And then we painted our kitchen parrot green.

I'm not going to amsterdam. The grown up in me that wants to face my traveling-induced credit debt won out.

A different kind of homesickness struck tonight. Unexpectedly. Could be that the period is finally coming after the alleviation from fake hormones in my system or the seeing shoplifting playing at the bottom of the hill made me dizzy with how good they are and nostalgia.

Or it could be the newfound sense of fear I have living here. Saturday night I was driving my flexcar home and got boxed in by two cars and sort of surrounded by a bunch of kids that were hanging out on the sidewalk. One guy walked up to my door like he was going to open it. I didn't flinch or try to lock the doors or anything. It was a car share car with not a damn thing in it or any personal attachment to me. It was pretty clear I was just being fucked with. I backed up and somehow managed to get out of it. 2) This happened after walking up on two guys conspicuously scoping roommate's cousin's truck mid afternoon. 3) almost all of shoplifting's gear stolen out of their van last night a few blocks away (oh the irony!) 4) The topper-while riding my bike home tonight, two guys pulled knives and mugged two other guys on a well lit four-lane street while I was a few feet away from them. Not knowing what else to do or event thinking it is a real solution, I called the cops. It was over before the operator even asked where I was.

I mean we are mainly just talking about stuff here and at least property theft isn't physically injurous to another person. I've just never been around such an abundance of street crime...in what seems like yuppieville, nestled on a peninsula across the water from the city with the one of the highest homicide rates per capita in the country. I guess that's wherein the tensions lies. The Bay Area. It's so full of contradictions.

I've tried to combat being a victim of crime by trying to remain oblivious to it. By not keeping any sort of a tally going so as to be able to point to all the reasons why you should be afraid and then seem afraid and then seem like a good person to ask for money or what have you. Right now I'm sort of huddled under covers of my bed, in the safest place I could think of. Most of what I own is in near proximity and I'm pretty sure I couldn't sell any of it, save for this computer, for any more than $10 on craig's list. (believe me, figuring this out was an exercise in the aforementioned financing amsterdam/paying off credit cards scenario) so I'm not really afraid of losing anything. I just don't want a wall to start being erected inside of me, obscuring the clarity of understanding the pointlessness of being in fear all the time or what the history is that has led us to be in this sort of social climate.

Help.

Okay first off, last night I adopted a new philosophy (thanks to the brilliance of my roommate), "don't school, say no instead." Alternately you could say it, "say no to schooling boys." This is in regards to being in relationships with boys who show enormous poetential, that I make a lot of excuses and allowances for, that I have basically stayed with because I think that they will figure it out someday and all my working through shit will pay off. But you know what? I'm not training any more guys to be great for their next girlfriends (another quote from roommate via movie) or stroking their egos so that they might figure out how to make me feel good in our relationship. Last night I took a stab at doing what is good for her, for real. Instead of relying on my perpetual optomism to make any relationship work, I said "we've got to let it go," to which Tyler said, "okay." The lack of fight was at once both infuriating and reassuring that I was doing the right thing. He said he felt bad when thinking about me being far away. but like bad, negative, not sad and like he wanted to talk to me. Like he wanted to not want to talk to me. He also said he thought of me as pining away for him all the time while in SF. Give a girl some fucking credit. It's all way too cliche. He said enough nice things that in the past would have made me pause and reconsider but I'm taking care of myself in a relationship first, starting today.

I listened to enough will oldham and cried and cried and cried to wake up with a different eyelid structure this morning. You know that song Master and Everyone? I swear to god that could be tyler. I may love this guy (bonnie prince pictured right), but I'm not dating him.




Anyway, enough of that. Please help me make a very important decision! I got into the Anouk Van Dijk workshop (that's her in the photo) in Amsterdam that is happening this July. Plane tickets are $1200!!! Plus the workshop costs, plus housing. I think I can come up with the money but I will be broke broke broke and still in debt from moving. Plus my job is only a 6 month contract (e.g. no job security to rely on for dealing with the debt) and I was thinking about going to language school next winter. At 29, is it ridiculous ot still spend every cent on things I want right now and not figure out how to pay off debt and put money away? Do I pass up this chance to go to Amsterdam and wait and see if it happens next year? In post break up mood, I'm like fuck it, let's go. I'm sort of jonsing for getting out of the country, for indulging myself artistically, and this woman is the first choreographer in a long time that has really excited me. Please advise! and please ignore if this sounds reminescent of a sex in the city episode with the relationship analysis and rhetorical questions. I've been watching too much of it.

ps. I love you.

I live in San Francisco. I walk up the hill that looks like a movie backdrop behind my house and look at this. I pass stories woven in spray paint frozen on the sides of buildings, peaking out from the walls above street level, framing people moving about in the BAY windows, in their VICTORIAN houses and apartments. The first plant outside my kitchen window must be related to a palm. It's like a palm tree on a stick, next to some vine, next to some fruit tree, next to the evergreen. There is a bus stop outside my bedroom window and in the morning I'm woken by the sounds of 8-10 kids yelling at each other, running, and kicking random things around. It seems that is it a constant game with no rules, no discernable object, just the yelling and sounds like they are kicking something.

And then I go to an office for approximately 8 hours of a day. This is foreign to me. Everyone says that I'm a workaholic but being at Vera never felt like I as "AT WORK." Yeah, I was working, always (or chatting), and it felt like work but it didn't have the quiet drone that sits over a room filled with people all quietly typing and talking, and playing their music inaudibly. It is a cool office with brick and glass and transparent walls. But still there is the drone, the typing, the inaudible music. I'm adjusting.

And I'm surrounded by some of the smartest and most savvy people I've ever met. Last night I had the pleasure of going out for a few hours with four incredible woman and guess what we talked about? Politics and movement building. Yes, these things are our jobs. Yes, we think all day long about them. But to sit down and break shit down with smart, good communicators and think critically about strategies in general, our own strategies, etc felt momentous. I don't know why it doesn't happen more often, but whatever, I'm just glad it did.

Been feeling dizzy a lot lately. Trying to kick the caffiene habit while simultaneously wrap my brain around how to be an effective organizer and be swimming in newness. It feels like a visit, this move. It feels like a piece of me hasn't arrived yet.