I still have to finish packing

In three hours I'm getting on a plane to NYC. This post is really just to tell you to stop reading this blog for a little bit, and read My Estonia Blog for the next few weeks, instead.

That's all, I have to go...

Testify!

My roommates and I saw Reeve Carney last night at Molly Malone's, this little Irish pub on the corner of Fairfax and 6th St. I sat in the back of the room, vodka tonic in hand, soaking in the crowd and the guitar-howling, soul-thrilling heave and lunge of the blues. The house lights cast an orange glow over the stage, feeling like a sepia-toned photograph as we watched this rosy-cheeked kid reach way down past his gut and to his toes, pulling up emotions flung well beyond his years.

And I remembered what I had forgotten, what I always forget -- how much I love that feeling music, live music, gives me. When that rip-roaring beat has a hold on my hips and it's just a whole lot of sh-sh-sh-shakin' going on 'cause I can't stop moving, and even if you stopped one part, another would start, like a toe, or a finger, or my neck, or my head and soon they're all working in tandem and it's a rhythm that's moving through me -- something like a train, something like the Holy Spirit, taking hold, fire aflame, screaming "hallelujah, testify!" Every pull of a guitar string, every beat of a drum, every tickle of a piano key sends shivers down every last inch of my spine, telling me "you are alive, you are alive, you are alive, feel alive!"

Whew.

Reeve did some high holy rolling last night. Channeling a little Jeff Buckley, a little Eric Clapton, a little Jackson Browne, he conjured up deep longings, the kind that can only come out in a song. The kind that makes me glad that art cuts away the articife of conversation and explanation and pierces through to the heart of human emotion.

Gone

I cut my hair yesterday. Actually, a woman named Pauline cut my hair yesterday. I predicted she'd take about 50% of my hair away, but she probably took more. Me likey.

'Cause sometimes you just want an orange.

Nothing fancy here, I'm just testing out a "loaner" camera from Clee. Can't have a trip to Europe looming without a camera ready. This one is a pretty good macro, but I'm still figuring out how to coax a really great image out of it. I'm finding that my little four megapixel Canon jobby was better at low light and close up images, despite this new camera having five-point-three megapixel capabilities. Whoever said bigger was better, anyway?

Here's another one, taken this weekend with my buddy Ludmilla. I call these girls the Three Graces.



Milla's teaching me the clandestine art of street photography. You can check out some of her photos here.

(ps) Click on the photos, they look nicer when they're larger, kind of like sponges.

Momma Mia

I talked to my mom again last night after her afternoon at the funeral home. She said something that made me really proud of her. To paraphrase:

"Yeah, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Things have been easier ever since I had that revelation last week. Did I not tell you about that? Well, I was lying in bed the other day and and I realized that I've been trying to recreate the world as it was, and I knew I had to stop that, because the world isn't going to be that way anymore, and I need to allow myself the space to become this next version of me, to be the person I need to be now. So, I've been getting rid of your dad's things one-by-one, like today I threw out his old prescription bottles. Anyway, I've felt much more liberated since then"

Maybe that's not exactly clear. She's not trying to erase the memory of Dad, but simply feel free to live life without him, apart from him, which she's not felt before, at all.

What she said stunted my brain momentarily. She sounds like a completely different person, and by completely different I mean better, and not better as in, "she's getting better since Dad died," but better in a holistic sense, like better than she's ever been. She's growing, she's relaxing, and wow it's just amazing.

So what do you do with a bunch of ashes, anyway?

You ship them, apparently.

Mother went to the funeral home today to fill out the appropriate paperwork for Dad's ashes to be shipped to Estonia. Because, well really, would you want to be bringing those along on board your aircraft? I guess no. We could, but ashes so we've heard, weigh quite a lot and considering the strict luggage weight limits in that part of the world...well you do the math.

She's shipping them now because we'll be there in three week's time and it was the man's wish to have his remains scattered in his Motherland. Mom got ahold of one of her cousins, who informed her that she'd gladly accept shipment at her house and wait for us.

Oh yeah, this might be a good time to remind you all that I'm headed for Estonia with my Mom and brother, Erik in a little over two weeks. We'll be there for about fifteen days, with a quick four-day jaunt to the Golden City of Prague. I blogged about this a long time ago, and it's now becoming a reality.

Excited? Oh yes. Some of the trip is bound to be somber, a bit bittersweet, considering Dad never made it back alive.

And yes, of course I'm starting a blog for it.

I'm so glad I have a boss who makes me laugh.

Adventure!

I have surmised that San Francisco would be a wonderful city in which to fall in love.

Actually, any city would be a wonderful place to fall in love, but I digress...

Huge, huge thank yous go out to Katy and Annelies for being such great last-minute hosts. Since some other plans had fallen through this weekend, I decided at the last minute to head to San Francisco. And I mean really last minute, like noon on Saturday last minute. And now I'm tired, so so tired, having rolled back into the City of Angels at around 3am. But the trip was so worth it. As both Michelle and my mom said, you're in your twenties, just go!

How true...

(An aside: I was actually surprised to find out that when Mommy-O was my age, she was making 10-hour long hauls to Toronto from NYC for two-day weekend trips...now that's crazy)

So, I spent much of the weekend going to birthday parties of strangers, a fun yet tiring proposition. All the hand-shaking and name-remembering you could handle in a weekend. A rousing night of karaoke on Saturday has caused me to realize that my public singing skills are definitely lacking. It's all about the performance really, not whether you can carry a tune. Note to self, work on showmanship...But it's the fun of it that counts, and that (check) was accomplished handily.

Let me say for a moment too that I loved Katy and Annelies's friends, they are good, good people, opera singer and crazy seminarians and Spanish ex-pats, the varied variety of which are difficult to find in Los Angeles, where there is much more career and lifestyle hegemony.

Sunday was a beautiful day full of more birthday parties and a long walk in the "Avenues" of San Francisco, city blocks, how I love you! Neighborhoods, behold your splendor. It had been a long time since I've been in a walkable city.

Anyway, the real "point" of going to Northern California this weekend was to go to a house concert that Annelies was hosting for her friends Miranda Stone and Chris Hale. Miranda's a folk singer from Ontario, Canada and Chris is a sitar-playing white guy from upstate New York. They're married and have a wonderful and hilarious cameraderie with each other. I stayed through the end of Miranda's set before setting back for home, only getting to hear one of Chris's Hindi devotionals. They were both wonderful, though.

Oh, it's good to get away sometimes. I feel like I've been gone for ages. I need more coffee though, and to brush my teeth, excuse me...