Sea eats sky, Sky eats Meg

So the spirit of Christmas sent me a Meg for the holiday season. It was a good Meg, and we went on many adventures together.
We went on adventures through the city where we found buildings full of strange art pieces, other buildings with pictures of people we did not know (but felt we might) flickering on the walls inside, alleys full of vegetables and mittens, a bar with absenthe that made our insides tingle, and a shop where we found a wonderful disguise for Meg (she appears to be a Newsie fit for a wedding when wearing it).

We had adventures in the country where we tromped and romped around places where the land touched the sea, and the sea touched the sky, and we touched all three. In our wanderings we found a slug the width of my thumb and the length of my hand, red mushrooms the size of breakfast bowls, herds of elk, and a lake with giant white pelicans dipping in and out of the water like rocking horses, fish jumping in their throats.

We dangled around on a trapeze, rode bikes, and cooked brussel sprouts. We yelled, whooped, and sang.
We had a wonderful time.
But then she walked out my door and was swallowed by the sky, which spat her out onto the streets of NYC.
I will miss her.

Fixieeee

About to buy my first fixieeeeeee. Pretty fucking excited! Think the vid sums up my feelings on the matter pretty well...wheeeee!!

Macaframa SF Track Bike Promo

Max Jacob's Shoes

So for one of my many internships I co-curated the literature read at Intersection's Independent Press Spotlight Series. I got to read a lot of amazing writing and here is one of the pieces that I absolutely fell in love with (although it was not ultimately chosen to be read). It is written by Ray Gonzales and appears in Issue 20 of New American Writing.

Max Jacob's Shoes

They were found after his death by someone who needed shoes. When this man plucked them out of a mountain of trash, Max Jacob's shes came alive. They fit this person as if truth had never left and he slowly walked away from the filth. It took him a few days to realize he wore the shoes of a poet. The black shoelaces started talking to him in his sleep, the poems drifting out at night, floating beyond the man's bed to recite themselves to life. Max Jacob's black shoes glistened as if they had been shined yesterday, the sleepy man looking over the edge of his bed as the talking shoes tapped a clicking message that said a man who wears someone else's shoes is a man who knows how to get along in life. When he put them o n in the early light of dawn, the shoes quit reciting poetry and led the man to a quiet church Jacob would have never entered. The new owner of the shoes went into a church for the first time in over thirty years, the shoes echoing across the silent sanctuary where a surprised priest waited, sensing the approach of Jewish shoes. After the stranger revealed his sins to the priest, he emerged from the dark confessional and looked down at this bare feet. He went back into the tiny chamber, but Max Jacob's shoes were gone, their hushed disappearance casting a steady light of awareness on the barefoot man, the helpless priest, even the two mice in the sanctuary who revealed themselves to no one that night as they busily gnawed on a pair of twisted shoelaces.

My friend Wendy is an amazing illustrator. She likes to sketch people while she is riding on the Bart (the Bay Area's equivalent of the Metro). A week after I first saw her drawings, I went to a zine festival. And then I came up with the idea of riding Bart with Wendy, writing the stories of the people we saw while she sketched them, and turning our work into a zine. This Monday we did just that. I am excited and extremely nervous at the thought of people (other than the 10 people who read this blog) reading my writing. But it is good to feel excited and nervous.

So this is the beginning of my first Bart story:

I sit down next to a man so small, so dainty, so calm and contained that at first I think he's a woman. He is old despite the fact that his face is void of wrinkles except at his chin and at the corners of his eyes. He has good skin—it is slightly yellow and as I look at it longer, I begin to think there might be a faint tint of green to it. You can tell by his rounded shoulders, the single whisker growing long from under his lower lip, and the way he takes up almost no space on the bench-seat that he is old.

A Veritable Army of Mayhem

Two days ago I acted as shepherdess to 44 small girls between the ages of 5 and 8. I led them through art activities and lunch, onto the public bus system, to Presidio Bowl, and back to their school. At one point, we almost missed the bus. We could see it approaching from a distance, and we all took off running as fast as we could after it. I can only imagine the sense of hilarity and dread that must have quickly consumed the bus driver as he watched 44 small, brightly colored bundles shrieking and swarming towards his bus. It was like a scene in a war movie:
The battle-worn captain of the bus sets his jaw and watches as a veritable army of mayhem storms toward him with (almost) a hundred tiny feet. He imagines taking a long drag from a cigarette, exhales, and they are upon him.
But the best moment of the day was once we were actually on the bus, riding back to school. Pointing to the shells of sunflower seeds a previous passenger had left behind on the windowsill, one of the girls whispered to her friends, "Look! Baby clam shells!"

Last Week

Last Tuesday I smelled like crayons. Like a waxy Tumbleweed, or maybe a Raw Sienna. I noticed this while reading poetry at a desk that didn't belong to me. I read a poem that shouted, "Ambient fish fuckflowers bloom in your mouth...Alien fish fuck fodder loose in your ouch!"

On Wednesday I took lessons from Francis about how to wiggle my finger while moving my arm but not my wrist. She was helping me devise a plan about how to get my rent back from my crazy roommate. (The wiggle shows attitude, while the stillness of the wrist demarks a seriousness over the matter at hand.) "Giiirl, you don't need that bullshit. You just tell her you have NO problem taking her crazy ass to small claims court," ::wiggle wiggle::. Francis does not take shit. I sometimes do, but on....

Thursday I somehow managed to get all of my security deposit back from my roommate and then get the hell out of my old place. I am unsure whether I wiggled like Francis taught me, but I did get my way. After getting my way, I crashed onto the couch of AgroChris. AgroChris asked me if I remembered the house rules. I did, mostly. They include not opening the door for anyone I do not know, and refusing to let police into the house unless they have a warrant. There is a cheat sheet posted by the door in case I forget the rules. AgroChris is an anarchist.

On Friday I got locked out of the house. I spent the night on top of AgroChris's roof, which was cold, but I decided much better than sleeping inside of a house containing an Elizabeth.

On Saturday I secured a two month sublet at Lobot, an artists collective in Oakland. To seal the deal Nat and I high fived. I felt very happy and possibly incredibly relieved to have a place to live that was not on the couch of my ex-boyfriend's ex roommate. I might have become even happier upon contemplating that my new home had a silk screen workshop, a bike workshop in the making, a huge gallery space, and puppies.

Sunday was a day of rest. I made tomato sauce with AgroChris, played Scrabble, and drank some cheap beer.

Then I started over again.

Ugg

"That's O.K., I didn't want to go anyway. I'm just going to go home, lay down, and listen to country music....the music of pain." ~Xander, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Or watch horrible, outdated WB T.V. shows on DVD. It's been a rough few days.

Joan Rivers at the Logies!

Week of Crazy

So it's been a pretty fucking crazy week. It all started when my friend Max came to visit from New Orleans. I think he brought the insanity of New Orleans with him, but the nature of the insanity (which in N.O. usually originates from things like being drunk, homeless, and so fucking hot that you just want to rip off all your clothing) got mangled in the flight over here and rather than it resulting in parties with lots of smelly, half naked kids, I was bequeathed Joan Rivers.
What?!??!?
That's right, Joan Rivers.
But let's backtrack a little. So since arriving here in the Bay Area, I've been attempting to hook myself up with some totally sweet internships (because I love working for free). One of the places I applied to was Magic Theatre, which only produces brand new works. Almost everything they do is a world premier. Last week, they gave me a call. They informed me that they were very impressed with my application, that I was obviously a very eloquent person, but that there was a lot of departmental restructuring going on, and they wouldn't know if they could use me until after Labor Day. However, they said, there was this one little project that they needed immediate help on, and if I was willing, they saw it as a great way for me to get involved with Magic. And that project was Joan Rivers.
Joan co-wrote a semi-autobiographical play about her life and is premiering it as a workshop at Magic. However, since she is used to doing improv and stand-up, she was very nervous about memorizing her lines, so she wanted someone to be available to go over her lines with her at the drop of a hat--and that person became me.
I was terrified. I felt like Andy in The Devil Wears Prada. I was hopelessly unfashionable and ignorant. I was going to be bad at everything and even mess up the coffee orders. And she was going to be a fashion goddess, cruel and unyielding.
Turns out she is actually pretty awesome. She calls everyone "my darling" and showers them with jewelry from The Joan Rivers Collection (which apparently contains magical powers to placate even the most savage boss, an observation I made after she gave me a bracelet which I was supposed to give to my manager in order to get out of work that night so I could run lines with her instead). She is a Jewish mother and a gay man mashed together and fused with collagen. She is hilarious.
So I spent a week going into San Fran, biking up the biggest hill, and then elevatoring to the tallest tower in the nicest hotel so I could sit in Joan Rivers's penthouse suite, look out over the entire city, and rehearse lines with her while a flock of people hovered around, putting on her makeup and doing her hair.
At the end of the week, after Joan did nothing but shower me with praise, Magic decided I could have an internship with them. And then Intersection for the Arts called and told me that I could have an internship with them too. So now I have internships coming out of my ears, which makes me worry about my sense of balance. But whatever.

Other craziness in my life?
Well, I decided to leave Elmo Thief and Rainbow Bright, as Sara most interestingly calls them. I gave my notice last week, and am now frantically searching for a new place to live. They were not pleased, and I do not care.
Going for housing interviews also provided me with some grade A insanity. The highlight was interviewing with some guy that told me that the house held bi-annual tantric sex parties, and while I was not required to attend, I had to be o.k. with letting my bedroom be put to use.

But at the end of the week all is pretty much well. There were some great moments during the past seven days including:
Teaching Max the vegetable game, with excellent results. He did an ace asparagus.

Climbing up to the top of Buena Vista Park, a small neighborhood park in San Fran, after some hellacious housing interviews and knowing that I live in (ok, actually next to) the best city ever.

Taking pictures with my camera phone!!! Check out the quality!

Disco Inferno

So The Crucible, one of the local arts education centers, had its annual Fire Arts Festival this weekend. While getting inside the gates was mad expensive, you could walk around the perimeter and still get a pretty good view of everything that was going on. There was a smörgåsbord of pyro-entertainment including a fire opera called "The Fire Odyssey" which The Crucible's website describes as "Blending industrial fire theatre with ballet, opera, hip hop, aerial dance, fire performance, and more....the Fire Odyssey brings together an amazing cast of dancers and performers to create an epic as Homer never imagined it." I'm sure he never did.

However, one of the most entertaining events of the evening was a version of Dance Dance Revolution called Dance Dance Immolation. This is a form of DDR where contestants are clad in fire proximity suits. This way, when they are blasted with jets of fire for making the wrong move, they don't turn into a pile of ash. Pretty fucking sweet. Especially for the audience.

Yayy!!

Today I landed a volunteer position at the YBCA!!

East vs West

About 3 weeks ago I flew back in time a few hours and then our pilot spied the spot where the mountains and the ocean come together and knew it was time to land. So land we did, and now here I am in California.
Things that have happened since I've arrived?? Not too much. I went to stay with a boy named Jamie who came highly recommended by a certain gang of Asians I sometimes run with. We got on fabulously (when we weren't haggling like old women over who got to use his bicycle) talking long and late of drugs, DJs, and dharma. I then left him to move into a warehouse space I fell in love with.
The space and I are still in the throes-of-passion stage of our relationship. Unfortunately, my feelings towards my roommates are much more tepid. They are pretty chill, very neat, smell pretty, and own lots of useful things like blenders, toaster ovens, and garlic presses. But they are not the most imaginative of people. Which, is sort of what I moved out here for: imaginative people. I keep telling myself that, once I make friends of my own, the normality of my roommates will matter not. However, whenever I go to Berkeley Bowl and see the army of weirdos that work/shop there my tummy gives me funny sensations which I think are telling me that I am lying to myself. But then I think about how I could fit a baby elephant into my warehouse, and I feel conflicted. I kind of wish that a cracken would just rise out of the East Bay and consume my roommates, forcing me to recruit replacements. I would find people who could install a trapeze, and would would want to use the space for painting, trampolining, screen printing, bike repairing, anything except furnituring. Which, unless I act fast, is probably what is going to happen. But maybe I underestimate them...Elizabeth did install a darkroom.......

But enough about them. More about me. I also found a job. This is good as I have been laying down scary sums of cash. I am a barback/hostess at a small mexican joint. Again, I feel slightly conflicted. Hostesses are girls with day jobs that like boys with tats and problems. So they decide to work at a bar/restaurant twice a week to get closer proximity. Barbacks are the girls WITH the tats and the problems. So now I am both. I guess this means I am going to start masterbating a lot more.

So I guess right now I am still sort of transitioning between my East Coast self and my new West Coast self. The worlds I am bridging are pretty different. But I think there is only one I am in love with. So I guess I'm just gonna have to ask that fucker to dance!

So it's spring...time of twitterpation. For most members of the animal kingdom this means time to get hot and horny. For members of the Teresa kingdom, however, it means time to start getting hot and homeless. Yup, so recently looming in my path was that decision that I seem to be making at an exponential rate: whether to stay or to go. For a while I thought about staying in NOLA. I had a hot pink sign taped onto my bike for a few days that read, "Hot bike and skinny girl looking for roommate." There was also a sign that read, "Roommate needed: Bikes and Dykes apply within," but that didn't last long b/c I got embarrassed at thinking about what my customers might say to me when they read it. Anyway, for various reasons, I changed my mind, and decided to stick with the moving to the west coast plan. So, I've started sending out emails in response to SF craigslist posts. Here's my most recent (I haven't heard back):

Hello Queer Friendly/Union/Socially Conscious House!
My name is Teresa and I would love to come live with you.
I will state up front that I am not currently living in San Fran, but before you totally write me off, allow me to share ridiculous amounts of information about myself.

First the stats:
age: 24
gender: female
ethnicity: skinny white girl
status: my true love is my bicycle even though it sometimes hurts me bad
pics: flickr

OK. Now that you've got my stats, let's go on a date (gawd, I hope my hair looks ok):

QFUSCH: hey
me: hi!

QFUSCH: So what brings a skinny white girl like yourself to San Fran?
Me: Well, a few years back, I was on leave from this sailing voyage thing that I was doing, and I came to San Fran for 2 months to see if I could make this sort of on-and-off-again relationship I was having work. The result was I ended up falling out of love with the boy and in love with the city. I was hooked big time, and I've been fantasizing about living here ever since.

QFUSCH: Huh. So you're a sailor?
me: Well, I spent about a year sailing on a tallship after I finished undergrad, yes. Most recently, though, I've been living down in New Orleans and working at the Habitat ReStore, a store that resells used and donated building materials to the public in order to support Habitat for Humanity. Before that I was wandering around in South America for 6 months, and before that I was living in DC. I move around a lot.

QFUSCH: So are you going to flake out on our house?
Me: Totally not. It's been 3 years since i've spent more than 11 months in the same place. I am ready to spent a significant amount of time in one place. I really want to focus on "improving myself." No, I don't mean learning how to blend eye makeup and walk posture perfect. I mean I want to work on figuring out what I want my career to be and acquiring mad skillz in that direction. I've been working on my commitment issues in preparation.

QFUSCH: did you just say "mad skillz?"
Me: ummm. I'm a little nervous, ok? But anyway, I need to get home to bed, but I'd really like to talk with you again sometime. I know you have a lot of other people that are totally courting your ass, but here's my number: 202-492-3488. If you think I'm not completely lame, then maybe we could talk again sometime, and you could tell me a little more about yourself.

Brokeback Hogwarts

Key moments to catch:
a. Mooney's gay-dar
b. Cedric mouthing to Harry, "Ron?? I don't understand...I'm so much better looking."

Too Much Booty In da Pants

Sign I posted today at work:

Dear Customer:
Please don't be tearin up our shit.* Ya heard?
Sincerely,
The ReStore

Next week's edition:

Need to get some junk in your trunk?? Just ask one of our staff members. We'd be happy to help.


*modified to "stuff" after seeing Chris reading his bible during lunch break (witnessing this caused me severe Catholic guilt pangs over using profanity in the ReStore).

Extry Extry!! The Social Retards Get Married!!

Shocking but true. So the social retard clan is growing. However, a lot of us have not had much interaction with the significant others that will be assimilating into our group. So, in order for the rest of us to feel better acquainted with these individuals, I am posting a fact sheet on the social retards to be.

Jason
--he farts a lot
--he likes to sing hymns
--he gets grumpy when he's tired (sound familiar?)
--he goes to sleep at 10:30
--he's a bit clumsy
--he likes farms and Kansas a lot
--he treats most people he meets with respect
--he wanted to be a herpatologist when he was a kid
--he knows a lot about cow reproduction
--he milks goats on the weekend
--he's addicted to lifting weights

Trevor
--he is a sailor
--he likes bananas a whole lot
--he wants an army of midget minions
--In his youth, he formed a Ghostbuster club
--his least favorite work party project is scraping the mast
--his favorite Star Wars character is currently Obi Wan
--he has octopus boxers
--he would choose ants as his insect pet of choice because they could eat off the faces of his enemies
--he thinks Caroline is a hot tamale

Julia
--she plays the flute
--she farts a lot too
--she loves Ben and Jerry's ice cream
--she also likes anything chocolate
--she has a pretty pair of teal underware
--she does not like writing papers, but she does like learning
--she is addicted to YouTube
--she does not like eggs
--she likes to read while she poops
--she liked to play in the sandbox as a child
--she does not like bananas in her oatmeal

How much this is??

I hear this question at least 6 times a day. My customers point to couches, floor tiles, light fixtures, used paint cans, some with prices, some without. But "How much this is?" is not just a simple question of price; it is how my customers introduce what they hope will become a dialogue of worth.
My customers use many ploys. "But today's my birthday!" exclaims Miss Joyce when I give her a figure. (Considering how many birthdays Miss Joyce has a week, it's amazing how youthful she is.) They appeal for my sympathy with comments like, "Look, it's got a little crack here. Can't you take a few dollars off?" They try to pit the employees against each other with comments like, "No, no. Chris says it's only $10!" They even make shit up like, "You forgot my discount." What discount?? And while sometimes they make me feel like I am running a daycare center rather than a store full of donated building materials, I am sort of in awe of them for their ability to engage.
While the cross section of people that walk through the ReStore's doors is pretty diverse, there is one thing that these people all have in common: their incredible willingness to display and employ their humanity. My customers are as delightful, as self-absorbed, and as quick to laughter/indignation/temper-tantrums as small children. And they know it but are not afraid of it.
Perhaps their lack of inhibition stems from the fact that they are from "The South." Perhaps it is because they feel they have nothing left to hide after living in a football stadium for days with 15,000 other people, who like themselves, were suffering from shock and exposure. Or perhaps it is because after listening to politicians argue endlessly and without result over the worth of their communities and homes they have decided that these things must not have much value to the American public and, with nothing else left, they have decided to try and cash in on the value of their humanity in order to rebuild their lives.
If only we knew what that was.
How bout $4 dollars off that lamp?

On my way home

tonight the air smelled of cracked pepper and honeysuckle.

Sex and Rainbows

Recently, I've been having some trouble coming up with answers to several questions concerning my "direction in life" that keep plaguing me. So I decided to ask a unicorn. Here are a list of my questions, followed by the responses given by a virtual representation of a cardboard unicorn:

Q: What would a unicorn do if it wanted to go to Grad school but was afraid of going $30,000 dollars into debt?

A: Chase a rainbow

Q: What would a unicorn do if it found itself extremely sexually frustrated?

A: Pose on a windy cliff

Q: What would a unicorn do if it wanted to bicycle across the country with the rest of its cool unicorn friends, but had no money?

A: Whinny and rear

My analysis of my unicorn's advice? Well, chasing a rainbow could be interpreted to mean that I should chase after my dream of going to get an MFA. Find my pot of gold, that type of thing. But while rainbows are beautiful (like dreams) they are also fleeting!!! OH NO!!! Does this mean that my desire to go to grad school is only fleeting and illusory??? Something that will disappear after I have been there for a year and dropped 20 grand?? Shit!! Ok, don't freak out, lets move on to the next question and gauge this unicorn's savvy......

Ok. So my horny unicorn would pose on a windy cliff. Pretty solid advice. I think that means my unicorn would "get out there." Much better advice than, say, "impale a newborn." Oops, I mean evil things...

Speaking of impaling evil things, that would be MUCH better advice to solving my bicycle dilemma than "whinny and rear!" I mean, at least impaling shit would allow me to work out my frustrations in a productive manner. "Believe in miracles" would also be good advice. Whinny and rear?? I think my unicorn is more sexually frustrated than he wants to admit.

Conclusions?? Don't ask unicorns for advice. All they can think about is sex and rainbows. Also, imagining unicorns riding bicycles and wearing helmets is fun. (They would totally be riding pink and purple Huffy's with streamers.)

Spider turds are more exciting than my blog...

Sigh: It's true; I apologize. I should be hung from a high hurdle and harangued for my inattentiveness to my blog. But I have an excuse!!!

Since my blog will no longer be about my travels in the Southern Hemisphere, and I can no longer use the lure of the exotic to dupe people into reading it, I have been desperately trying to decide upon the new Purpose/Intent/gimmick of Brazyclog. Unfortunately I am still at a loss. I have ruled out baby seals, baby pandas, and the selling of celebrity locks as possible gimmicks. Which leaves me without much material. Which is why I need YOU, dear readers!! Please clap your hands and say I DO believe in brazy clogs! Or just post suggestions on the sort of thing which you would expect to find in the very braziest of clogs.

So, to give some closure to this ridiculous post, and since I feel I should offer some insight into my newest surroundings and experiences, I am going to leave you with a brief excerpt about New Orleans from Naked Lunch:

"So we pour it in a Pernod bottle and start for New Orleans past iridescent lakes and orange gas flares, and swamps and garbage heaps, alligators crawling around on broken bottles and tin cans, neon arabesques of motels, marooned pimps scream obscenities at passing cars from islands of rubbish..."
~William S. Burroughs