adrienne maree, the luscious satyagraha

ok ok ok so i’m in marin county with a phat ride care of the nice people at hertz. i’m up here for what i like to think of as a genius conference. on a regular basis people talk about what’s not being done so great to the earth and with people on it, and this is a conference of 3,000 people who are innovating successful ways to live on this planet without destroying it. everything is biodegradable and organic and it’s a wonderful kind of place to be. there’s 17 satellite conferences happening around the country so if one is happening near you, check it! www.bioneers.org

i drove up here with my twin star naina khanna. naina is a yoga queen, one of the most beautiful soulful creatures i know, it was my honor to work with her last year and to see her now as she’s learning the ins and outs of nutrition in berkeley. she makes me want to be more limber and more centered. great person to run into coming off a fast. she has no problem saying ‘asparagus is yummy fiber!’ and making it sound scientifically rock solid.

she picked me up from daniel alarcon’s old apartment near lake merritt. when i got there just a few hours earlier, daniel had asked - hey, would you mind if we ran some things over to my new house and maybe…arranged a little?

!!!!

if y’all don’t know, i grew up moving every two years of my life, and i love moving people in and i especially love arranging and then rearranging spaces. i lvoe my current apartment and rearrange all 11 by 15 of it daily. so we went over to his new fruitvale loft which is a really cool space and gott the feng all shui-ing. to celebrate, we salsa’d in the newly arranged living room. i am not good at following, but he got me spinning and twirling and laughing.

i had meetings with ben w and van j at ella baker center yesterday, talking media and www.colorofchange.org, and rachel at ruckus, one of the great analytical minds we have. but more endearing than all of that was the indian couple i shared the row with on the jetblue flight out here. they didn’t speak english and he was missing a hand, and through a fairly intricate sign language complete with facial expressions, i spent 6 hours:
1. being intimately crawled over for bathroom breaks because they moved quicker than i could unbuckle
2. blushing as the man watch the videos on my screen since he couldn’t get his to work. its amazing how much videos these days without the sound just look like black people doing soft porn or white people in horro movies. go ahead, test my theory!
3. feeding the guy the jetblue food package. coming off my fast it was too soon for cheese, crackers and oreos. i made him cheese and crackers, and then dipped to the bathroom and when i came back he was trying hard to get cheese on the oreo. through a combination of head shaking and napkin wiping and smiling with the de-frommaged cookie, i was able to convince him to enjoy the oreo in its natural habitat
4. listen as the stewardess would offer me a drink or food, and then upping the volume by a factor of roughly 15, offer my rowmates the same thing. finally i told her that as far as i could tell they could hear just fine, she should just point at what she was offering. that’s one uptight recieving smile i wish i had a camera for! ‘of course, of course.’ then yelling ‘SORRY ABOUT THAT I DIDN’T MEAN TO YELL!’ we all smiled and nodded.

i lost my favorite scarf at the airport in ny and cried about it on the plane. it was a gift brought to me from brazil. what is i gon do!

and last but not least a moment of unbridled desire occurred to me on the train the other night - this dude was standing in front of me reading a book and holding onto the railing. not interesting persay. then i noticed that how he was holding the thing a sliver of his hip was exposed. and not knowing him, i wanted to reach over and pull that sliver to me and sort of devour it with kisses. i haven’t felt unbridled desire recently - lots of bridled stuff but, that’s just not as fun.

oh wait that wasn’t the last thing! karl rove is doing one of his special hearings today about leaking a certain FBI agent’s name out and our folks are out there with condoms that say ‘Some Things Shouldn’t Leak!’ - if you’re in DC call me for info.

and! one of my favorite old hotties is here…should i holla? YES!! maybe he’ll induce something…unbridled!

i just got to spend a few hours with my dad buying shoes. he needs running shoes and has had trouble finding 12D size running shoes in japan. then he gave me the talk in which he is concerned i am working too hard and not taking care of my health. my dad loves me. after years of me guaranteeing he’d have a man to meet the next time he visited, he finally got to meet the great billy wimsatt! that was funny. billy was dripping from the non-stop insanity-inducing rain, and my dad was in sock feet talking about his heelspur. very special moment

its in fact the last day of my fast. 7 days on liquids is a fascinating journey. last night i had the big true things moment. that’s the moment where you start laughing and crying because you are hungry and tired and very deep in your head and a lot of big true things coccur to you about yourself and those you love. so some friends woke up today with big, true emails. i woke up and meditated. i’ve made it up to 6 minutes.

i pray all the time, but actually just sitting still and breathing in and out and meditating is hard for me, so i have decided to start small and aim high. but not get high to get home. and so on.

among the big or true thoughts:

lemons and melons are such close words. maybe not big, but true.

i’ll never love again. maybe not true, but big.

i felt leonard’s presence these past 7 days, impossibly, which has forced me to think further about my own beliefs of what is possible in the spiritual realm.

4:45am in the morning i am off to the bay - the vacation part of my trip will mostly happen on  jetblue, which is hands down my favorite airline. and then straight to the bioneers conference and then some time with ruckus folks in oakland, hoping to see the great daniel alarcon, the mystical hobbes, ben and van at ella baker, and a reunion with my twinstar naina khanna. then to l.a. for training at the feet of the brilliant bernard dory and the brains of allert (they were key players in the success of l.a.’s new mayor), and then hopefully back to ny for a minute before heading down to new orleans, which i have been drawn to like a brokenhearted moth.

now, my dad has never seen goonies, so my mission is clear! peace

hee hee

day 6 of the fast. i’m mildly delirious and very happy. my dad is approaching in a cab for his first real solo visit (sans mama) to ny. he is coming here to my baby sister’s apartment to see her first mary tyler moore ny experience, then we’re going to go out somewhere where i can watch them eat and think deep and spiritual thoughts.

in other news - had a climate crisis coalition meeting today and we’re planning solidarity stuff in ny for the big montreal meeting, we’re asking that the u.s.a. join the world on the kyoto treaty. one step will be asking folks to make love in the dark - oh the energy you’ll save! and meditate by candlelight! good for you, good for big mama.

what else - i heart celeste, my coworker, and here’s a picture of how joyful we are in our work together:

do i look remarkably pale? yes. i am coming to terms with that. i am just not as dark as i feel. oh well.

hey! my daddy’s here! i’m heading to cali on thursday but will post tomorrow on the last day of the fast - maybe in tongues!!

kisses

all sorts of thoughts have come to me along this fast. i thought today i would share some of them:

1. thank god for washclothes. people don’t really talk about this, but there are some people who use washcloths (i’m going to alternate between using the e and not using the e - i just can’t decide) and some who don’t. and frankly, there appears to be a racial element to this. anyway, i’ve been using washclothing for some time now and yet i remember when i used to just push the dirt around on the surface of my body with my hands or the actual bar of soap. i mean…to be honest somedays i get lazy and still do it, but now for the most part i am using wetcloths and loofahs and sugar scrubs and getting clean - my surface is icy. polished. bling bling clean.

2. thank god for spandex. when you are stone cold out of draw(er)s, overdrawn from the bank with no loot in your hand and you’ve been fasting for several days and you want to feel held in the world, nothing can hold you like a pair of spandex ankle-length pants. not quite stirrups, that’s more sofia’s style.

3. thank god for all people who work against hunger. i am doing this for leonard peltier, with the master cleanse, and vitamins and fiber pills and herbal fasting teas and meditation and intention, and i think that might be the only set of circumstances in which this is acceptable. to be forced to have your body this empty, that we let children go to sleep like this, is unacceptable.

4. thank god for friends. i love this knowing of people. being aware i can’t make any quick or unnoticed exits now, i am accountable to love. theirs and my own.

5. the world is going through a period of massive shifting right now, who knows for how long. meditating right now is like getting to a still space within yourself where you can feel the shifting in the world - hurricanes and mudslides, earthquakes and fires and rain, its external. and depression, quiet, anger, questions and desire in people’s hearts, it’s internal. look out for each other, look out for your hearts - are you living your whole life? i think when people aren’t personally on the path they want to be on, however they define it, they lose touch with life, with the reasons for staying. no half-lives now, no settling…we need full contributions.

6. fizzures - i feel like there are fizzures all over and messages are slipping through all bright and clear. watching strangers with candy in the background on comedy central and these commercials keep coming on for www.reopen911.org. i missed this, having no real tv in my room (the cable sucks. i get only bcat and channel 2. across the hall, their picture blinked out last week, according to the boyfriend this morning. he was running around in sweatpants down to his crotch-hair in front of the unaffected new cable guy, who was far less cute than the first one. i may have to go back to rabbit ears). every news channel and humor show is guffawing the nomination of harriet for supreme court. can you see how long the window is for a moment of truth?

7. it’s fall! i LOVE fall. as evans and i have concluded, him first and me in reflection, that i look much better in layers. its also the season for me of possibility, letting go, slowing down, laying down.

that’s all i can share, i have work to do. i wish the sun would come out.

ah its the beginning of my fourth day of fasting. those i’ve spoken to with experience in this practice say the third day is the craziest, after the first two are hard. i have been drinking only the master cleanse, and one bowl of soup broth near the end of the day. i feel very clearheaded and calm now - by the end of the second day i was feeling manic, physically stressed, you know - tired but unable to sleep.

but now i just feel very clear and this…clean sense of energy. i have a heightened awareness of emptyness, aloneness, self in the midst of many and then the threads that connect me to others. to be doing such a fast without people around you also fasting is odd, as the physical manifestations of the fast are not unlike tripping. i see shadows all about, i feel a lot of focus on each sensation, bright lights, odd smells, but mostly colors. the colors of everything are so much more vibrant.

i had to drive to philly and back yesterday with all of this awareness and an angel was sent with me in the form of my coworker celeste, who kept me talking, alert, kept the good music bumping and then, on the way back, made me stop for some soup and get that warm energy for the drive through the pouring rain and darkness. we went to the 2nd annual pa hip-hop convention, organized by jay woodson. the rain kept the turn-out low, but the speakers and trainers were great and we got to see rays of hope perform. rays of hope is a group that works with young folks, like 6-14 i think, who learn to rap, sing and dance. they were amazing and professional and their rhymes were revolutionary and political and smart. they will perform anywhere for free, try and find them, try and see them.

in meditating this morning, one major thing that comes to me from leonard peltier’s story: when surrounded and attacked by armed federal agents, with apparently no way out, leonard placed the needs and safety of his people before his own. he had faith that cut through his fear, and they found a miracle path. this is moving me to this heady hopeful place, because while all humans may be possible of the greatest wrongs against each other and the planet…but then we must all be capable of the greatest bravery and strength and humility. we must each have the capacity to be brave when it matters, and to love each other and protect each other as manifestations of god, rather than protecting only ourselves and our life paths as manifestations of ego.

i got to write leonard a message which will be delivered with other messages from the fasters directly to him. it was hard to find the words. but i feel him, i feel what it means to love your people that much, to want only fair and righteous dealings between fate and your beloveds.

i am surrounded by people who i love - deliriously. they are my people. i feel very aware when i am with them that i want to place them on pedestals. so much of how i’ve interacted in groups has been attention grabbing, always with the side commentary, very ‘look mom i’m funny.’ its always been difficult for me to be still and quiet and absorb in a group setting. my thought is that i want to hear and watch these people, see what happens in my life if i take up a bit less space and listen more, contemplate my words so that they come from a space of love and kindness towards those i adore, rather than from my own need to garner attention and laughter.

now i am going to go walk and possibly to church after that. there’s supposed to be a good non-denominational service nearby. oh and for well wishes to you, i learned this yesterday from a beautiful muslim man who lives in england: ramadan mubarek! (and ibrahim taught me the response is ramadan kareem!)

after yesterday’s crazy ass post i swore not to post in the morning anymore, but me being me i hate the idea of that limit, so here i am at 9am. i did walk it off yesterday,
AND i had an awesome night last night cause i got to see my beloveds:
evans, janine, sofia, shane, nathan, my sister autumn, jenn, justin,
paola…that’s a paydirt night.

i am fasting, and i learned from my headache this morning that you shouldn’t drink wine while eating no food at all, cause it makes you feel dumb lethargic when you wake up! i have grade b maple syrup and cayenne pepper so i am going to buy some lemon and go more master cleanse route.

what’s really fun is when you tell people you’re fasting all of the sudden they are experts on fasting! you would not believe how many people want to help me keep on the right track with the fast, some with advice, and some just by saying you can’t have that! i feel like sunflower seeds would really help, but experts say no! so i know this will be a very successful fast

on a deeper note, i woke up this morning with leonard peltier very clearly on my mind. its interesting to fast for the freedom of someone you’ve never met, but who has had a major influence on your way of thinking. i want to meet him now, go and speak with him, interview him, learn in person, help tell his story.

Movie Corner:

i was up with energy last night, so i watched crash. yeah - its a must see. the sentiments are not surprising or groundbreaking, but the movie lines things up really intelligently and i am surprised about its being made and being such a hit in this place.

a movie for your Not To See list (i only hope you have one): Domino. I got to see it in screening and its awful - too long, too loud, too many visuals trying to distract from the backwards-ass story line, and not enough nookie between the hottie stars.

now, you can’t keep baby in a corner, even if its a movie corner!! so, speaking of hottie stars, two people i love had a big fight last night and broke up, i don’t think permanently but still, i was doing the heartbreak stroll till 2:30 this morning, during which a roach crawled over me. then i had more nightmares. and i got a charlie horse!

on the flip side, my hair looks really good this morning, and i walked the park pretty fiercely yesterday and am about to go walk again. walking helps put it all in perspective, bring a little balance back in.

oh if you’re in or around philly this weekend call me, i’ll be at the pa hip-hop convention! road trip!!

i am posting early today cause i just woke up from a nightmare and am going to try to write myself into understanding it.

it started off well enough, my friends and i going to a house of models or some sort, drag, over the top, maybe working girls (from watching cathouse last night?). everyone was gorgeous and flamboyant and done up, and we weren’t yet but could feel the pull, and it was fabulous and we were enjoying it and we were staying in their city home.

i started noticing…we were in a marsh of some sort, you couldn’t leave unless driven out by someone who knew the route…and there were tons of girls, some wouldn’t speak and many were only there in part - only torsos and faces…at one point i threw some food to one girl who had an upper body and she ravenously ate it and when she looked at me i realized she had somehow been muted.

i have no words for the horror that struck me, suddenly scared we wouldn’t make it away…but then we got someone to give us a ride and i had a hard time impressing upon my friends how necessary it was that they get in the car and come with me. the car went over treacherous water, then we got home, and i tried to tell them what we had just been through. the horror, that they would only keep the beautiful parts of those women and cut away the rest, and laugh about it, and mute those who wouldn’t go with the flow. they all saw this and then we were desperately packing, trying to get out of the house, but we were surrounded by the owners of the place who knew secret doors and we were split up in the chase.

i was in a bedroom - i put chairs under the handles but one got through, blond and seemingly dead; i swung something impossibly heavy at the head and then jumped out the window and started running and hiding, running and hiding, until i woke myself up.

i draw parts of women, all the time. i feel like i was in the nightmare of my own creations…

i think this is related to the beauty image stuff i’ve been going through lately…my deep seated belief that when people say everything is beautiful they are lying, and that people - especially beautiful ones - throw words on the situation, trying to drastically underestimate the importance of beauty in how this world operates. sure, to me health is beautiful, an all-encompassing physical and mental health. and there’s a lot of my life right now that just isn’t healthy. in real life i couldn’t run and hide, if i jumped out a window i would injure my knees so badly that running would be an impossibility. its not cute. its not even jovial. its giving me nightmares.

to add onto that - i’ve been biting about my nails to bleeding lately. one of them, yesterday, was swollen and dare i say a bit green around the edge near my nail. in the shower i was cleaning my nails and saw the little greenness and i pushed and pus came out!!! that is disgusting! so i pushed it all out and cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide and wrapped it in gauze…so don’t bite your nails kiddies!! but really y’all, i think this health stuff has me cannibalizing my own hands!

and i keep losing my keys. completely forgetting where they might be, then finding them in my panty drawer, or fridge, or in the laundry basket, or in the bag i’d packed.

the good news is, apparently i have changed a lot. several friends popped up after a recent post to remind me that for several years there, anything involving the loss of one’s recently acquired belly content was pulling an adrienne. anytime i drank or smoked that sweet ganja weed, i would lose it. hurray for growth, and a trainable tummy.

but yes y’all…outside indicators indicate that i am stressed. i think a lot because i have some stressed friends right now. these are trying times, and i try to be a bouyant person, but dark times will suck the life out of you. i am inspired by the energy of the world in general, but the specifics? beyond the news i mean, beyond the blood curdling in-and-out forever stupidity of the daily news…i don’t think people are born amazing, you know, just with potential. and you have to opt in, to be a good person and live a good life, its a choice. and the news of the day lets you know just how many people have rejected that choice in all its glory.

but then there are my favorite people, who opted in early…and some of my favorite people are walking long paths with no good light, i think for them total happiness and a value of self are something others experience in theory. it makes you wonder who is right, watching the smartest people you know turn from life.

and its a true test of character i think, what kind of friend you are in a time of need. i find in the past that i have failed by my own markers to be the kind of friend i wished to be, and i have created a lifestyle in which its hard to be more than spotty support to anyone anywhere. so i am trying to overcome the circumstances of my own life and be a good friend now, be thoughtful. put the needs of others before my own. you may not have realized this yet but part of the reason my life is so fun is that i am quite selfish about my time. in the past, beyond my family, i have given my time sparingly with lots of internal stipulations…now i am learning what it means to love unconditionally by choice. and i really like the feeling. it makes me want to give expansive gifts and have hyperbolic hope for these beloveds, this core of people who remind me all the time why life is so interesting under the addictive crap veil of politics.

ah…i think this is why i don’t keep the kind of lovers who wake up with me. this is such private thinking. pillow talk. i think i’ll go for a walk.

let’s be real.

the first 24 hours of having your first electric toothbrush, all you can think or say is buzzzzzzz. ooh - i had some sunflower seeds - buzzzz! ooh - i woke up - buzzzzzz! hmm, water has gank in it sometimes!! buzzzzz! that drilled, buffed, smooth feeling. that bloody clean gum taste. that realization that for 27 years of manic wrist gyrations you’ve only been shifting plaque about on your teeth…this is the reality of tooth cleanliness and i am LOVING it.

i walk the streets like extra, extra - adrienne has a new electric toothbrush!! inspired by a dear friend who said it has a two minute timer which really gives some discipline to the whole endeavor. plus, it buzzes! hee hee…

i humbly submit…lessons of the electric toothbrush:

1. put the toothbrush with toothpaste on it in your mouth before turning it on or you splatter fresh paste far and wee.

2. careful with the gums - it’s spinnin, n—– it’s spinnin! (ref: chris rock, never scared)

3. it will make you want to not eat or do anything to mess up the sheen. i’m on a personal starve-watch now that i am using the e-brush.

i went to the office today. YES. ME. In The Office. other office mates looked up in shock, so i whisked their leader out to lunch. yes, i had a 3 hour meeting with billy and we’re both feelin pretty good about life, love and pursuit of the league. also helped spending a day with malia lazu, who is one of those people who its fun to check in with on the tip of sanity…like - am i crazy or is you crazy? who is crazy? someone is crazy? but it ain’t us right? right!

had big plans to go out last night which were sweated out of me, but tonight, tonight i am really going to see ilana at the palestinian hip-hop show and you should too!!

note: my girl rhonda has a blog called la ciudad chocolat which for name alone deserves your loving eyes.

birthday redux: i am off for my birthday dinner (i told y’all i have the neverending birthday) with my boy kevin polowy. kevin has been my main kpow since 2001, when i discovered this heart of gold who looks like an american pie in blond. he’s a film reviewer for moviefone and premiere and goes to lots of screenings and tonight we’re going to see domino! YAY!

i also got the last of the birthday presents i bought with my amazon gift card from the parents today - richard pryor live on sunset strip and live in concert, plus a memory stick for my camera. that means even more exciting footage of my friends in awkward positions!

finally: sending a big thank you to august wilson: now that your life is complete, i have to send up my gratefulness. what a treat.

wow - the 100th blog celebration was bananas!! thanks to all who signed up on the registry, the matching checkers/battleship set is 2sweet2bdnied! also thanks to all the sarcastic people who hated on my search for koran cliff notes. you just put the fire of allah a little deeper in my heart.

my landlady is getting out of hand. my girl malia was over and had to run to the church of atm and i gave her the keys to run her errand, and when she went out my landlady yelled at her for not locking all the right doors.

i keep waiting for our mr. miagi moment. NO! not cause she is older and asian, but because in general i think all living situations are potential mr. miagi moments. i am constantly waiting for someone with a commanding voice to ask for my rent check, get me in shape, teach me to kick ass and catch flies - and also someone who i can ask where the pool is. but unfortunately i think my landlady may just be a crazy old bitch with no techniques to impart.

prior to my fit of whispered repressed landlord lashings, today was the day of pampering and softening. i woke and worked until malia arrived. today was beauty day: we made the raw egg, olive oil and mayonnaise mix and put it on our hair for an hour, did mud masks, baths and let big russian men beat us with hot soaked oak leaves.

i think the day is also well captured by a ‘what u ate’ moment: i ate sunflower seeds and turkey jerky all day, and had my current favorite soup - broccoli (two cs or two ls - damnit!) and cheddar. yummy! i am having the best time with oreo cookies these days! after some scarring days in my youth around being a mixed kid and the existence of oreos, i took a loooong hiatus from these black and white bits of perfection, but now i have come to a healthy place of loving myself, with all the mystery of what might yet show up in my blood, blessings to the ambiguous spirit of many-cultured baybays. one. so anyway i can love oreo cookies! hmm - jerky, seeds and oreos. maybe i am on a camping trip in my parallel life?

these are just the latest of my food phases. i go through phases with foods where i jones like a pregnant woman - which is perhaps why i often resemble one in profile. i often stay in a phase until i have indulged to the point of disgust and can’t eat whatever it is ever again, past fads have included: rice pudding, pineapple cottage cheese, fish sticks, pizza (several times), french onion soup, bratwurst, cinammon toast crunch. and um…the lettuce and tomato salad from black iris on dekalb with no tomato.

i cut my hair again and i think i did her wrong. as is the usual practice when this occurs, i am kind of itching to get back at it with the scissors. if there’s an elvis in heaven i’ll still have some hair tomorrow!

i got news of an upcoming visit today which sent a chill up my spine

i’m sorry i can’t even continue with this post, i am so upset about the f-ing supreme court. i can’t lie about it. a non-judge is the next nominee?????? like no fronts, no veils? come on, make it slightly more subtle when you are leaning back in the cut to spend the next period of history stripping me of my rights and leaving $10 on the table in club-democrisy.

pop the corks babies, mama’s 100!!

this means i am at least self-absorbed enough to repeat this somewhat manic journaling behavior 100 times. and knowing that, i will try to give a good one today.

starting with:

today i got a call that went roughly like this:

person: yo you will appreciate this
me: wassup
person: so friday my friend played carnegie hall, and they put him and his band up at the W hotel
me: swank
person: yeah so he calls me and my man and is like, yo this is my one chance to party at the W. you down?
me: of course you are.
person: of course i are! so adrienne, we partied at the W hotel like rock stars. it was hot.
me: word
person: we even got kicked out! like 30 guards came to escort us out!
me: oh that’s awesome
person: yes, and i got totally trashed, drinking, and smoking. and i should know better than to drink and smoke cause it always makes me vomit.
me (grossed out): you vomited in the hotel??
person: no! i totally pulled an adrienne!!!

pause for narrative reflection…

a couple of years ago i used to be a different kind of pleasure activist. not the new agey life is a joyful noise type, but the ‘ingest the best ignore the rest’ type…yes, i had my wild days, i would work a depressing job in publishing all day, immerse my head in the nearest pot-cloud all night, and then find joy on the weekends in the form of roughly anything that can be purchased with a smiley face on the packaging! when nothing special was available, i would call my good friend whiskey and say, quite simply, ‘come put the hurt on me you fine old bitch.’

after one such night, my sister and i had to go pick up my mama at the airport. i woke up with a sloshing pool of whiskey still splattering up and over the barricades of my sanity, but i put on a smile and we took the subway, then the little bus shuttle they had in those days at JFK. we waited and there she was, my sweet mama. we said i was feelin a bit under the weather - working so hard you know…and we hopped in the back of a cab. and i even thought to myself ‘good girl - unless she lights a match and you explode you are about to be off the hangover hook!’

somewhere on 3rd avenue the gods of hungover transportation realized the massive wrong i was about to pull off, which would set the wrong karmic precendent for baby alkies from coast to coast, and clutched my belly like triton clutches his demonic joystick before a bad wave. the cab came to a stop, i opened the door, and a bad wave within me loosed roughly a gallon of pure jack daniel’s onto the scorching summer pavement. i then sat up, closed the door, and gave my mother a demure smile.

its been years since i’ve been drunk enough to throw up, but it is with some pride that i listen to someone telling their own personal keith richards story and feel it appropriate to call it an adrienne moment.

in other news, i got off a red eye from canada a few hours ago. i had an amazing time in vancouver. no working phone means big time creativity in trying to communicate. i was sending mental text messages and searching for wi-fi and ended up having an amazing reconnection with a few of the folks from my hollyhock heaven retreat earlier this year - everyone is looking good and bright and had positive stories to tell. then i got to go meet a woman i have been in orbit with for years, since my harm reduction days. she played me justin timberlake videos and took me to cloud 9 on the bc bud express. soulmate!

we were both young in the harm reduction movement when it seemed really exciting, and got to share in the sadness that right now there doesn’t seem to be a commitment to folks like us in that particular movement, then thumbed through the memories of our harm reduction folks we love who are still doing the hardcore frontlines work. i always hope for a new moment there, but it will have another name, and other faces, eh?

yes i said ‘eh’ - what? its an awesome way to end a sentence!

amidst the delirious sleep on the plane i had another - perhaps i’ll just call it a hunger pang for the heartbreaker. the pang felt like this: ‘go to him’. then this other pang in my brain was like, ‘yeah right, go be his therapist slash therapist slash special ed teacher. no one wants that, you don’t want to do it and he doesn’t want it done. give him some room for pride! give yourself some room for new nookie! back away slowly, and smile.’

i am starting to realize that the whole discourse may just be a travel thing, like a twitch that occurs in my heart at roughly 32,000 feet, and that’s all. i wanted to sing the joss stone song at him - ‘a car this fine don’t pass your way every day - dontcha wanna ride baby?’ i think this means the deep love is devolving to a teenage pop song emotion. that’s fine cause my heart looks great blowing big pink bubbles.

by the time i landed i had slept if off. now i am feeling a bit cracky as i try to stay up and get back quickly on east coast time. sofia and jenn are sitting somewhere with lunch hot and the cosby show playin and i am going to set out on an urban voyage to find them. oh this week is a good week to go out in the world and put on your cool hat:

tuesday is rude movements - tchaiko’s last rude movements for a while as she strikes off for hotter places. go to apt around 10ish and find tyler and the crew spinnin the ill-type beats on an international tip. lots of fine people to gawk at sideways.

then wednesday my girl ilana is in town on a bill with this palestinian hip-hop crew DAM: oct 5 at climax (14 ave b) $5-10 sliding scale starts at 9:30 (THANK GOD - pet peeve, shows that start at 11pm on a weeknight. only the artist thinks this is cool). come on out and grind on me.

also, my cab driver today was giving me the skinny on the koran and how useful it would be for me to read some of it, perhaps even daily. i really thought this was sweet and perhaps a divine message, so am going to buy one today, cause ramadan starts this week. happy ramadan!!