Two words to happiness:

Farmers'. Market.

I did a quick run-thru the Wednesday market down the street a few hours ago. And, I have just consumed delight in a bowl: a bodacious mix of various and many'd sprouted things, combined with brown organic basmati rice and some organic steamed broccoli. Topped the concoction with a little soy, and oy vey.

A little bit of hippie heaven on a stick.

Would it be so wrong now, to consume a cup of tea and a Trader Joe's chocolate mousse pillow candy bar? Would it?

Heatwave happening all across Cali this week (ahem, who knows about the rest of the country, of course, because West coasters are so centric.) and we're sweatin'. I cannot complain, because we are close enough to the beach (like, three or four miles) to keep those lovely breezes flowing, and a dampness in the air at night that aids sleep and dreams and ah. Looks like Marin is about 10 degrees higher than we are down here; that is a bit of a trip.

Dinner tonight consisted of a whole fruit strawberry popsicle, three veggie sausages and a glass of cool, crisp, white wine. This, my friend, is the beauty of being an adult. And, I could have eaten it all in bed, had I wanted to. I love that.

Been watching the birds nest outside the office window this past week. The couples (scrub jays and blackbirds, thus far) wander across the lawn, pulling up their supplies, and discussing the viability of each item. They check out the flowers and the dirt, sometimes picking up a pebble or a bug and transferring it to their partner's beak. Very endearing. I could watch them for hours. I've put up a house, hoping they might take me up on the hospitality. Most likely, they'll ignore it, but I can hope.

Their activity makes me think of my own nesting, and what a practice in sanity it is for me. The chaos of the last few months (good god, half a year) has been so breaking, so wrenching, that I crave the simplicity of just nesting. Yet I can see we have come along, and the various forays have borne fruit--for the most part, the house feels like home--and the garden is a delicious canvas, waiting for paint.

But I study the birds' imperative, and it mirrors mine: must build. Must choose carefully. Must make just so. And since I am *not a bird (last I checked, and despite what one might call me in say, England), I assess my drive and discomfort at having an incompletely feathered nest and the fallout from that.

Depression. Perceived inability to do anything to make it better. Lethargy. Melancholy. Protection and diving inward. And the story goes on and on.

The other voice says, "This is how life is; buck up!"

I think perhaps both stories I am reading are not true. Perhaps both are just ones that I'm comfortable with. One a coping mechanism or chemical depletion, one from childhood teachings. Who knows? As Jer says, "both can be true." And, perforce, both can be false. Maybe all these things I think I feel are a lie, but it is a story that I know.

I began reading a book tonight from a dear friend, William. In "When Things Fall Apart" I found this:

When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch on that throbbing quality. There is definitely something tender and throbbing about groundlessness.

That is what I am sayin'. What I don't know is, how does one strike the balance between poking around in that groundlessness and finding your own truth, and not going overboard into a navel-gazing mire of self-pity? How do you sit and accept transition, intangible but real pain, and not try to explain it away or put a bandaid on it?

Practice?

Another couple of quotes from the book, glommed together, that bring me some sense of direction and...okayness:

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it... Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic, this is the spiritual path.

So, I'll read more. I'll hope for continued inspiration. I'll continue to nest while paying attention to that attachment. And I'll watch the birds and the seasons change outside my office windows. Perhaps in the quiet, a little magick will become apparent.

So. I was totally wrong about Earth Day. What was I smokin'? Oh yeah, it was 4.20

Ha.

Anyhow, the police just left. The motherfuckers who are so fascinated with our car tires struck again. Once earlier this week on my partner's car, and last night on mine. Were so nice to leave about 20 psi in my tire this time. Last time I was down to about 10.

So, I filed a report. We'll buy a motion detector light and fake video camera this weekend and install. I'm thinking of installing something quite poisonous to the cap and stem of the tire. Bastards.

At least the sun is shining, there are weeds waiting to be pulled in the bird-laden garden (I hear the mockingbird running through his repetoire now) and there is cold beer in the fridge.

Gotta look for the good things.

Soooooooooo. Happy 4.20. To some, Earth Day; to others, a day celebrating Mother Nature.

Gorgeous day here in Ventura, and I've spent it gazing longingly out the window, with a few strafing missions out into the garden and away from the computer. Sanity comes from birds, trees and green for me, not 1's and O's.

Yet, here I am again, you say? Indeed.

Last week was sucky, as my partner and I discovered that the repeated and randomly timed flat tire he's been having over the last couple months were not a bad tire. Not at all. We discovered this as I suddenly was gifted with a flat. Coincidence? Methinks not. Same tire on both vehicles--passenger front--which would make it not likely for either of us to see it before driving off.

And we started thinking about it...his tires had been rotated, and he had the same tire position go flat.

Conclusion: Some asshole in our Pleasant Valley Sunday neighborhood is letting the air out of our tires.

A kid? Maybe. Pretty good thinking about the position and how we'd not notice. Took a lot of time to let nearly all the air out. Was a tire that was less convenient to reach from the sidewalk. I think it probably was an adult.

We work in the yard together all the time. We live on a corner. We are highly visible. We are the only bi-racial couple in miles and miles and miles.

I reckon someone don't laik "those people" mixing in with "us." My neighbor next door, an old-school hippie who's been around, but grew up here, commented, "Well, I warned you, you were living in Bakersfield-by-the-sea."

WTF, really? Like I needed more to put me over the edge about this place. I wander by the houses early, early in the morning with the dog and wonder..."Is it them?"

And I fantasize about catching whomever is doing it, and hurting them in various ways, depending on the day I'm thinking about it.

I posted to a list I'm on up in SF--full of crazy, wonderful, varietous women--and they had much wisdom to share. Many of them have been victims of harrassment and/or hate--right there in the middle of god's own liberal haven. Everywhere you go, intolerance and ignorance festers and roils.

We are a nation who "others."

So it's a matter of rising above it, I suppose. I see how people draw into themselves, though, and become fearful. This seemingly simple act has made me think such violent thoughts. It is so easy to extrapolate and see why whole communities rise up, after going through so very much more, and for generations.

There is no peace in this right now for me. We'll put up motion-sensor lights. We'll tell more neighbors. If it happens again, I guess we'll call the police and have them dust for fingerprints.

So very, very stupid.

There may be many blogs today, as I am bubbling with much internal chat and noticings. Might as well share, eh?

I'll start with my early morning (wheee! 6 a.m.) walk yesterday. Typical grey, cool morning, trotting around the neighborhood with the dog, trying to get the seratonin levels up. I check out all the gardens, listen to the birds, smell the morning getting on its way. Is good. Was thinking about Ventura, and just the interesting nature of its being, and noticing the lumpy nature of the plants everywhere. Humps are a theme, like so many Seussian Wumps, planted everywhere in all sorts of textures and sizes. A town of mounds. But I digress...

Breaking into my reverie is a man walking from his house, down his drive to get his paper. Pretty typical, yes? Sure, except he was dressed all in black--black, fancy cowboy boots, black you-can-crack-a-flea-on-these jeans, black crisply pressed cowboy shirt, and yes, a black Stetson. (Like I know my butt from a Stetson, but it was a very sharp, authorative cowboy hat.)

Odd. He was so out of place in the midst of surburban lawns with autotimers and little cherub fountains. He went not at all with the bamboo'd faux asian stylings of his neighbor's yard. He certainly stood out against the bland beige block that was his home. Just odd.

Today, I was driving thru another neighborhood, and ran into his doppleganger; well, sort of. A dude, in every sense of the word, wore the same black hat, but coupled it with a black sleeveless tee, black baggie jean shorts with chains, black wrist band (wrist band?! oh sure, honey.) and black hightops.

When I think of all black, I think of home. So many ways to do it. I've just never seen it done quite this way before.

Who *are* these people? Am I being stalked by a humorously costumed Grim Reaper?

What does it all mean?

A true classic from the Onion, sent to me by my friend, James:

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4014&n=1

It gets no better than that, humah, humah.

Well, Dickie Roberts: Child Star is pretty much up there...rent it, you'll see.

That is all.

Dear Good News Publishers,

What would Jesus do? Well, I’ll take the bet that he would not carpet-bomb a suburban, Church-goin’ neighborhood wastefully with papyrus.

Living consciously and thoughtfully on this planet (this includes not littering a community who neither needs nor wants to be proselytized to) is part and parcel of taking care of the earth upon which God put us. We are shepherds of this fragile place, and we should not take that lightly.

Please tell your devotees that littering is not a good way to get the “News” out. All it does is tick people off, and waste trees, one of our most valuable resources.

Thank you,

Annoyed in Ventura, CA

This is the letter I wrote at 7:15 am, and to which I attached a fuschia-colored flyer that I had found in my driveway while embarking upon my morning walk with the dog. The damn flyers were *everywhere* in the neighborhood, and made my blood boil. I mean, it's bad enough that I'm now living in a place that the good Mormon boys approach me in the front garden on weekends, but do these groups really think it's appropriate to fling propaganda to and fro in everyone's yards?

Jesu Christo on a bike!

It sure felt good to write the letter, lick the envelope and stick on the stamp, tho'. Sure glad the flyer had an address on it. And d'ya like all the subliminal (or not) Jesus-language I used? I wasn't raised Catholic without being imbued with a healthy sense of how to instill guilt in our fellow man.

Well. That got rid of my piss and vinegar for the day.

Move along, move along.

Wow. All hell is breaking loose in Iraq today. Even though I have the greatest empathy for the troops and Iraqis there--all I can think of is, "this could get Bush voted out."

No matter what, that region is going to be a roiling, blistery mess of dis-ease for many moons to come. Yet, if the dis-ease there can negatively impact Bush to the point of swaying this country against him, I selfishly think "so be it."

Am I hiding behind fatalistism, to be so cavalier about so much suffering? If the positive end (Bush-be-gone) justifies the means (killing and mayhem), what does that say about the state of my heart, and the hearts of like-minded souls around me? Each time our "leader" creates more strife, backs new laws of prejudice, proposes taking away more rights, is responsible for more lives taken, we cheer, in hopes of it tipping the scales in "our" favor. "Won't this new atrocity make people finally see?" we ask. And we hope.

I fear becoming so jaded, so hating in my heart for the man running this country, that I don't feel the appropriate sadness for the people who are devastated by his actions. Each new injustice rolls off like water on teflon, because it might get us a win. Each tragedy simply becomes a pawn.

Something to meditate on. Something to clean house (internal and external) over.

Good Things That Happened in the Last Week:

1. Received first paycheck since October! Wheee!
2. Surprise package in the mail. (thank yew kb & ss)
3. Long, early morning walks with the dog; the scent of dewy grass, orange trees in blossom and general springness is heady.
4. Watching birds nesting and the crazy, heavy things they try to carry.
5. Long, healing talks with good friends.
6. Planting new life in the garden, getting dirty and being sore the next day.
7. My honey agreeing to go to a kirtan at the local yoga studio (even though he didn't want to) and then both of us having a really good time.
8. Getting out and being a vendor at the Rainbow Alliance holistic health faire. Meeting new community because of it.
9. A gal at Trader Joe's recognizing me the day after the health faire--community!
10. Hummingbird and butterflies taking over the airspace.
11. A weekend of socializing, instead of working.
12. The computer (finally) working as it should. (thank yew wjc)
13. Kitty breath and dog smiles.
14. Friends saying, "c'mon, we're taking you out of the house." (espey und tree)

and...and...and...

nice change, eh?