CD release party, billed as a Brazillian funk rock ska band. Bring it on baby!

When I made my way back into town I stopped outside Cozmic, the venue for BM, and the place was nowhere near hopping. I felt no vibe, dig. So I wandered around downtown, riding past pubs and clubs, and then unbidden I thought hmmm.....I wonder if Rye Wolves is playing tonight? After a pitstop at Black Forest, Samurai Duck and Downtown Lounge, I grabbed a Weekly near the now-closed Zenon's (the one tangible of the market crash that I've witnessed) and browsed. And browsed...browsy browse...and COOL they are actually playing at the Speakeasy! RAAAAAHHHHWR!

Me, I've always wanted to hear Robin play sing sling some chords around, but no synchey-synchey so far. Walked in, he was there, we spoke some speaking, and they went on stage.

oh my god they erased my hard drive! I don't need to do drugs or prostrations, fasting or purging to reconstruct my reality. I just needed a combination of quitting my job and going to a live Rye Wolves show!!

I wish I had just left after they ruined me, but I stayed for one ballad* by a really popular goth metal band I've never heard of, and they blew this awful smoke all over, my existential breakthrough was diluted and now all I hear are the echos of the songs of the spheres. No I am serious, my brain waves were seriously altered and there was a puddle of drool on the floor after Rye Wolves finished their set.

All that and a wicked skull admission stamp on my forearm too.

Empty yourself and let the universe fill you, amen and forever, amen.




* nice hippocampus! hippodrome! I mean onomatopoeia! No, no....palindrome. Dammit it's not even that, but so close. Help me Mad Max.