one (wo)man's trash is another (wo)man's treasure

This is part travelblogue, part journal, part connection to far-flung friends, part tap-tap-tapping of fingers on touchstone keys.

I'm drunk on lack of sleep and overstimulation--too woozy to offer up anything coherent, too wired to let it go and slip under the covers.

I've been to the other side of the country and back, I helped a friend say goodbye to her mother, I kissed men in subways and women on the street next to steam pipes. I broke bread with people I see too infrequently. I learned to drink single-malt scotch. I took iPhone pictures and fired them, little moments in time, deployed across space to the other coast and into a friend's eyes. Sometimes the images were refracted back to me through his wry comments.

I took in all manner of art and believed that it's the only thing that will save us in the end. I told this to people standing next to me and they agreed.

I saw a dress made of discarded teabags. It was part of a rite of passage. I was humbled to stand next to it and its creator.

I thought it high time to start singing again. I wonder if I will.

I was greeted like a soldier returning from war at my favorite restaurant, even though I was there last week…I realized that I was a "regular" someplace. Me of the restless soul.

I relinquished my competence and control and softened into a willingness to be pampered. A good night's sleep and I'll be back to my usual armored self, but with a chink.

I made someone shush and listen to geeky choral music. He didn't mind.

I taught a friend a word I love that doesn't exist in English.

It's "Lebenskünstler" and it means an artist whose medium is life itself.

I think my life of dabbling in every experience I could wrestle to the ground has always been an attempt to be one of those. Singing and taking pictures and painting and weaving and throwing pots and acting and writing have all just been a foil, a legitimation of my gluttonous desire to do, see, hear, taste, feel, and know everything in my range.

I unpacked my bag, washed its contents, and folded it all right back into the bag.

The car picks me up at 0530 tomorrow, and off I go again.