TIBCO team camp has come and gone. Ten days in southern California and it was beautiful; nary glimmer of broken glass on the streets nor a piece of litter on the roads. This could be the closest thing to bicycle paradise in the western hemisphere. I also must say, a team of baby blue kits over tan legs brings about some fans along the streets. We stayed on the beach in this gorgeous summer home, friends of LJ's in Carpinteria, CA. The first half of the camp we spent with sponsors and we spent a few days touring the Specialized and Voler factories. We had dinner a couple nights with Michelle Voler, who's a super fantastic lady and has a great thing going on. Everyone at Specialized was also really cool, and the entire headquarters is like a museum. Free donuts, coffee, and fruit juice - the works! Reynolds, Strava, and Kurt Kinetic stayed with us a couple days at the beach house. Kurt Kinetic was doing some additional work for a documentary, which was also really interesting to be surrounded by video and camera crew. I did my first video interview right there on the Kinetic trainer. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but I spoke from the heart and didn't jumble up my words so I think it came out ok! We also did a lot of team photo shoots. Action shots on the bike, head shots in our jersey and with the Rudy Project eyewear, FRS products, Volvo team cars, and Patagonia clothing. It was like nothing I've done in the past, not to mention motor pacing behind an open-gate pickup truck at 40 miles an hour with the photographer literally hanging out the back end camera in hand, video guy on the other side. What a blast, especially watching Vero and Wheeler improvising on camera, quite an act to follow. Another new aspect was how everyone organized dinners and cooked for the household. I gotta say my teammates can cook, they're funny, strong, and know good food; what more could anyone ask for?

Also worth noting: The fresh ocean air off the coast of California. Everything kind of tastes like the sea, mixed with breezes of orange tree blossoms, fresh sage and eucalyptus. When I was suffering up Gibralter, to keep my tempo I just kept thinking of crew rowing and somehow the smell of the sage kept my focus grateful for the moment and not on how much I wish we had mountains in Austin. I love it, pain and all. By the final day, my legs and lungs were a little on the burnt side, but I feel ready for the season. More now than ever.

On the way home in the airplane I was reading a magazine I just discovered called Whole Living. On one of the last few pages I saw a photo of a little girl running barefoot on a beach - at closer look I realized it was taken at the exact same location where we stayed. What are the odds of that? Which brings me to realize how much seeing this photo in the magazine completely solidified that here with this team is where I'm meant to be in my life right now. With these people, doing this work. What an inspiring way to end the trip and embark on the future. The caption of the photo discusses the "blissful freedom" that the parent's felt while watching their little girl running barefoot on the same beach that they grew up on - the same beach we stayed on!

Here's a shot of the magazine clipping and some other cool shots from the trip...

Beach house headquarters





Sam and me climbing, about 40 minutes up.

Top of Gibralter pass


Cruising up the coastline of Santa Barbara



We all like the FRS hoodie



Coffee shops and fro yo



Hanging out around the dinner table

Big Spider's Back

http://bigspidersback.com/

Big Spider's Back :: Mind Grapes from Do Yon Kim on Vimeo.

Warped from Karla Santos on Vimeo.

Big Spider's Back:: Memory Man from Do Yon Kim on Vimeo.

My spring schedule with Team TIBCO

Drentse 8: March 8
Ronde Drenthe: March 10
Novillon: March 11
San Dimas: March 16-18
Flanders: April 1
Energiewacht Tour: April 4-8
Presbyterian: April 14
Gelderland: April 15
Fleche Wellone: April 18
Sunny King: April 21
Speedweek: May 4-6
Gatineau: May 19-21
Philadelphia: June 6

I've decided to keep a more thorough record of this year's racing season. Primarily because it will be my first year with a team of this magnitude - a crew of super-talents... I'm among greatness. I am excited, motivated, and inspired. It's everything I've been working for since I started pedaling with a messenger bag and knobby tires. It's why I could never go too far away from the ectasy and suffering of a bicycle race, even with all the school and work piling up around me. It would be a waste of wild experiences to become too busy to document the coming year. All begins in a week when I will be heading west to the Santa Barbara area of California for our team's training camp.

Last night I finally started dreaming about racing and it was good.

Tim Furey's Beings

Channeling inner-superheroes and inter-dimensional beings from New Jersey based Tim Furey.

Helen Frankenthaler

December 12, 1928 - December 27, 2011

Enjoying coffee this morning and gearing up for the weekly Rothe Training triplicate workout; run, core, ride. Which I actually think "yay, easy day" when I see it. So at the moment, I'm doing none other than perusing the web with my favorite bookmarked media that have been neglected. Like checking out Marc Jacobs spring rtw 2012 collection and I'm wondering what he's going to close the show with. Then I get close to the end of the slides and I noticed this unusual face, muscular legs, real arms, etc. Then I realized she is MJ's closing look. Hmmm, I've gotta do a search on this bizarre girl. So here she is, my muse for the moment: Kelly Mittendorf http://kmitt.tumblr.com/
On one hand I'm impressed with the her reception - a real girl, strong face, average height. And on the other I think I'm drawn to her story because I love the idea of being different and finding your way anyway, and when you get there, you see the top isn't as far away as you once thought. Sometimes I feel like an outsider who's found her way in a world she never quite felt a part of, but then I realize we've all got our own story, we all feel different. It's conquering the feelings of isolation and intimidation and feeling confident anyway. That's when I breakthrough can happen for anyone.
Photo by Billy Kidd

I haven't been writing much lately. I've been reading a little instead, trail riding, stretching more, and running regularly. All of my favorite ways to adjust to the change of season and dropping temps.

September from start to finish was still morbidly hot and a total blur.
I spent it hurting from a crash into a brutally hard fence in the final sprint out of the last corner at the Tour of Austin. The rest of the time off and in bed I tried to focus on how to better let go of the crash and not to be angry about it. Andrew helped a lot along the way and by October I was able to run again. Naturally, I did so daily for two weeks straight. My first ride back was the North American bicycle courier championships which I didn't do very well in but I wanted to go to just to be around the whole messenger culture since it had been so long since the last NACCC I did in 2002. The best part was seeing a familar face or two and all the heckling going on along the sidelines going on from Andrew, Logan, Heath & Sharron.
During the courier race it was like going back to visit school grounds I grew up in but finding all the buildings and land have since been remodeled or completely renovated. It all felt vaguely familiar, but like trying to remember a dream after waking, only hints of familiarity. Nothing concretely nostalgic. If there is such a thing.

Despite not keeping up with writing, I still feel the desire to record the beauty I see in the world around me; but I'm doing so in different ways. Like sharing it a bit more privately, not in as many traditional mediums. It's the way it has to be for the place I'm at and probably will be this way for some time. I'm trying to keep up with photographing and keeping my libraries current and organized. Still full of inspiration, but within the inspiration, a new inspiration is born. I'm now learning how to grow into it all, old and new. I'm keeping up, or trying my best to keep up with but doing so quietly. As if acquiring a covert collection of all of my favorite things for preservation and refinement, only to one day pop open like a bottle of champagne at the blink of a new year.

Not to say that I'm at a failure to produce or follow art right now. It shouldn't be classified as a failure at all, of any sort, but more a way of internalizing this energy and keeping all inside, like fuel for the coming journey.

Or I'll sign off with this instead...


Reaching my voice over miles and miles to touch another quiet voice. The strangeness of love, longing, jealousy, like doors brushed with fingertips. Open some, keep others closed, others try to open a little, peeking inside the peephole.
Ghost colored dust blanketing the lampshades, the silent glow of 60 watt luminescence.
The drifting of separate people, each occupied in separate ways.
Big blue eyes and sun freckles.
The smell of earth, rotten wood, crumbling moss, the sent of damp cedar.
The debate about whether to replace, make new again, silence.
The sound of breathing. These are what my dreams are like.

I'm in an airport heading to NYC to race my bicycle. I'm flipping through the September edition of Vogue, sitting in a long, hidden, silvery corridor. Here I am at a silver table and chair, looking out onto the massive runways the heat rolls off the planes in quivering waves. I'm thinking, typing, and listening, watching the quicksilver of heat smearing its way across the engine air.
A cool breeze of AC occasionally swirls and drafts around my new birthday perfume from my sweetie.

I think back on the events of the day leading up to this quiet moment. Before I left the house today I baked a turkey and grilled all the veggies in the fridge. I stir fried quiona and lentils, made a salad to nibble with a carrots and tomotoes and a couple pieces of bacon. I drank the last of the milk, brewed coffee, when it cooled, I slammed the rest of it. Then I placed all the food from the oven and range into the freezer to freeze until after I return. So Andrew and I can enjoy a good home cooked meal together, it's been a while.

So now my hair smells a little like a restaurant kitchen. It would have been nice to have time to shower before the airport. Water somehow clears my mind. I never know how long I've been in the shower. Time ceases to exist in there because my mind spaces out a little bit. Which is allowed when in the shower. Sometimes the same thing happens when I'm riding too, all of a sudden the sun is about to set and I'm miles and miles from home. It's just it's too beautiful to abandon a setting sky. Everything surrenders, the wind changes, the birds fly in waves, thd bugs come out to sing. When I realize that I don't remember the last 10 miles, I somehow know they included a couple stoplights and several turns, and that's when I know it was a good ride. It all fuzes together like a long spine and time disappears into a mental vortex.

*schllllloooooop*

There are a couple of tiny tree branches painted red and purple on my windowsil. One of them is deep violet, and the other is arterial red and violet stripped. Strangely, in a childlike way. I'm glad i didn't throw them away, they have a certain beauty this way too.

Today I rode my bicycle alone. I miss my guy. It was a little lonesome but I saw funny things on the way home. It all made me laugh a little, but it's not the same when alone.

Outside of the window, it's black black black except for the streetlight shining on the hood of my nearby car. There is no wind, everything looks so still. I wonder if Andrew is sleeping.

I can see my reflection in the window, superimposed over the street light. If I focus on the window, I'm a bit clearer, but if I focus on the light, I become a blur of eyes and hair. A conscious memory, a subconscious dream. A blur, out of sight, and I dissipate into thin air.

Words are so awesome. They're an intellectual-sensual-emotional batter like a layer cake that you taste in your imagination through known experiences, visualized through love, understood through smell, touch, excitement, pleasure, even pain. Frosted in ink, out of the oven, and into our brain. This is why I had to go back to school, to study theory behind literature. All kinds, so much to learn and to absorb, but there's only so much theory can teach, it's merely a path to a door, wherein lies a world of creativity.

I want you to stay in my head for a little while, because it's a fun place to be.

I'll go to bed soon. Sleep is usually a better preparation for bike racing than training is, usually.

A piece of information for you: On warm nights, I like to sleep with my head on the windowsill and my arms outstretched of the window. The warm breeze over the crickets as I drift away are wonderful things.

This summer I realized I'll always spend more time in the sun and always get more freckles. And you know what? I love having freckles. I like when the sun sings into my eyes, blinding and deafening them. Today I looked back to the sun, and its white light shivered into a burst of a billion pieces, icy, triangular brightness. When the mists around my eyes cleared, the sky shone white, then blue and the twin curves of spinning crowns twisted away from helical view. I looked into the trees too. And each leaf danced a different dance, quickly, each a fluttering staccato.

Everything feels heavy, I'm not going to say anything else - you should tell me something.

Lights off. I have a companion. We are facing each other, he is stroking my shoulders. Lightly.
He has wonderful hands, strong wrists and fingers. Surgeon hands. He uses them to stroke the small of my back.
My eyes are shut, and he grasps my hand, pulling it between us, until we are palm inside of palm, anterior to posterior. The ceiling of the hands arching, like an old-world cathedral. Marveling. The world spins slightly, as though I'm a little drunk. I'm not thinking about anything but the tactile sensation. The slight dampness between our hands like dew in a hollow because of the contours of our palms.
My eyes snap open, suddenly. Wide and engaging. Courageous and vulnerable; the softest, most subtle elements of happiness.

It's amazing what fingers will do if you cut the connection between the brain to the hands, taking all the little tollbooths out along the way.

I watched the landscape inside of a wine glass for a couple of minutes the other night. It varies depending on the body of the wine. Sometimes with heavier reds the legs are thick and strong, sometimes with champagne, they're thin and dissipating, waif-like. I tipped the flute up to take a drink, and ended up transfixed by the bubbles, silhouetted on the surface of the inside of the glass, like a firework on the fourth of July. My fingerprint became a blurring pyrotechnic effect. Then I took a drink, and watched as it all sparkle and twinkle away.
Worth noting, for dinner tonight: Steamed garlic and bok choy, asparagus, and celery with peanuts and sesame-garlinc pork. Mmmm.

I need to go to the ocean sometime soon. I've been feeling too worried late at night when I'm alone lately. It hasn't anything to do with the ocean, which just sits there, majestic. The tide rises, and falls. I am so tiny in relation to that. It makes me feel better. Kind of like the stars, we're just babies. We're just sub-particles of space dust, really.

I move out of this apartment tomorrow. Tonight is the last night I'll sit up late and type a blog at this table, the one with the lion's feet at the base of its legs. The last time I'll sit at this particular table in the old chair from the 1960's, the one that starts to hurt my pelvis after a little while from its steely surface. My friend & I took it from the stage after the 'Man Or Astro Man?' show at the Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton, Texas. I was 19, it's seen above in the photograph. Would I do it now, steal a chair from an space rock show? Probably not, but at the time it fit snugly in the back of my metro and we've been a good match ever since. This chair will last forever, longer than me.

I'll miss these quiet times. So quiet that I can hear the plastic frame squeaking and wrestling against the wall from its balancing counterpoint on the table. Tiny little chirps of plastic while I type.

Ahhh, sigh, I'm such a scared child sometimes. This is better than being homeless. Have I grown spoiled? Am I wicked? I keep moving forward.

I'm going to start going back to yoga, I really am. I'll find the money somehow. if i'm not going to take medication - which I may or may not need, then I need to have yoga in my life, I think.

photo: http://www.vogue.it/en

The sun was out today. Really out, not just peeking. I sat outside for a spell in shorts and a too-big t-shirt with the sleeves and neck cut open wide, knees together and feet turned inward. My favorite way to sit. The sun warms like nothing else. It's not like fireplace, nor a warm vent - which are both nice, but the sunshine is different. The sun makes the air smell different to me. So nostalgic mixed with burning charcoal grills, when I don't mind the smoke so much. I rather enjoy the smell of smoke in the summer, a campfire or a charcoal grill in the warm sunshiny air.

Today I've been sitting inside for the rest of the time. Every door and window is open. Leaves are blowing in across the floors. Right now I'm stopping to glance up occasionally and look out the door. A moment ago, there was a squirrel watching me, it was hooked onto the tree in a funny way. After that, a bold male cardinal who stopped and gazed in for a while, well, a while for a bird at least. I hear the leaves rustling again, which is different than the rustling palms of southern california, still like rushing water, but in Texas it's more like a rambling creek - less like a brooding, dreaming ocean.

This morning the sky was deep bright blue, the sun was uninterrupted. Into the late afternoon it's still blue with a wash of white, superficial and moving. Right now I'm perfectly safe. Even with the sun in my eyes, I can still see clearly.

I'm on the floor and I smell like myrrh and vanilla and salt from sweat. It's one of those scents that catches in your nose for a moment. Warm and bronzing. I think so. It smells of a mix: One part human, two parts energy and life.

I slept in Betty's bed last night while a friend came over and slept on the couch. It's a safe place with a good friend, the best combination. Where I really want to sleep is on an immense teddy bear with certain someone. Warm and soft and inviting.

Photo from http://www.zeitgeistudios.com/

I'm so poor right now that I can't afford to go to yoga, I honestly believe it has a lot to do with why I've been feeling and acting a little weird. I miss it a lot, donation classes are available, but I would donate more than I should, so I'd probably end up spending more that way. I don't have enough discipline to actually do it on my own everyday, I would rather go to the studio, that's where all the progress through practice takes place. Maybe I'll take money out of savings, it's a worthy investment, but I really ought not to, I need that for so many other things. It's just, I'm not so bendy as I was even just a month ago. Sad. I'm glad our team made a little money this weekend at Redlands.

I've been feeling like slowdancing with somebody. Billie Holiday's on, and it feels kind of soft and contented and quiet before I get up and tackle the airports today. I wish I had the voice to be a lounge singer, hushed and subdued. My voice is too high and puny. I'd love to slither all over the stage seducing everyone, lying on the piano. If only my stage fright would go away. I'm working on it.

I wish I had more self discipline. I could go to bed earlier, read, and stretch more. It's really a struggle. I've got an addictive personality. Right now it's seven-fifty am and I didn't sleep until almost 2 am. I woke up at seven and I came here, online, looking at cycling news and gretchen's blog. I can't help myself because today is her Monday Mood Board post. The problem is I'm doing all of this when I should be asleep so my eyes are burning and my back still hurts from the race yesterday. Damn stupid of me to offset my sleeping cycle. I'll try falling back asleep now. Wish me luck.


Photo from http://gretchenjonesnyc.tumblr.com/

Your full moon taunts me

You put me, you put me on yourself
You've been at yourself
You woke me up last night
and my eyes lit up like lights
like a string of pearls
but you still did what you wanted

and all the time it took you to get your self straight
all that time it took you to get your self straight
all that time it took you to get yourself straight
was too late
so work harder for the things you made in me

And your full moon taunts me
And your thoughts they got me
(got me in
got me in)

and all the time it took you to get your self straight
all that time it took you to get your self straight
all that time it took you to get yourself straight
was too late
so work harder for the things you made in me

Did i reset what I started?
Did I resist what I wanted?
Do I think you've got my number?
I'm not the one to continue on.

all that time it took you to get yourself straight
was too late
so work harder for the things you made in me

My darling Clementine

I spent five minutes carefully seeding a clementine, so I could savor it while I read. The first section tasted like some kind of strange perfume, tart, heady, and bright. I then proceeded to stuff the rest of it into my mouth all at once. I nearly choked on juice and sheer amusement of twisted tangeriney-orangy fibers.

There's a sense, inside of a rush, which is savoring.

Warpaint

Ms. Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart quotes:

Adventure is worthwhile in itself.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.

I want to do it because I want to do it.

In soloing - as in other activities - it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.

Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.

Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn't any good reason to refer to it.

Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure , the process is its own reward.

The most effective way to do it, is to do it.

The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.

There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows, one of which rolls.

Women must pay for everything. They do not get more glory than men for comparable feats, but, they also get more notoriety when they crash.

The wind in the trees sounds like the ocean would were it made of leaves. It's dark out, so I can't see the leaves, but I know that branches are nodding and dancing. The sky is clear and dark, like sparkling grape soda. It's winking with little carbonations of stars. It's just slightly too bright out to see many stars, but I know they're still there. Up beyond the mountain tops, sometimes the sheer infinity of stars is overwhelming - breathtaking. On this side of the mountains, there are just enough to be comforting, tucking you into sleep. You know that the rest of the stars are up there. Just hanging out, wishing you well, one by one, even though they can't all be seen at once.

The Sundays - Can't Be Sure

give me a story and give me a bed
give me possessions
oh love luck and money they go to my head like wildfire
it's good to have something to live for you'll find
live for tomorrow
live for a job and a perfect behind, high time
England my country the home of the free, such miserable weather
but England's as happy as England can be
why cry

and did you know desire's a terrible thing
the worst that I could find
and did you know desire's a terrible thing
but I rely on mine, a-ah

England my country the home of the free, such miserable weather
but England's as happy as England can be
why cry

and did you know desire's a terrible thing
the worst that I could find
and did you know desire's a terrible thing
but I rely on mine
did you know desire's a terrible thing
it makes the world go blind
but if desire, desire's a terrible thing
you know that I really don't mind

and it's my life
and though I can't be sure what I want any more
it will come to me later
well it's my life.... and it's my life
and though I can't be sure if I want any more
it will come to me later... ah, yeah

Watching plants move in the breeze is strange and invigorating. I've never completely figured it out only because I have difficulty deciding if it's actually the air moving the branches, or a power inside of the plant speaking and breathing.
The branches nod and wave, gesturing at whomever might be watching, or just making movement around, like an aquarium.

I feel the same way when I take a long car ride, or a boat ride and my hair is untied. It will leap up, it will writhe and tangle. It suddenly takes on a life of its own. I can watch as it hovers and waves, often twisting like the small tornado connecting the surface of bathwater and the drain in an emptying bathtub. I took a bath tonight, I used grapefruit and sandalwood bath salts. It was nearly perfect.

Camera Obscura - French Navy

Spent a week in a dusty library
Waiting for some words to jump at me
We met by a trick of fate
French navy, my sailor mate

We met by the moon on a silvery lake
You came my way
Said, "I want you to stay."

You and your dietary restriction
Said you loved me with a lot of conviction
I was waiting to be struck by lightning
Waiting for somebody exciting

Like you
Oh, the things that you do
You make me go, "Oooh"
With the things that you do, you do, you do

I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it
I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it

I'll be criticized for lending out my heart
I was criticized for letting you break my heart
Why would I stand for disappointed looks
I'm fully grown but I'm on tender hooks, ooh with the looks
On tender hooks,
Ooh, with the looks, the looks, the looks

I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it
I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it

Relationships were something I used to do
Convince me they are better for me and you
We met by a trick of fate
French navy, my sailor-

I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it
I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it

Stay under the blanket, we can't see the sun anyway.

We smell like three-day old flowers and a day at the beach. Your eyes the color of the small flecks in an oyster's shell.

I'm still a night girl, but I can wake up with the sun. It slants peachgold rays on the flagstones and plays abstract shadows on my bare, white walls. It stares quietly through slender gaps in long branches. It rests and moves in the thin early fog.

In the night, sound seems to be muffled, and in the dark, it closes around you like a flowered down blanket. To be awake is to be at odds. You can almost hear my dreams, drifting like perfume in the quiet air, but the morning is expansive and crisp, like the taste of iced pineapple.


1. Let's make dinner out of something from the farmer's market.
2. Let's find the tallest hill in the city and pin a love note to a tree at the summit.
3. Let's sit face to face and I'll inhale the breath out of your mouth and you exhale the breath into mine.
4. Let's fill a dish with confetti and drop it out a window.


The cracks in the street are like the shape of your veins as they fill us full of life, but it's not quite the same, love, not the same.

I really want to take a warm shower but am instead completely engaged in planning logistics for California; calculating numbers, looking at maps, registration, dates, sending emails, and planning how much money it would cost to drive. It will cost twice as much as flying at the current state of oil prices, and I'm sitting here cold and wondering where all the money is going to come from. Yet I know I'm still going to spend it. Letting go of security somewhat frightens me, yet there's something peculiar about going to California that feels like it's already been written. Life's big picture. I see it, or rather I will see it one day. I'm at an outdoor movie theater, in the middle of a desert, crooked metal posts peeking up next to cars with their lo-fi speaker popping and hissing the soundtrack throughout the lot. I have to find the means and ways to physically manifest this, I have to add more scenes. It's all so inspiring, it is meant to be, like a friend waiting with open arms.

Or maybe that's how everyone feels about California.

Sometimes when I'm riding my bike I realize I don't remember the last 4 blocks and somedays, the entire ride in general. Today I could have ridden all day effortlessly spinning. Last night I only remember bits of the ride home, it was so late and I was so tired. I remember feeling frozen as a block of ice after starting out, but by the end I was unzipping my jacket so that I could stay out even longer. I wanted to stay on the bike until dawn. Up and down the hiding hills in the neighborhood. I remember watching out for speed bumps, I remember my lights flashing on and off the roads. Time had disappeared briefly through a vortex. Then I was home, wide awake. Blue lights on the patio, buzzing through the blinds and over the couch where I fell asleep, sedated, reeling.

My eyes sting.

And you know what happens whenever i get grumpy. Yep, it's time to explode. Today it's a loud welping explosion. A water balloon full of jello hits the street and there is no crash, there is no crispy shatter, only a loud smack. The sound is full and carnal. Flesh in the jaws of something invisible, torn and hanging in bloody strands like a man of war. Trickling, oozing. I remain a subconscious mess; an annoyance to clean up. It is not beautiful. Everyone who sees it laying there turns away, disgusted.

My mind's clearly in a great place today. I need a nap. no, actually I need to register for Lago. Be back in a minute...


Ok. Deep ...breath.


There are gladiolas on the table. They look like they should be dancing. Stiff rippled underskirt and panels frozen in time, suspended in the middle of a twirl. A dancing dress with yellow flowers and a full skirt. Dance with me. I can wear the wilted yellow dress and you wear a herringbone vest. We'll put on a tragic play, spinning, spinning, spun and dying laughing in a heap. The only time that death isn't final. Get back up and we'll dance again. Until we get bored and run outside into the sun where we're blinded, a flash of yellow and bronze that fades into the present and it's over. Until the next vivid fit of nostalgia.

But we did dance, didn't we? It happened. I remember, you remember, and that's all that matters. I can always remember.

Switched On /// Grenades & Confetti

Today I feel the potential explosion of a confetti filled egg. Smooth, sharp, scattered, a thousand harmless bits and pieces flickered by the wayside. Picked up by a child, run over by a bicycle, nudged with the clammy nose of a dog. One false move and it shatters, like a champagne flute tossed into a fire place. My simple facade detonates, shrapnel clawing its way into my unlucky companion. Biologically engineered shards destroy everything in their paths. The image of the explosion is beautifully devastating, invitingly miserable, but none of this matters. It looks harmless, yet destructive, leaving a wake of pain in its confetti mess.
I am built for this; it is not a question of if, but when.

Padmasana

Photo: Ryan McGinley

At 3 am this morning I showered, but then I had to do my ab workout before bed so that I wouldn't feel like I wasted the day and fell off schedule. I'm like that with so many things, it's good but weird. I strive so hard to stay on track or I wander off like a lost satellite. I sleep better knowing I do what I need to do. I don't remember too many dreams from my last sleep, except, one about a traveling bag with a name embroidered on it, except the name was misspelled.

While I was drudging my way through the 3 am core workout, I lost count with every exercise because I was talking with Alan, the blogger staying with us during the North American Handmade Bicycle Show this weekend. I'm really starting to adore this guest, he's a super down to earth, awesome fellah from the Adriatic sea. He introduced us to Dalmatia fig spread. If you see it, get it. A neat-o side note about Alan is he went to school and worked with a favorite photographer of mine, Ryan McGinley before Ryan launched into his photography stardom - and Alan's blog is pretty awesome I might add.

I knew I'd be sleeping-in today so last night I tacked a blue blanket over the highest loft window. It casts a soft wash of blue light over the whole apartment, fuzzy and damp like a drying cool watercolor. The blanket doesn't keep the room quite dark enough, but that's ok, it's not healthy to live in a cave. It's 1 pm now and I'm still waking up with Flying Lotus and a second batch of coffee. I have laryngitis after 2 days of NAHBS, the coffee is supposed to help. I'm going to practice the lotus pose on the mat today. The mood I'm in now is one of rushing to slow down. In ASAP-speed, I'm going to do 4hour-speed yoga. As Patrick would say. At least having slept after 3 nights of a this big Austin weekend, I'm feeling much more human-like again. I'm still gearing up for breakfast, I'm so hungry my stomach is starting to fall in on itself.
After a stretch I'll make pancakes mixed with blueberries and a little ground fennel pork inside, it will go so well with grandma's maple syrup from Wisconsin, which is almost gone. By this time, it may very well be for dinner.

Flying Lotus featuring Thom Yorke "...and the world laughs with you"

I'll need to know you're out there
I'll need to know you're out there
I'll need to know you're listening

I'll need to know you're out there
I'll need to know you're out there
need to know you're out listening
I'll need to know you're out there somewhere

I finally had 8 hours of sleep last night and was awakened from a dream about model trains. The first thought that came to mind is that I want to start constructing them, that they should become a new hobby. I awoke with the idea of discovering a local crafts store and buy a really cool train as soon as possible, and getting really consumed with my new hobby. One that I could switch on and watch travel along the tiny tracks around and around. I could perch my collections up on my pantry shelves and there they would sit, running in circles.

Of course I just looked up the meaning of model trains, and as to no surprise, my subconscious holds all the truth. Promise not to laugh?

"If you see or play with a model train in your dream, then it indicates that you want more control and power over your own life and where it is headed. Dreaming of trains may also be a metaphor that you are "in training" for some event, job or goal. According to Freud, a train is analogous to the male penis."

But enough of that, time to get ready for a ride, then motorpacing later. Double workouts, are like double rainbows. Haha.

This morning's air is piquant and hushed. It doesn't makes my cheeks and nose pink like I wish it would. Sometimes I love to be able to see my breath in cold air. Sometimes I love to watch people smoke in the movies, the smoke coils and dissipates. It doesn't look so nasty when it's on film.

Photo by jgspics