The benefits of living on Oak

When I first moved into my apartment, I could not believe the noise decible coming from the street at night. I could hear everyone's conversations clearly, and a car with a broken muffler would easily wake me up at 2am. Like most things, I grew used to it and now I love it. I found it hard to sleep in the safe, quiet, lulled-to-sleep suburbs where my sister lives.

And I get to hear this, at 11:15 at night:

Girl#1: "I'd suck pussy!"
Girl#2: "You'd suck pussy?"
Girl#1: "Yeah, no really, I would."
Girl#2: "You'd suck pussy... you don't suck pussy, you eat pussy.

Also, at about the same time each month, I'll return home, drop my shit in my room, and glance out my window to see 2 porn actors in mid-fuck. The large balding man across the street watching porn doesn't think to close his curtains to block the 52" plasma screen image coming into his living room, and, as it happens, my bedroom. Or maybe he does think to close the curtains and chooses not to because that's his thing. Either way, the shock of the mute porno jars me awake from my work-day cooldown and never ceases to make me burst out laughing.

I heart this crazy motherfucking city.

Boston Cupcakes

Going home is always crazy-making, isn't it? With therapy and psychology and childhood and attachment theory at the beginning and ending of every thought, I did go crazy. It's just so amazing to me how my relationships with my family members can stay the same for so long and suddenly it's like I got prescription glasses and can see the fuzzy lines for what they really are.

With every trip home there are high points and low points. One of the high points was walking down Newbury street early Monday afternoon before my flight. Boston really is adorable. It's quaint without being old and musty. In fact, it's really hip. Walking past euro-style "brasseries," I noted a store called "Johnny Cupcakes." "Don't be fooled," my sister replied. "It's not really a cupcake store." Well, any store that ISN'T a cupcake store and yet uses this word in their name had to be even cooler than if they actually sold them.

Johnny Cupcakes is a t-shirt store. It is set up like a bakery, with their t-shirts displayed in large glass cases and in restaurant-style coolers lining the walls.

All of their designs are, as you probably expected, ridiculously adorable. I scanned them, and then my eyes fell on this.



Ohmygodohmygod. CUTENESS.

And, instead of a bag, they put your adorable tee in a pastry box. Can if get any better? Yes. The tag design is a closeup of rainbow sprinkles and inlaid on the tag is the Johnny Cupcakes logo that becomes a stencil when you poke them out.



Can it get any better? Yes. On the inside of each t-shirt is a 'secret print' that the awesome dude behind the counter told me about as I skipped out the door, unabashedly squealing "ohmygodcuuuuuuuuuute" over and over. I told him to come to San Francisco. I hope he listens. In the meantime, check out their stuff at Johnny Cupcakes.

And, of course, being away gives me that warm-fuzzy-perspective feeling of life here. Driving in from South San Francisco, I felt a perfect calm once I saw the city. Seeing the fluffball of fog sitting wispy-like on the hills reminded me, as it always does, how to breathe.

The song "Happy Together" entered my mind and I sang to myself,

"I can't see me lovin' nobody but you
For all my liiiiiiiiife"

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be
The only one for me is you, and you for me
So happy togetherrrrrrr!"

heh.

Attachment Theory

As I finish my lifespan and human development course, I now realize how infinitly important it is to understand one's own childhood. While this is true for those who choose to have children, it is also true for those of us who plan not to. To understand attachment styles, that is how my primary caregiver responded to my needs as an infant, is to understand how and why I behave and think the way I do today. But it doesn't stop there, fortunately. We all have hundreds of thousands of unconscious processes as all other animals have. That is, we don't have to think in order for our heart to beat, for our lungs to take in air. However, we also have consciousness. And because of this, we are able to become free from these neuronal pathways that have been laid down in our infancy and trodded over and over and over again in our lifetime. This is why and how therapy works. If we establish a secure attachment with our therapist, we are then able to gain consciousness into the previously unconscious loss, rejection, shame and humiliation most of us experienced as an infant. It is through this attachment and consciousness that we can "become free" and lay down *new* neuronal pathways, new ways of thinking and behaving so that we don't continue to transfer these deep losses in our infancy onto our children and onto our friends, co-workers, lovers, and partners. And perhaps more importantly, this empowering freedom allows us to behave and think in more helpful and positive ways for ourselves.

In other words, read this book:

The early bird beats the system

He looked like a really nice grandfather. I imagine he had a son and a daughter, both grown. He probably has a modest home just outside of Sausalito, so he gets to say he lives there. His dog, Rusty, brings him his grandpa slippers though a little slobbery every evening when he gets home. He chuckles at the slobber and sits in his high-back Queen Anne leather chair. "Oh, Rusty" he always says, smiling. His wife, a reformed crack-addict, heats up his whiskey glass just as he likes and pours him a tallish glass. She sneaks a sip before entering into the great room where he sits. Pictures of fishing lures line the walls - he doesn't fish but finds beauty in the lures.

Today, he sat at his judgement stand in room "A" of the traffic court. He smiles at the defendants as they walk up one by one to the podium. A lawyer rushes in, his pant leg stuck in his right boot, holding several tattered file folders. The judge even smiles at him.

He then calls my name. "Oh, you're scheduled for 10:30. You're an hour early." "Yes sir" I reply. I wished I had said "Your Honor." I've always wanted to say that. As in, "Your Honor, I plead not-guilty to this retarded ticket I got from this asshole cop who pulled me over for taking a god-damned left turn on a yellow light." "Hey Marybelle - she's an hour early" he says to his file clerk. She shrugs. "Well, there is no police reporting, so you're free to go."

Balloons in tasteful gold and blue colors fall from the ceiling. The officer sitting in the back jumps on his desk and starts dancing, surprisingly well. A marching band consisting only of trumpeteers busts into the traffic court room playing "I love a parade." Everyone stands up and cheers. I wave at my fans as I leave the room, a slip in my hand that used to say I owed $380.00 now says 'dismissed.' "Don't worry" I assure them. "You'll all be dismissed as well." I say this even though I know it's not true. It's about being there for your fans.

I leave San Francisco County Court house smiling. The early bird beats the system!

Read This Book.

We're taught in our first writing classes in high school and college how to describe things. We're taught that a precise and precocious use of adjectives gets an "A" on the story/poem/whatever. This book, "Story of O" is not only exciting all by itself, it reminds me that sometimes, rather than an onslaught of information, too little information is much much more enticing.

Read it.

Feet piles

Feet piles always make me feel better.