Reconstructing Stacey

On the road - The July Project #3

9:58 p.m. (a note about the July Project)

Tonight is the first night in almost two weeks I have had a moment to myself. I got home from work and almost danced down the hallway when I realized no one was home. This is because I left home at 2:30 a.m. July 2 to attend High Sierra Music Fest, where I blissed out for 4.5 perfect days of sunshine, trees (and therefore wildfire smoke), live music and friends. I got home last Monday night, showered, went out to dinner for a friend's birthday, went to work the next day and within 15 minutes of getting home from work, my sister and her friend arrived for a 3-day visit. I worked during the day and hung out with them at night; on Friday, we picked up our rental car and drove down the coast to Santa Barbara, then LA, then San Diego, and back to LA. I was picked up in a shuttle at 5 a.m. this morning, landed in SFO around 9:30 a.m. and went to work until 6:30 p.m. (This is also why I haven't written in more than a week.)

So yes, I almost danced down the hallway when I realized no one was home except for my very affectionate kooky cat.

I shouldn't really complain, since the past two weeks have been incredible... it's just that when I don't have any time to myself I get cranky. 

High Sierra Music Fest was heavenly. Truly, the festival is four day of pristine happiness where the only thing you have to concern yourself with is what band you go to next, or what delicious organic vendor you're going to patronize for dinner. I stopped thinking about my future, my writing, my work, my upcoming travels to Ohio and Israel (!!), my endless to-do list, my lack of any romantic prospects. I tuned out all the analytical noise in my brain and instead of dwelling in the mundane bullshit of everyday life, I marinated in music and my own body odor (90-degree heat, camping and one shower doesn't really leave one any other choice, but since I happen to enjoy being dirty, I capitalize on situations in which it is socially acceptable to smell). Anyway, the point is that I was present. I lived in the moment. I danced when the fiddle or guitar or banjo or drums moved me, and I laid down when a ballad reminded me of my fatigue. I didn't even take a single photograph, since lately I feel as though a camera makes me distant from what's in front of me. (My friends took lots of pictures, so the weekend is memorialized.)

Musical highlights included:

• Railroad Earth - Whimsical, danceable and gorgeous bluegrass.

• Rotary Downs - Genre-defying rock band from New Orleans.

• the everybodyfields - Twangy alt.country band with songwriting that's full of sorrow. Female lead singer with a voice like silk.

• Trombone Shorty and Orleans Ave. - Funky blues band fronted by a hip-hop singer who also rocks the trombone and trumpet

• Dusty Rhodes and the River Band - '70s-rock-band-influenced indie band that made me shake my groove thang

• Cornmeal - Let's just say I have never seen a bluegrass band shred like these guys do. Chicago-based über talented group with a standout fiddle player

• Oneside - Four-piece folky band with a banjo instead of a second guitar. 

• Benevento/Russo Duo - Mind-boggling that two guys can make such a loud sound. Experimental jazz meets rock and roll meets indie boogie.

• The Slip - Sort of a jammy indie rock band with an electric glaze. Easy on the eyes.

• Surprise Me Mr. Davis - See above then add a dash of brilliant songwriting and a gooey folky center courtesy of the next Dylan, Mr. Nathan Moore.

• Nathan Moore - A genius who with his acoustic guitar fills the stage with insight and pretty music 

• Carolyn Wonderland - It's like she conjures Janis Joplin from beyond the grave.

• Stephanie Wrembel Group - Awesome Parisian-influenced funky jazz music.

Music feeds my soul in a way that nothing else does. So of course HSMF is my most ideal respite from reality.

So after this fantastic excursion, I took another vacation the following weekend down Hwy 101 and Hwy 1 to Santa Barbara, which is my new favorite place in California (behind most places in the Bay Area, of course). It's stunning. You've got the ocean and the mountains and a warm breeze all in one fun, bougie college town. My sister, her friend A and myself fell in love. We stayed in a hostel just blocks from the beach. It was not in the best condition, but it was a fine place to sleep. We ended up going out for a late dinner after arriving into town and then happened upon retro night at some random bar, so of course we danced for a while. When it got crowded and we grew disturbed by the many scantily clad women doing body shots on the bar, we decided to peace out to another bar, where we continued to dance until we were totally spent. We indulged in almost 6 hours of beach time the following day. I can't recall a time when I felt so at peace and not bored while laying out.

Yesterday (Sunday), we drove to San Diego to see my great Aunt Charlotte, who my sis and I had not seen in five years. She is a delight, especially because she's a lot like my grandmother (her sister) who died slightly more than five years ago. I miss her often. I think R does too. So it was nice to spend the evening in her apartment, help her make dinner and sit around shmoozing about food, politics and a bit of family history. For instance, I finally learned how my grandma learned to sew (she was a MASTER seamstress and would definitely have kicked ass on Project Runway: Bubbe Edition). Turns out she hated school and protested going as a teenager so much that her parents allowed her to "drop out" as long as she learned a trade. They found a talented seamstress who agreed to let my grandmother apprentice, and so she did. And that's how she learned. 

It's been 20 minutes but I'm not totally done with my little freewriting exercise. Therefore I will keep going.

Today I had my first coaching session with the journalist who's teaching my online writing course. It was spectacular and illuminating and went on for more than 45 minutes (I was only technically allotted 30 minutes). I had sent him a draft of a story last week, and we went over it together. He gave me all these helpful pointers and I spent most of the afternoon doing some extra reporting after he pointed out many holes in the piece. It only served to remind me how little guidance I'm receiving at my current job, and how much I crave support. It also made me realize how little time my professors spent talking about the writing process, and how much time they spent on the reporting process. This is unfortunate because the best reporting is dulled by rusty writing. Anyway, I hope that tomorrow I can rewrite the piece and make it feel polished and vivid. 

10:28 p.m.

Tuesday night's alright

Spending time with a good girlfriend is like putting ice on a sore joint. It relieves the pressure of a long day; it cools the aching of a heavy heart.

I am lucky to have so many beautiful women in my life here. In fact, I think this is in my Top Five Favorite Elements of Life in San Francisco (I'll save the other four for another posting). ANYWAY, this is beside the point. The point is that I love having so many good girlfriends in such close proximity to me. And yet, it's hard to find the time to have the one-on-one encounters I crave, the kind that allows for deep, 3-dimensional conversation.

But somehow, in the swirl of the city, I've made a new girlfriend, and all we do is have one-on-one time. Her name is M. We met in a cooking class this summer, which was purchased for me as a birthday present from my friends. The menu consisted of watermelon-feta salad, garlic sauteed artichokes with fava beans, poached seasoned fish and honey biscuits. Divine. Well, in the midst of the kitchen's steaming and simmering, M and I struck up a conversation. We chatted easily and exchanged business cards, agreeing that meeting for brunch would be a good idea. Nonetheless, I didn't expect any follow-through, since it's become so common at social functions to say you intend to do something but not do it. She sent me an email a few weeks later and we did indeed meet for brunch. I don't even remember where our first date was. All I know is that it didn't take us long to realize we were kindred spirits.

What's great about our friendship is that exists in a perfect bubble. I have never met her boyfriend or friends, and she has never met mine (though I'm sure all these paths will intersect eventually). This is particularly awesome because when we hang out it's totally and completely without clutter. It's just good conversation and good food (brunch is our standard fare, though tonight we mixed it up and met for dinner).

I sort of feel like we have a Hollywood-Sex-and-the-City-grown-up friendship. Like tonight, we met at her fancy gym and went to a yoga class, and after went into the hot tub and sauna, nude like all the other women in the locker room. This is an experience that is rare for me and probably for many other American women. In our culture, nudity is always equated with sexuality, when in many other countries it's considered natural, human. When I was abroad in 2002 and went to the public baths in Budapest, my girlfriends and I wore bathing suits, even though all the Hungarian women were walking around sans suit, saggy boobs and all. I felt like the weird one in my  suit, and yet I couldn't bring myself to take it off. So when M first mentioned the hot tub, I thought, "Shit, I didn't bring a bathing suit." But then I realized everybody was uncovered, and so joining the ranks wasn't weird or embarrassing. It was normal. And it made me realize that even though it's unusual, it can be comforting to be naked with your girlfriends.

After the gym, we ate dinner at this delicious Rome-inspired restaurant and talked about work/career, specifically, how to find inspiration and satisfaction from  these things. We also strategized about how she could cook a Christmas dinner for her boyfriend's family (12 people). I felt very useful, taking notes in my Moleskin, figuring out if it made more sense to cook the vegetable tart or the butternut squash soup first.

I walked home (another favorite element of San Francisco) thinking how lucky I am to open my heart and expand my mind on a random Tuesday night over a dinner of roast chicken and marinated eggplant.

Happy anniversary, San Francisco

Exactly 365 days ago, I woke up for the first time in my new home of San Francisco. This means that today I celebrated my one year anniversary as a resident of what I now believe to be the best city on the planet.

I knew the date was approaching, but didn't fully deconstruct it until I arrived in Golden Gate Park after work and located my friends in a crowd of Jeff Tweedy fans. They greeted me with hugs and smiles and cold white wine. Overall, an excellent way to celebrate a Friday, especially one which marks my one year anniversary. In between songs, I told E how, cheesy as it sounds, I still feel nothing but gratitude about my locale. I remembered that when I made the choice to move here, I felt bold and brave and daring, a Risk Taker. Now I see it wasn't so much courage as common sense. I realized that life was more than work, and as such, I needed to find a way to experience that sea change of thought. I predicted moving to SF would be a start. As I reflect on the past year, I am thankful that I was right. I was so very right.

As Tweedy reached into his vault of songs and played ditties from "Summerteeth" and "Being There" and even "Anodyne," the sun cast a golden glaze over the park and the air was a perfectly cool, crisp fall day. Beautiful birds zoomed over head, dark bullets against the clear blue sky. God's airplanes.

We hung out in a clearing behind the crowd just before leaving the show. I did cartwheels and J did somersaults while A-squared made shadow dancers on the grass. I felt free. Totally unhinged, light as air, free as a bird. May we all bathe in such peace at least once a year.

I'd like to leave you with the text from last year's Oct. 4 blog posting, which I wrote the night before my SF arrival.

"My life is about to profoundly change. It's overwhelming, really. I spent 7 hours in the car today. It was the first time in a couple of weeks that I had the space and time to think about my destination and not just the logistical bullshit involved in getting there. (Moving by yourself is not something I recommend, nor is it something I want to do ever again).

San Francisco will offer me a community I've never had before. A huge, exciting, diverse, cultural city where some of my best friends reside.  It's such a giant idea. I'm going to be like a kid in a candy story for the first few weeks (or months?). I can meet Adam or Erica for coffee, which seems so small, but I haven't gone out for coffee in 16 months because the Tri-Cities doesn't really have a cool coffee shop that facilitates good conversation and steamy windows. I can see independent films in the theater. I can hear authors speak, musicians play every night of the week. I can take dance classes, creative writing classes, knitting classes.

On the morning of my last day of work, I woke up paralyzed with fear. After a good, brief cry, I went to the office and while getting my French vanilla coffee creamer out of the fridge, I suddenly couldn't breathe. The feeling passed almost as quickly as it came. But it made me realize that even though I'm going to an exciting place, and even though I'm ready for the change, I'm still terrified.

Like I always say, deciding to change is much scarier and harder than change itself. I was scared. But I ended up happy, smoothly sliding into the change, making new friends, keeping the old, creating a community.

Sorry about gushing, again. Perhaps my one year anniversary will also mark the conclusion of fawning over the city in which I live. But no promises.

Listening to:
 
Mr. Jeff Tweedy at bluegrass weekend!!!

Summer outside the city

So I just had the best 5 days of my life. Well, probably not the best 5, to be realistic, but I guess I'd place these five days in my Top 10 Best Consecutive Days list. Yes. Yes, definitely in the Top 10.

I went to High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, Calif. It's four days of music and camping, but it's actually so much more than that. You see, High Sierra is unique in that it's a destination for the musicians as well as the fans, and the fans are also quite unique, because unlike Bonnaroo or Vegoose, High Sierra draws only a small crowd (about 5 or 8,000 compared with 80,000 at Bonnaroo) and the crowd ranges in age from like 2 months old to 80 years. Tons of people bring their kids and strollers and diaper bags, and camp in the designated family camp area. So the festival feels like this utopian village in the mountains.

Let me back up. So there are 5 stages that have live music from about 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every night. This is an amazing concept for any music lover. A full day of music, four days in a row? It's unreal. If you don't like the show you're at, you simply walk 5-10 minutes to another stage, and voila, a different band. Then, throughout the day, in the indoor buildings ordinarily used for the County Fair, High Sierra organizes playshops and "troubador sessions." The former brings together one or two musicians to talk about something technical, like afrobeat percussion or picking on a ukelele or mandolin. The latter brings together 4-5 musicians, who take turns playing songs. They tell a little background about the song they are about to sing, then they say: "Ok, this is in the key of A, if you want to join in." And then the musicians, who never play together under normal circumstances, jam out on an acoustic number. Everyone listens. It's absolutely amazing. Furthermore, because the musicians camp in a designated area that is in the center of the festival, as opposed to somewhere outside of all the fans, the musicians jam all over the festival grounds at various times throughout the day. We happened upon Dan and Steve from ALO playing a late night jazz show in between two RVs, and we also caught Chris Thile playing his mandolin in a garden courtyard.

The other cool element of High Sierra is the music goes on till 4 a.m. every night. These "late night" shows cost a bit extra, and usually the musicians bring out various special guests. I only went to two late night shows in the same night, first Phix, a Phish cover band, and then Hot Buttered Rum String Band, a fabulous bluegrass/newgrass outfit that's actually based in the Bay Area. We rolled back to our tent at 4 a.m. I felt like a rockstar.

The music continues even when you want to take a nap in the shade of your campsite, courtesy of High Sierra's shortwave radio that broadcasts music from all the stages. Thanks to Adam's circa-1994 boombox, we had music pretty much all day and night long.

Adam told me I'd feel like a kid in a candy store, and I absolutely did. The first day I had to acclimate to the crowds, hot weather and 5,000 feet elevation, but after that, I became a total pro, wandering around by myself to catch the music I really wanted to see, and then meeting up with the group throughout the day, since we had our favorite spots at each stage to make finding each other a simple endeavor.

High Sierra was an interesting study in intentional communities. A tent metropolis sprouted up in the middle of the mountains. People were kind, helpful and generous. Because it was so so so hot, people walked around all weekend with these pressurized spritzer things and blasted people with a cool mist. When we went swimming at the community pool just outside the festival gates, people offered us Sno Cones and icecream as we waited in line. In the bathrooms, Nature's Gate provided organic soap for all to use, and everyone followed the guidelines scrawled in a Sharpy: For all to share. The food was mostly organic and delicious. I was blessed with dairy-free coconut milk icecream. And periodically throughout the day I'd pass a local farmer selling his freshly picked peaches or avocados (the latter of which I ate with a spoon on the spot). I felt really safe and happy all weekend.

And I didn't even mention that the day before the festival we rented a pontoon boat on Lake Oroville and spent all afternoon drinking Coors Light, swimming with noodles, laughing at our good fortune to be with each other in this beautiful lake.... The evening concluded with an awesome fireworks display (since it was the 4th of July).

So, the company was perfect, the music was perfect, the sunshine and my sunscreen were in perfect harmony. On top of all of this, I spent 5 full days -- 120 hours -- outside. I was dirty and smelly and sweaty and tired. But I felt free. Conclusion: Being outside is good.

I also danced my ass off. I calculated how many miles I danced this weekend, and (based upon the idea that I walk a mile in about 20 minutes) came up with a rough estimate of: 33 miles. If anyone wants to offer their massage services, my sore muscles are available.

And now, drumroll please, The List of Music I Loved (in no particular order and including old favorites and newly discovered gems) from this weekend:

1. Po'Girl
2. Carolyn Wonderland
3. Mother Truckers
4. Xavier Rudd
5. ALO
6. Hot Buttered Rum
7. Brett Dennen
8. Papa Mali
9. Mammals
10. Tha MuseMent
11. Soulive
12. Eddie Roberts/New Mastersounds
13. Bassnectar

And though it may be hard to believe, I missed so many musicians due to time conflicts or naptime.

Thank goodness there's always next year.

I live in a 'Friends' episode

I think I spent the weekend in an episode of Friends. This happens sometimes, and it's usually unplanned and accidental, which is becoming my favorite kind of weekend. I spent Saturday at the pool, and then that night went out dancing at Bruno's in the Mission. To say we all had fun is a bit of an understatement.

Then, yesterday, I rode my bike with Book Club Aaron to Stern Grove, where we met up with both of our friends. It was the first time I rode anywhere with a friend, and it so beats going solo. We sat on old tapestries and bedsheets, drank beer and munched on hummus and Goldfish, while Preservation Hall and Lavay Smith played some seriously traditional and funky jazz, respectively. The weather could not have been more perfect. Sunshine during San Francisco summers is not guaranteed, especially not in Stern Grove, which is this incredibly beautiful eucalyptus grove dedicated to the performing arts and located in  an oft-foggy part of town.

Later in the evening, a different crowd gathered at the Oak house for some take-in Vietnamese  dinner. The whole evening was hilarious. We needed to repeat our order about 5 times, then the delivery guy got lost and even though the restaurant said the food would arrive in 30 minutes, our doorbell rang 1.5 hours after we placed our order.  We clapped after he rang out doorbell. At some point in the evening, we started playing with my camera. Our silliness went through the roof. I took this photograph.

We thought Emilie's expression was so funny, so plastic, so perfect, that we laughed about it for about 20 minutes. I would like to add that all of us were 100 percent sober. Then, we laughed about our laughing. Then we passed around the camera again and laughed about the photograph, which made us laugh about our laughing, and at some point we begin to cry and clutch our stomachs, which hurt from all the laughing. I felt like I was at a high school slumber party. 

I actually woke up this morning laughing about the first photograph. I've got lots of other good shots from the day, and will post those on my Flickr site later tonight.