A Before the 2-2

a dedication to letters and numbers 

B            A        R            N        1

quantum

72

City Keds washed. Walking into town for an ice cream wearing three different shades of what's technically still white. No undies on to dare my late cycle to come. I wear anything around here. That's how I know I'm Home. Within me. Out here. And then there’s my teeth. Shade four. Missed my cleaning on Wilshire, a short walk from Los Angeles home #4: Nest. Boy was the receptionist saucy about it all. Sorry I live in Maryland man. Have referred so many patients to you and it's okay, I’ll find a cleaning over on this coast. Take a big bite. HQ in all the ways. First mammogram in October. Umpteenth pap. Saw a dermatologist today. Systems. Gotta mix in a pedicure. Veggies for the juicer when I pick up a rare Rx. Eggs and english muffins, my staples. Get up and work and then that 11am breakfast sandwich hits the spot. I’ll eat and drink anything but don’t often do prescriptions. Messy violent doctor and nurse ruled the roost but honestly I am over all of that. This year was the year. My year of feeling all my feelings. There will be more and they will be new. Mom and Dad are moving a town over from Easton. New construction on the water. Dad asked me to go take a look at the place, give him my read. I like it. Have ideas. A good house for a dog and a nice neighborhood to start biking again. Work on his gut. Dad's getting a bike and a dog. We'll have this talk, but if he ever hurts that dog, I'll raise a ruckus. Forgive and forget, forgetting just enough not to be an idiot. Our poor dog growing up. All of us, but me and that dog took it hard. Terrified me when I had to take Adley on his walk, b a d Adley, short for Adirondack. He grew more unhinged over the years, and of course he did. When Dad had to put him down, he buried his ashes under a tree in the backyard and drank a bottle of vodka sobbing. Wouldn't come in for dinner. Love is a confounding force of nature that I'll never stop wanting to know more about. An engineer wants to know how everything works. So here. My left hip* has been sore for quite some time. During what’s left of this alchemical sabbatical, I’m aiming to reverse all bodily habits to the other side. The patterns I catch. Hold the phone in my right hand, so holding it in my left. Put the phone in my right back pocket, so in my left. Cross one leg over the other. Wait, no, the other. Things like that. Criss cross apple sauce reversed for eyes closed. That’s how it goes but balance isn’t harmony even though seeking said balance promotes harmonic calibration. Until I loose it days back into the Los Angeles school year. Or I won't. Hand rolls and new ideas. The radio<3 Art theaters with cocktails<3 Spiritual rewrites.

In town to order one scoop of Mocha Toffee Crunch in a cup. Not what I thought I would get. Tricky to not pick the yet unscooped flavor, such a freak like that. Try to look away when they shake the water off the scooper. Sit in the square and write the above. Stroll home to edit my world’s longest manuscript. Class ended a few weeks ago. I was a good gIRL mess and transcribed 19 lectures (2 x 9 + 1 bonus car class) + other odds and ends that I have to deal with now. I’m not awesome at finishing, anything. AND change promotes, provokes, devotes change! This blog made it thru a whole year, most deserving of an imaginary holiday. I roasted beets this afternoon, red and golden with four cloves of smashed garlic and tonight had some of them over good pasta with lots of parsley and a little bit of grated honey gouda. The local grocery store put out all these little tastes of cheese, packaged for sale, portioned for single shoppers. Nice cheeses, imported slivers wrapped for a dollar or two. Precious, so a bit of a random dinner with that cheese, or better yet, cheese with that dinner, but worked. But. I bit the inside of my lip bad. Left some crunch in those roasted beets and walking home I keep sucking on the bite mark. The cold ice cream made it feel better and now I'm sucking the salty blood in my sticky mouth. Makes me conjure dirty thoughts 2. and others, like how honestly amazing it is that anything heals. You’ll have this persistent ache or pain and 1. day you forget about it because it’s not there anymore. The forgetting — or the gone? Chicken or the egg SANDWICH? I'm not yet famous for my breakfast sandwiches. This not yet patented technique of melting salted butter in the cast iron skillet. Split the muffin and crack an egg in between. Cooking create an accordion primed for inserts. Leftover roasted beets, still with some crunch, chew careful. Parsley, avocado, and carrot kimchi. No sheep's milk honey gouda this morning after milk in my twin cappuccinos. And ice cream tonight. I'm a farmer.

Home. Bins in. Hands washed. Pitcher of lemon water. I’m bleeding so it worked. Mom, I'm so sorry, but magic is real. It's hard to be a human and impossible to be a woman (proof: watch Barbie) but I do like my cycle. I like the compassion circles create. I hang up all the clothes that are down after the coming and going from the city. I gambled, washing a dry clean only piece only to loose the bet. I'll still wear it. It being a jacket covered with fish with button eyes. The hot pink trim was the red herring. Scoop of magnesium into the bottom of a fresh glass, pour over the lemon water and chug. Refill. Chug. Refill 4. bedside. Shitter. Have the second tv perched in my bedroom for summer movie nights with the boys and right now realize my go-to hang out position is semi-reclined with my left hip splayed. Jupiter's expansion, legs making the number 4, but shit that's the source of the pain. Le Pendu. Gotta knock that off because this left hip needs a breather or it shall keep shooting pain waves down my left leg. A nuisance on trains and planes. I wake up throughout the night realizing I sleep all left hip open. Have I done this since I was a baby? A declared intent of mine is to partner with a badass body worker when back in Los Angeles. Survival vs. HQ. My body needs way more body work than I give to her. I've been keeping her juiced up though. Another hot party trick is to buy a real watermelon and scoop all the flesh from the rind and blend it with a few ice cubes. Pretty, tasty. sets you right. 

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

Los Angeles is my faithful friend.

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

My body luvs life in Los Angeles!

Serious Synchronicity Smoothes

Shit. I write with my left foot perched up on the chair. Learning to write during pandemic homeschooling all my jeans split under the left cheek and I wasn't sure why just that side when both sides of my bum look proportionate in the mirror. It's so not the same on the other side.

__

10.31.22 👻

tarot on the front porch of the B&B
tip jar full

11.01.22

painters slow start

    I miss my Los Angeles guy but he's my guardian angel

lawyers — discovery review — add two questions 

owner and handyman come over

discuss the ghost

dad arrives

hangs out for a bit — likes the place — ready to farm 

meet dad at the farm

get stuff out of shipping crate — family relics 

head home for Hunter the locksmith

    so many doors between house and garage

walk into town 

ring the bell of a new pal's place for a quick hello 

11.02.22  👻

up all night again

shower, hot water trying

moka pot to go 

    & my water bottle

neighborhood walk wet leaves smell real

going to trade sessions with Tarra

boiler maintenance; parts ordered

lawn mowed

    not the yard clean up I thought was happening, but a precursor 

painters painting blue trim white

    painting Espresso Bean below bedroom wainscoting

washing machine maintenance is cool and gross
2 farm

walk the farm

discuss fence maintenance and property lines

day of the dead indeed

    graveyard calls: graves have been located

check on duck blind

into town

portobello sandwich, to stay

    dad won't picnic in the cemetery

clean the graves of great grandparents

head home, dad heads home

plumber swings by to replace primary bath sink drain

    the sink on the left had been leaking on the floor 

glossy yellow lily to match the shiny deco tiles

paint the cabinet too, my whole world within a world thing

borrowed chairs

antique glance for my new desk — not there

relics getting air, another night of air

lamps will need to be rewired; where ?

deep clean tomorrow, an all day exercise

new friend coming to walk

want angels on the ceiling, I think I know who will know someone

    yes, her daughter when she comes home

realize I have interacted with at least three grasshoppers or grasshopper adjacent creatures over the last two days

dinner 

discuss the 👻's brother and bible study ?

19

🕳

🐇The internet connectivity was recalibrated early last week. It had never really worked in this house. You'd finally find a movie, get it going and less than a minute in 𑫨 𑫨 𑫨 till you quit, turning off the television. The maybe wheel isn't horrible, but then what's the television for? I hear my youngest coaxing:

💬

load, load, the circle of life

Presuming hassle, I don't want to call. Put it off until I was finally going through the office paperwork pile and in the stack was a statement. An hour later the technician was puttering about in blue booties, speaking a shared language of metaphor, feeling like a teacher (had been, is).

It was a trifecta of issues and he's big on the order of operations, so we went from competing machinery, to booster placement (tech note: open space is an asset for clear lines of communication) to controlling the flow coming from the outside-in. Pressured, rushing in, in his words, like a firehose trying to fill a water glass.

Decisions 𑫨

Arrangements 𑫨

Boundaries 𑫨

My mind shifts afterwards. Recalibration: Monday. Epiphany at an Encino strip mall: Friday. I now have different expectations for beauty on this plane, after the flow was slowed just enough to compute, to make sense. Like how I've been learning French forever. Or more like, I get why this works for some. This: Los Angeles.

To be content here, in human form, living inside structure, is to be able to process the messages you receive --- messages received on your how, so you may perform your responsive actions --- your what. Fluid Mechanics: influx >---> efflux

Can-will-get-do-It
My standards seemingly otherworldly, but here I am. Los Angeles is the teacher; the teacher I dislike though respect, meaning, I won't be the same after leaving her classroom.

My neighbors are learning valve mechanics too, probably why they missed the 5:20pm showing in the basement of the Encino Town Center. Private viewing of The Territory, which would have been hard to sit through on the couch at home. Some cannot look away from violence whereas some cannot stomach a peek. Violence is a mainstay of here-ness, no? Must we accept violence? Accept it's current incarnation? A big part of the human story. Protagonist!

During my middle school years, I got to scrub into open heart surgeries with my best friend, a Megan without an h. Her father was a chief cardiac surgeon. Scrubs, caps, blue booties. Up-close in the guts of reparative gore and it was breathtaking. Well-oiled-machine. Classic rock jams over the speakers of the operating theater.

An accident on the side of the road brings freeway traffic to a standstill. The lungs of our ecosystem are being destroyed while we look Elsewhere: at screens.

✩

ancientfield came through

🐢
⬤

12

Couldn’t sleep. My legs so restless, sharp jolts all through my limbs, arms too, keeping me awake and it’s annoying. No magnesium fizz here, I’m across town, he’s back in the rental, this time sweeter to return to something semi-familiar. Like the farm this last go-round, my fourth visit since, a whole week's dedicated stay, despite all the crazy. The old farmhouse is Crazy's HQ, just begging to be gone. There's an order to efficient madness. Soon, rest assured.

Finally fall asleep and wake up wrapped up. Play, play, pack, coffee-walk. I don’t bring my phone with me. I’m paying but not ordering, so I get to sit outside at a small folding table in the early sun. My eyes focus on ants between the slats, busy on the bricks. Then a tiny spider on a wooden slat, creeping closer. Still waiting in line, he delivers a sprig of rosemary. I rub it between my palms and dab the oil on my pulse points. Slow stroll with a scone I’ll save for salted butter and hot honey. Goodbye and then he’s calling my name; my phone. Errands, boy retrieval, home to turn off the phone. Too much screen time has crept in.

They're happy playing in the cool house with a castle they were ready to donate then changed their minds about. This cardboard castle is the hub for the mythological creatures I collect on their behalf. I recently added a knight and unicorn to the mix, discovered in an Easton toy store. I meditate on the hill where I watered this week by linking 🔗 two hoses.

I was standing up there, seeing the ivy surrounding the clearing, the ivy caked with city dirt, fallen oak leaves and now-useless cobwebs. I wished for a hose long enough to reach. I’ve never watered up here. Never thought about it. Oh — wait. I have two hoses of the same make and this will be fun. Screw them together and the boys help me snake the now-one very long hose up the hill. The ivy loves it and I do too, feeling big movement. I feel very helpful.

Like I clean in a loop inside, through the front half of the house and then around back, I water in a loop outside, going from the hill all the way behind the garage for also the very first time. I went nuts, watering the undersides of the trees, brushing the backs of their teeth.

A storm blew through the farm after I left. A mini twister came down the road and spun onto the land, taking out electrical poles I'd scheduled to bring down, and uprooting a 3/4 dead maple that needed to go. The twister nearly misses the farmhouse, tossing a trunk onto her roof.

While I cannot clear the debris myself, I can rinse the dirty-dry patches that I'd never considered dealing with before they ask me for some TLC.

boys > farm > boys < home < boys

listen

hill DIRT
behind the garage dirt
PILES of the paperwork spread across the office floor
debris scattered around the farm

Jung asks his soul what the wait is about
and she scoffs at his expectation for ripeness yesterday.

🍌 LOW HANGING FRUIT