Amazed by all things Dodie, I am a delighted devotee of her new. The post on I was especially impressed by her post on Bhanu Kapil discussion around a short selection from Elizabeth Grosz's *Chaos, Territory, Art,*. Reading Dodie's recounting and analysis, I feel like I was there and glad i missed it all at once. Check it out here.

The theme of the actual and theoretical seems to be a common theme with the Non-Site Collective's last few events. It is nice to see the personal and practical and actual come up against the analytical creating a practical problem of thought and emotion in one of these discussions. The comfort of the ether is no better than the comfort of the "real." Pushing them together seems more important than ever in these times of segmentation, stratification and isolation from our eco system be it social, economic or environmental.

Officer Down

Officer down
Fell like a feather
Wrapped in leather
Red and blue colors spread for you
Face white and true
A flag unfurled
His body curled
A mighty fall
The silent call
The grieving widow
Shattered grief
Almost a relief
An outline against the gray
Endless day
Folded flag
Body bag
Empty pillow
Feathers fluffed
Candle snuffed.

And so again at an unintended interval.

Still struggling to find the time to learn to crochet to become my own hyperbolic artist. If only I'd known I would have insisted my grandmother teach me to knit along with all those other essential social skills I learned at her knee such as the nuances of lineage and snobbery in America. Amazing how a carefully managed mutt like state can permit Mayflower credentials for America's old families and for those oh so annoying French, Charlemagne. Oh to think what she could have done with ancestry.com when all that came from polite visits and studied reviews of ancient records. Too bad the Queen Mary didn't have frequent sailor points or what not. Not that her correspondence and friendship with Red Skeleton wasn't some kind of reward.

Since my failure to crochet, I have been doing my best to be social and art social.

Did a lovely drive down and around the coast with my dear friend Jan (publisher for Red Wheel Weiser). Hit some of the highlights and low lights and learned of Bonnie Doone's tasting room move to the middle of Santa Cruz and discover some new wines from the new tenant.

Also am developing a wonderful habit of Martini's and dinner with Minnette (though might get disrupted by a workshop.

I even finally managed to get to a Non Site event with the reward of re encountering old friends without any scene attitude or anxiety. What a delight!

Tonight a night off to pay bills and like, not such a delight.

But I persist in the delight of now and will continue as best I can to continue to make work and update this. I may need to breakdown and invest in technology...that being my way of paying the bills I know better than to buy it.

Writing a Hyperbolic Poem

A
Single
Syllable
One at a time
Added to the line
Makes this hyperbolic
Crocheting words into wool
Wound tightly into skeins of yarn
Knitting on this page an un-flat shape
Linear and dimensional at once.

And so in search of a new bag I nearly bought the Super Hybrid from Hideo Wakamatsuo but then the very helpful sales girls (no other possible term for these giggling Japanese women) showed me the next generation model coming in November. Not as sleek as the Super Hybrid and of course more expensive it did have a seasonal essential for San Francisco, a built in rain coat (for the back pack).

At the begining of my outing it was easy to defer but now November seems very far away...and of course Black (obvious and the RIGHT choice but still), Red (just so tempting but wearing requires more planning) and Silver (too hard and will just get nasty looking I think). And so bagless (well I still have my slowly decaying now officially ancient Hideo Wakamatsuo and my other various back packs) I meandered around finally landing back at the Muddy Waters on Church. A nice energy and I almost got a little writing done.

Hyberbolic writing and theory coming soon. Also the verdict on my effort to sell my non-levi overpriced denim to one of those soon to be Yelped about fancy re-sale clothing shops on Market street.

A Saturday of cleaning, tidying, and purging. Too many books not wanted by the awful Aardvark hastily dropped at the ever welcoming Out of the Closet. Another bad brunch at Cafe Flore (food slightly better than the sea of ugly and banal filling in and out), will I never learn? To the Mission tomorrow in search of energy and life and perhaps a new bag from the fab Japanese designer (I just can't be another Chrome clone or a would messenger in custom Timbuk2 and my last Tumi was just too much bag so again I go to toward to slightly kinky and assuredly Kooky Japanese designer Hideo Wakamatsu.

Tonight a quiet effort at to dos post Ashtanga Yoga and pre-dinner/video in. Still working out the hyperbolic as a theory of being. But soon wisdom will poor forth from here.

And so the circles keep closing in.

Love Dodie's discussion of blogging and time and real writing. I think perhaps when I am at my best I do not write at all but simply record the news from Mars sent via radio waves.

Kevin's play tonight preceded by a truly perfect meal with the ever amazing Emily Wilson (one of the few people who can keep me present enough to enjoy dining out and still be attuned enough to know the right artisan cocktail choice and perfect after dinner Pinot Grigio to split).

The play and scene themselves and even marvelously so. Too much to describe now but as I process as I am still processing the hyperbolic art and coming to an articulation of so too will I process Kevin's pink and Jocelyn's furs and Anne's paint and all the rest into something more than a sentence.

But Minnette there too and a wondering when I will come by for that much vaunted Martini. And almost an arrangement for Tuesday. If it works it will be a perfect day and a dream of days to come.

And so with this post of not enough, I persist.

Finally to the Frida Kalho show at SFMOMA. Crowded but not crazy but very annoying the blockades of people shifting their gaze from the electronic tour device to the art and back to be sure they got it as instructed.

I had a good general sense of Frida Kalho before seeing the show but was really amazed by the layers of performance and engagement between her life and her work and range and depth of the work. We certainly do bury our interesting women behind their artist husbands be they Frida or Yoko.

So nice to see our lovely city part of the positives of this short marvelous life and career. Especially nice too to see the self conscious claiming of a particular Mexican/Hispanic identify in these times of melting merging and/or eradicating of identity. Might sneak back one more time before they clear the walls.

Also caught Half a Life the Chinese contemporary art show. A very clear window into the soul of post Mao China with all of its unsettled and unsettling qualities. Reminded me of the stories of Chinese Performance Artists risking their lives in expressions of their conditions be being sealed in concrete, floating in a bubble in Hong Kong Harbor or standing on melting ice with a noose around the neck. As observers, one might think that these visual artists would have a less dangerous relationship to the work but then after the fat grandson, the almost bobble head like repeated sculptural figures and Pol Pot like pile of heads and scary fabric woman again pink and the feather man there is the sculpture by Sheng Qi, My Left Hand showing the missing finger he cut off and buried in a flower pot before leaving China so that he would leave something of himself in China.

All that in the afternoon and then home to nurse my summer sniffles (hate this heat and do too much cold to compensate I think).

Today I managed to retrieve a recent online art purchase from the ridiculous Clayton Street Post Office without too much trauma and still have enough energy to get to Flore for much needed coffee and some brunch. Still struggling with the new menu. Tried to recreate my old favorite of smoke salmon arugula and scramble eggs with mixed success. But fortified, I did manage to make my way to Margaret Tedesco's to see and buy some art. I told her that I had not been there before but since then realized I had but in the dark and from another flow entirely.

Lovely to see some secrets that I coveted but will have to view at the museum I am afraid and to score some super deals on a couple of Anne McGuire pieces. Also just nice to spend some time with Margaret whom I always see and say hi but have little conversation with. All part of my fringe of the fringe identity which I have decided to unfringe. (A lot due to so much gay club life partying and mainstream working all these years...there is only so much time for partying, sex, work, writing and being artistically social and that is what gave.)

Tomorrow my Sharper Image reunion (I hope good material to finish or start a story) and then Dodie's curated show which ties so well to with my Kathy Acker piece, At the Altar. I may try to find a way to share with some of the folks.

OK. Time to start the Party...

And again back, not quite a month. Shamed into trying harder in part by the conversation at Dodie's last workshop/party at Minnette's fabulous diggs.

Tempted a little by first Thursday but too hot to dress and look lovely enough and even a little by the Asian Museum Burning Man Tea House fest, I instead did a modest bit of Pilates and meandered home to catch up on things like this.

Still adjusting to my new job and hours and such I find my writing time more readily available offline and old fashioned in notebooks (adorable Japanese notebooks which are a serious fetische for me). All of which is fine for my stories and poetry but very behind the pace of a blog.

Especially by the time I get around to transcribing/posting. Could be weeks or longer. After work and the gym or what have you and cooking dinner (yes obsessive local organic slow food with often complicated variations of my own inventing) there is very little time to be boring and sit at the computer. Especially with a boyfriend I actually rather enjoy spending time with and having conversation with.

And so all the endless excuses and explanations. Not so very interesting and not really of consequence.

But rather than transcribing my 8/22/08 notebook entry entitled Package It Up: Blogging on Paper. So counter intuitive and yet here it is... I will write briefly about the that experience and then move on to the truly recent.

On 8/22, the extraordinary Jennifer Blowdryer hosted a totally fun reading event at Dog Eared Books in which my workshop buddy Stephen Boyer read and someone I did not know of before Brontez read along with Jennifer and a poet MK Chavez (whom I loved too and have to chase down to read).

I loved Jennifer's reading of the new version of The World's Laziest Secretary but I think she was wrong about the illustrations, the original ones are better but only now and not probably when they were new. Glad I got this brief visit with the rapidly slimming rising M. Blowdryer as see was booked up and then back to New York before I knew what happened.

So Stephen was lovely of course but he feels like a kid brother chasing many of the insane party pranks I did (and well yes, sometimes, still pursue). But Brontez was a surprising breath of fresh air and a flirticious delight before during and afterward. I only wish he would make more of Fag School #3 (sold out everywhere!).

And so then on to last night.

An incomplete gathering (Dodie, Minette, Emily, Maize, Anne, Drew, Masha, and Stephen) but lots of fun local and sustainable food (was this a reference to the Slow Food Nation event? Minette wore here apron...) Of course we are all converted one way or another. Emily who nearly went with Coco or Drew who loves the food hates the people or Dodie with her love hate of Rainbow...

A dive into deep dish pizza, some serious vodka and wine and we were off. Between the garden and view and the feast and wine and our determined good mood we managed to have a lovely party and read a little too.

Despite my anxiety and ongoing frustration with my place (or lack there of) in the experimental writing scene, I found an incredibly warm welcome for my latest work from the group and felt a shared empathy of frustration with Dodie and the limits of the scene, no matter how exceptional it may be.