Reconstructing Stacey

Weather report

The changes in my life feel like a flash flood during a drought. Sudden. Imminent yet unexpected, healthy for the soil and the roots below, but aggravating too, like stepping in mud with brand new sneakers. The squish means much needed sustenance, but it nonetheless sucks to scrub the residue.

For the first time in the history of my blog, I have a boyfriend. A real, actual, in-the-flesh person who makes me so happy and whose hugs make me feel like I've come home. 

But the addition of this person, let's call him B., has brought something of a flash flood to my world, and so many other elements of life feel the upheaval of this weather pattern. Which pains and aggravates me. And that upsets/saddens me more, because I don't want to bemoan my joy. I just want my life to be simple and full of butterflies, like it was in the first few months. 

As O. pointed out to me, I've thought about this relationship much longer than I've been in it. (Being single for 3-plus years does this to a person.) Consequently, I created an imaginary storyline that looked something like this: Girl meets boy. Puzzle pieces click into place. Gospel choir bursts into song.

The reality, though, is that while having a partner makes life more enriching, it also makes it more complicated — because there are more people to consider, think about, invite, mull over, integrate. They never show you this in the movies. Nope. In Hollywood, everyone always lives happily ever after as the credits roll.

I am trying to make everything and everyone stay the same, but I think holding tight to the naive notion that this is possible is making me feel worse. It's difficult to accept the science: the terrain is never the same after a flood. 

Still, I want the old soil to make room for the new soil transported by the storm. And vice versa. And I'm having a difficult time synchronizing all of this. O. suggested I stop trying to control the situation, that I get some distance, wait out the rain, and have faith the ground beneath my feet will eventually be smooth, clean, solid enough to build upon again. I hope she's right.

In the meantime, I'll pray for patience like desert-dwellers pray for precipitation. I will do things and be with people who make me happy, who free me from my crazy brain, who remind me that I don't have all the answers — and that no storm or drought can bring them.

p.s.

Eight months without a post. Oops.

I would apologize, but I don't feel too bad. I've been retreating to my journal throughout the hiatus because the blog post just didn't feel like the right forum anymore. I doubt this latest post means harkening back to the old days when I blogged often. But who knows?

We are all a work in progress, or more specifically, The July Project # 1

12:02 a.m. (background about The July Project)

Tonight I went to the first class in a 3-part series called "Creating a Life Worth Living." It's taught by a life coach and is sponsored by American Jewish World Service, which mostly helps impoverished and underserved populations in Asia, Latin America and Africa, but also creates programming for young American Jews who want to look at the world through a Jewish and social justice lens. 

So the teacher is a local Jewish woman (for these purposes we'll call her LG) and she is incredible. There are 18 people in the class. Three boys, the rest women. It's so encouraging to be in a room full of people who know their life holds promise, but aren't sure in which direction to turn to seek said promise. It's a reminder that I'm not alone in my quest for ... well, I'm not sure yet. Generally, I applied to take this class (we had to apply!) because I know that what I'm doing is not satisfying me in the ways I want/need, but I'm not sure what kind of changes I need to make in my life to feel wholly satisfied. For instance, do I need a different journalism job, or a different career? Do I need to just make some changes at my current job to improve it? Can I derive fulfillment from nonwork pursuits, and if so, how can I focus myself to really commit to a few of those?

LG posed the following question: How does "pretty good" hold us back from achieving great?

Lots of people spoke up -- fear of failure, fear of success, complacency, comfort, resistance to change, concern that the change won't be any better (or even worse) than the existing situation....

I felt I had already said quite a bit, so I didn't add what came to mind while considering this question, and that is: Inability to let go of your old goals.

I always thought I'd be a famous news reporter. If I don't become that, I'm obviously finally accepting that, but then... what? What do I do? Is it okay that my work no longer fulfills me completely? Is it okay that a job is just a job, as long as I'm finding satisfaction and happiness in other elements of my life, and that my job is not sucking my energy too much? I asked the group that question and LG pointed out that all of the questions we're posing tonight (and in future sessions) can really truly only be answered individually.

One girl said she hopes the class helps her listen to herself. I seconded that. In the hubbub that is daily life, I don't often enough find time or space or energy to ask myself: What do I need? What do I want? And I mean these questions in a small context, not necessarily in a huge, wordly way.

LG also reminded us numerous times that this is not a career seminar, though of course we should feel free to talk about our careers, and direct the focus that way if we so choose. I found it interesting that for many of us, "work" is our default setting. It's endemic to society, really, and a bit surprising in a group of San Franciscans, who have made an art out of chasing work-life harmony. Everyone in this city has something they're passionate about, whether it's art or yoga or volunteering or planting trees or teaching people how to compost. It's inspiring and yet daunting because if you don't have these dual (or tri or quad) identieis, then who are you really? Work defines the minority of people in San Francisco, and yet when asked to first consider how we "create a life worth living" we all think first about work.

One of the participants is a rabbi, so she led us in a short text study of a passage from Genesis. Did you know the very first question in the Torah is: Where are you? God asks Adam this question, and Adam responds by saying he was hiding because he heard God's voice and was afraid. God asks him if he ate from the forbidden tree, and Adam confesses but blames Eve for the indiscretion. Then God asks Eve if this is true, and she blames the Serpent.

What we learned is that this question "Where are you" is perennial. It is a constant presence in our lives, and it is not an accident that it is the first question in the Torah. The rabbi pointed out that neither Adam nor Eve took responsibility for themselves in answering the question, and that in doing so, failed to truly answer God's questions. Therefore, if we don't own our choices and take responsibility for ourselves, we cannot honestly answer "where are you?" It follows then, that if we can't honestly answer the question, we can't figure out where we are or where we need to go to feel happy, whole and fulfilled. (Clearly, the question is not so much one of geography but of headspace.)

In my last two minutes of writing, here's my final thought, and it's this. The rabbi, who said she read these passages a million times, found one new meaning while preparing for the class. She added up the numeric value of "where are you" in Hebrew, which is "ayecka." Turns out it adds up to 36, which is 18 + 18, which means double chai, or double life (for those not in the know, 18 is a highly significant number in Judaism and you should check wikipedia or jewfaq.com for more). Which basically means that the question "where are you" is a living, evolving question (and answer) that should serve as a bridge between all of life's transitions.

12:22 a.m. (yay! 20 minutes of freewriting)

end note: the only things I corrected in this blog post were spelling errors, which will be my practice from now on.

Thoughts about nothing ... and everything

This weekend I did nothing. I didn't leave the house at all on Saturday and stayed in my pajamas all day long. My roommate and I even ordered groceries from Safeway (they came this morning and I must say that it is awesome to shop online and have someone bring, for example, a dozen eggs and aluminum foil, to your door). Today I slept in again, ate breakfast, watched the New Hampshire debate (we taped it) and finally got dressed at 3 p.m., when I walked to the farmer's market, craft store and Vietnamese restaurant for some tasty pho.

I forget how much I like doing nothing. I get so busy and so excited about the city around me that I often over-commit myself. And because I prefer to be busy and engaged, I forget how nice it is to slow down. I must remind myself more often that I don't always need to be running around, that I can be lazy and that doing so isn't necessarily being lazy, but also helping to rejuvenate my spirit and energy.

This is especially true after the whirlwind trip I had in the Midwest - Cleveland, Minneapolis, Des Moines then back to Minneapolis for one night and then back home in San Francisco. As always, spending time with my family was a little slice of utopia. We relaxed, made dinners, played Scrabble, went to the movies, ate Chinese food on Christmas Eve and went to a Cavs game on Christmas Day. A good time overall.

I spent two nights in Minneapolis with my friend L and her husband S. L is pregnant -- 7 months, and my first friend who's also a mom-to-be -- and catching up with her was divine. We had lost touch for more than a year, so it's especially sweet to reconnect during this time in her life. Her belly is huge. She looks great. L and her husband rent this fantastic house on 40 acres outside of St. Paul. It was serene. L has become a gifted jewelry designer and I had never seen her work before. She taught me how to make earrings and I taught her how to knit. We also met up with D, an old friend of mine from the Waterloo Courier. He got married in September and I had not met his wife before. We ate Ethiopian food and then went to see Romantica, this fabulous indie folk band based in MPLS.

Then it was off to Des Moines. I must admit, I was nervous and only mildly excited to be in A and L's wedding on New Year's Eve (we've only been in sporadic contact since I moved from Iowa), but it proved a thousand times more fun than I ever expected. True friendship really does transcend space and time. I also had no idea how meaningful of an experience it would be to stand up for the couple during their ceremony. I'm pretty sure I cried during the entire thing. Happy tears are hard to ward off.

Being back in the Midwest for an extended period of time felt really good. There is something so centering and grounding about it. I genuinely, sincerely like the Midwest. Yes, I love California and I love San Francisco, but there is a certain comfort I feel in the middle of the country that is absent from my current locale. Is it only because the Midwest is where I'm from, and so I feel drawn and connected to it? Or is it more than that? Am I where I need to be? Will I always ask myself that question?

Winter

I returned to California yesterday after 10 days in Cleveland, Minneapolis and Des Moines. It felt strangely euphoric and comforting to be back in the heart of the Midwest. As much as I love San Francisco, there is something about being in middle America that makes me feel grounded and relaxed. Also, I miss seasons. The snow was beautiful and serene even though I wanted to hibernate most mornings from the terrible icy air. (I say this and yet was overjoyed to return to SF's 50-degree weather.)

Here are some photos. Many more to be posted to Flickr in the next couple weeks.

Icicles in Minneapolis:

And a lonely tree in Iowa:

A gathering of change

Something remarkable and unexpected happened this evening.

I was inspired ... And not to do anything in particular, or to think anything specific, nor even to write, though obviously after 2 months without writing in my journal or blog and actually crafting something now, I was inspired to write.

What's sort of wonderful is that I initially didn't want to do anything tonight except snuggle under my down comforter and read. But last week, I signed up to go to a potluck dinner sponsored/coordinated by AJWS, and so I didn't want to be a flake and not go.

I signed up because it was billed as a casual, community potluck about "finding meaning in your work." Since I haven't found much of that recently, I thought it'd be useful. I took BART from SF to Berkeley (this is mostly why I had second thoughts about going - the schlep on the train) and walked about 10 minutes to E's apartment, loaf of farmer's market cinnamon bread in tow. I quickly realized I had stumbled into a riveting, motivated, impressive, talented, friendly, diverse group of engaged, intelligent and young Jews.

We began by introducing ourselves (two people had done the Peace Corps in the Former Soviet Union, one person had a PhD in public health from Harvard but preferred working at nonprofits to research at a university; one worked in HR but was participating in a Jewish social justice fellowship; one worked in a workforce development program with transsexual/transgender Jews; one educated Russian immigrants about the dangers of smoking; one had just quit her job in city planning to live in the woods, farm and make cheese; one woman was in the Bay Area during a hiatus from her research in Tanzania; one guy I actually knew from high school and didn't realize he moved to SF in the summer - he taught in the Bronx for 4 years and now teaches in Oakland).

As you can see, after going around and sharing these tidbits, I knew instantly I was in the presence of some very special individuals.

We read and analyzed 2 excerpts from Jewish texts. In small groups, we talked about tangible, realistic tasks that will help us accomplish our goals, whatever they are. Some of us decided we're working toward is "figuring out what we're working toward," as one guy so aptly explained. After a couple hours of chit chat, we exchanged phone numbers and emails and schmoozed a bit more. What synergy. I mean, wow. We hugged each other when we left, and you could just feel that we all felt a little lighter, a release that cleared some space in our heads to figure out what we're working toward.

It felt good to talk, to really talk -- the kind of talking where it's intellectual but not esoteric and it's deep but not sappy -- about being confused by the search for more meaning in our professional lives. As much as I worship my group of friends, I also crave new perspective and company, so being around a slew of new people was awesome.

In a nutshell, here's what I've figured out in the past few weeks: I love journalism. But the kind of journalism I want to do (investigative local features at a daily) won't let me have the life I've come to love. I want to live in a city and have plans on a random weekday because I don't have to stay late at work on deadline. I can't do that and also write for a newspaper. This conclusion has been a good one. Yet I still want to find work that lets me help people, inform people, connect people and build community, which I felt I did at dailies but don't feel I'm doing in my current position. Nor do I feel challenged. And, and this is the really sad part, I feel totally stale. I feel like my storytelling skills evaporate every time I have to write a banal, half-page feature on a Yiddish folk festival or a Maneschewitz cook-off.  I know those things matter to people, but they don't matter to me, and they're not giving a voice to anyone who's voiceless, (figuratively speaking, of course). I need to take a temporary, or maybe permanent - who knows - break from full-time writing. I need to step back, give myself some space, figure out if I still have it in me to live the life of a journalist.

I didn't resolve anything tonight. No light bulb burned bright over my head, nor did I locate some big solution to the funk in which I've found myself the past 2 months. But I have renewed hope that I will figure it out, and that I'm not alone in my search.

I will leave you with a beautiful quote one of the dinner guests said tonight during our discussion:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

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!!!

In my perfect professional world

I've pinpointed my main problem with the American workplace.

Everyone with power is old-fashioned, bossy, without vision and enthusiasm, and in general, makes decisions that contradict what's in the best interest of their Gen X/Y employees and clients/readers, even though they say they want to appeal to this demographic.

Those who've been actively in touch with me the past 3 months know that all my frustration with my current job stems from the billion ways I disagree with my bosses -- their management style, their editorial decisions and the negative culture they create in the newsroom. This issue is not entirely new, since I've felt the clash of generations at all my previous jobs, but this is certainly the most egregious example. It's slowly eroding my motivation for and interest in journalism. I realized this weekend it's up to me to try to make things better, and I plan to approach my managers as soon as I mentally collect my grievances, solutions and courage.

Anyway, in a perfect world, I'd work with peers (which of course carries its own challenges, but when I think back to why working at my college paper was so damn amazing, I think it's partly because we were all the same age, all on equal ground). If you click here, you can see what my ideal workplace looks like. Can someone help me find colleagues like this?

It's all about reh-LI-juhn

You know how sometimes you're too busy to eat? You feel starving at first, but then you adjust to the hunger pains and away they go. Temporarily, at least, the hunger is forgotten. Same thing happens when you aren't able to go to the bathroom. You have to pee so so bad, but you're in the park, or you're stuck in traffic, so you hold it, and the sensation goes away.

I've been spiritually holding it for four years.

I had no idea how hungry I was for Judaism until now, today really, when I celebrated Rosh Hashanah for the first time in four years with a real community of thinkers, seekers and friends. Living in small town America, I had no choice but to adapt to feeling like "the other." Sometimes, I'd purposely avoid talking about my Jewishness simply because I didn't feel like having a conversation that marked me as an outsider, as someone different. Of course I was proud to be Jewish. But I also wanted to feel like a part of the larger community, and in general, that community was not Jewish, (nor did they know much about Judaism), so it was sometimes more comfortable to not label myself. And besides, I was a journalist first and foremost. That was my identity. My purpose. My passion.

But for the past year, I've gradually moved beyond that. I'm still a journalist, yes. But living in San Francisco and writing for a Jewish paper has allowed me to explore this huge part of my being that's been dormant for so long.

But I also didn't exactly realize just how much or what I was missing. In said small towns, there was no opportunity for adult Jewish learning or creative Jewish expression. So even though I felt a snag in the fiber of my life, I didn't know how big it was until I let myself reconnect the Jewish threads.

The realization hit me tonight at Ocean Beach. A few friends and I went there for a Tashlich service. The service wasn't so much a service as an exercise. First, we threw chunks of bread into the water, as a symbol of casting away our sins of the past year. Then, with sticks we wrote our mistakes or shortcomings into the sand so we could watch the tide wash them away. And finally, we wrote on paper our hopes for the coming year, put them in a pile and lit them on fire, dispersing the goals/hopes/dreams/visions/aspirations into the air and perhaps propelling them into our future.

About 30 people came. We spread out along the beach to throw the bread (our sins) into the ocean, symbolically casting them aside, freeing us of their weight. As we did so, the seagulls began singing and circling above, swan-diving into the water to eat the scraps. The ocean was iridescent in the sun. And I began to cry. Quiet, soft tears. I was simply overwhelmed by the horizon, the warm, saltwater-scented air and the power of recognizing my shortcomings while simultaneously letting them go. And though I often doubt the existence of an all-knowing-all-present God, in that moment, with the Pacific licking my ankles, I felt God was there, in the water or maybe in the sun or sand or breeze. It sounds bizarre and hard to explain, but it was deeply spiritual and comforting and moving.

 

photo courtesy of oo-di

Earlier in the day, I attended a service/class hybrid at a synagogue. The rabbi explained that crying on Rosh Hashanah is encouraged, a goal even. He said that crying may begin with confusion, but it also brings us clarity and purification, redirecting us, pointing us toward a better path.

Hours after this service, I stood on the beach, feeling the sun and tears on my cheeks. I let myself feel regret/guilt/shame. Then I let the ocean take those from me. The tide receded, rushed back in, receded. And all I felt was gratitude. Because as I celebrate the birthday of the world this Rosh Hashanah, I see that the prayers and rabbis are right. That to be alive is a marvelous, wondrous thing.

Cribs

So I planned to spend the night drinking wine, listening to jazz and finishing the fantastic book in which I'm currently involved, but while my roommates and I flipped around a bit on the TV, we started watching MTV Cribs. Specifically, the priciest pads countdown. Addicting. Seriously. It's mind-boggling the way celebrities spend money, the way they throw around $1 million like it's $100. They buy such lavish things, such expensive cars. And they also totally love themselves. It's a fascinating glimpse into a subset of human life that I don't have any personal conection to. Right now we're watching Babyface's house. he has so many Grammies and SoulTrain awards that he has them on display in a separate room of his house. His kitchen is like the same size as my entire apartment. He has a $9,000 television, and his closet looks like a clothing store.

It just makes me wonder if these people do anything truly good with their money, beyond the walls of their gigantic houses. I'm not saying these celebrities shouldn't spend money on a huge home, since after all, it's their money, and they can do whatever they want with it, but it would be nice to know what else they do with their money.

Why do their homes get their own TV show, but their philanthropic efforts don't?

I hate the distribution of wealth in this country, this world, and also how we revere wealth, but not generosity in the same manner. Why does Master P get to live in a $20 million house in Phoenix when so many other people don't have a home, or can't afford dinner?

Also, money and fame do really strange things to people. Mariah Carey changed outfits like 7 times in the time the Cribs camera crew spent with her. And she has a shoe room. Not just a closet. A shoe room. Who needs that many high heels? How do you even decide which ones to wear?

Ok, enough blabbering about MTV and it's time-sucking programming. Next, you should check out the story I wrote this week that I'm quite proud of. Check it out here, and the related piece here.

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.