freelance liver

not like real liver, like in pate. Although if it paid well.... enjoy writin', readin', books on and off tape, bikes on and off road, but not off off road as in no thank you mountain biking. mountains. but beaches more. more. dancing. more. cooking. more. talking with people.

[ginnybin-blog]

Another small gift

Let’s think of our noses for a moment. Forget all the politics behind them, how their size, shape, profile and prominence affect bogus opinions on class and aesthetics. Let’s just think of our noses as another bit of flesh. I’m thinking of my nose, now you think of yours, your conveniently placed nostril holder. Now, think of those nostrils too and their post as the gates to the olfactory sense, to a heightened sense of taste and appreciated awareness of life. The sense of smell, you know? 

Poor smell. It’s not sight. We don’t have schools for people without it, nor do we need them, really. We have no languages created for its absence. noone says smell is a language unlike ‘the language of touch,’ ‘the speaking of the eyes’. Life can go on without massive impingement whether or not our ‘noses’ even work. Allergy season comes and goes, as do colds and snot.  

Yet think of your sense of smell none-the-less and what it processes daily. That smells fishy, smells fruity, that smells malty, smells hoppy, all descriptors implying some conclusion: that the producer is delicious, fresh, rotten, vile, whatever. The odor which draws such conclusions travels across an infinite distance to reach our olfactory palettes. Is it the product of witchcraft or physics or Merlin or what? What on earth is the thing that is smell?

I had these ideas whilst walking around my neighborhood recently. I live in a fairly wealthy area of the city inhabited by ambitious gardeners with an affinity towards roses. Stopping by a rose bush, I was seized with the desire to fill the cliche, I pressed my nose into the petals of one of its flowers. Beautiful. so lovely. I thought of my nose and my nostrils and smell. The language of simple enjoyment on a walk.

[ginnybin-blog]

Don’t pick the daffodils.

I had a professor once. Most of us did-- I mean, not all of us, but maybe most of us, some of us at least. Some of us had a professor once. I had a professor once, in Ohio and it was spring. It was cold and rainy, but it was spring because there were daffodils everywhere. Rooting out of the dirt and beaming against the grey. 

A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Yeah, the breeze had a wind chill and the lake was a puddle. The trees, they were trees, that’s accurate enough and the daffodils, they were surely dancing, but the dancing wasn’t idyllic, nor classical. It was more the emulation of a Hari krishna or pop-lock-dropper, more with the March in Ohio version of ‘breeze’. 

I could say that at times, I wandered lonely as a cloud among them, these daffodils. Don’t we all? But anyway, this professor. He was into romantic poetry, you know, the Coleridge, Byron, Wordsworth type? ? ‘Bliss in solitude...vacant, pensive moods’, the opium ridden haven of the mind, that racket? He was pretty into it, nay, very into it, so into it, in fact that he was teaching a class about it, which would have been nerdy as hell but for the fact that my peers and I were taking that class and eating it up. Every single of us airheaded undergrads, drooling and eager.  Every word out of prof’s mouth, we knew was from up high somewhere (if up high somewhere was a ghosty London or lake district in the clouds where all the dead romantics lived). Myself, I was so into it that when I experienced hallucinogenics for the first time later that year, I took on the persona of Blake himself, and when not him, of ‘the tiger tiger burning bright, in the darkness of the night’ (it was definitely day-time, but I was definitely also an idiot, so there).    

Back to it. Prof was teaching of the gods of beauty and as their messenger, he was a demi-god. That’s why, what he has told me about daffodils, I keep.

Don’t pick the daffodils, you stupid freshman. There they are in the damp, so beautiful in the grey, so plentiful in the cold, a common good for us all to wander lonely as we want among. If you pick them, they are beautiful no longer. They are a private possession for you alone, to be shared only with those you deem worthy. Don’t privatize that glory, don’t degrade it to a mason jar, don’t keep it under fluorescence. Leave it in the cold, leave it in the grey, leave it in the sight-line of  humanity, leave it so humanity may be cheered by it. We need all the help we can get. Just don’t pick them.

I’ve left them alone since then and with them the crocuses that bloom at random intervals in the newly sprouted grass, the cherry blossoms that explode from branches on my way to work, and the poppies that proliferate among blackberry vines and dandelions. It saves on tinfoil and paper towels, at the very least. Perhaps something more, too. 

[ginnybin-blog]

present

I've taken lately to thinking about cars not as machines with drivers but as big, dumb dinosaurs. From the way they interact with me- or don't as is more often the case- it's as if I don't enter their radar until I'm right in their way.  The oblivious t-rex and singularly minded Spinosaurus (the largest dinosaur EVER, for those of you who don't interact with 6-11 year olds or paleontologists regularly), each on it's own path, chasing the green light and watching out for  predators, but not cyclists nor often, pedestrians.

I have been very nearly tramped by these metaphorical beasts a number of times in the past couple of weeks, often on the very road I spoke so highly of as being bliss-inducing just a few posts ago. Yesterday, I narrowly dodged two cars on my way to work and only skimmed past a third as it attempted to fjord the stream of traffic edging towards it. None of these close encounters has been of my making and in each case I was both well lit and fairly visible.

Let's break it down. I'm about a tenth of the size of a master bedroom in a Manhattan apartment, taking up what must amount to about 40 cubic feet when I'm on my bike. Surely I am noticable? When it rains and visibility is lower, I wear so much day-glo that I look like a raver turned CSI investigator. Still, I am turned into, driven through, and pushed aside on a regular basis, treated like a microceratops (the smallest ceratopsian dinosaur, weighing in at 4 or 5 pounds) even though I'm clearly more of a Albertadromeus syntarsus (a speedy herbivore!)

Being constantly in the path of potential Jurassic doom is needless to say, a little fraying. Being visible yet always invisible is fraying. Following the rules and yet facing the threat of extinction, fraying.  I am constantly alert, my senses piqued to sense the minutest movement around me. I am ever watching and feel I have to be.

Which makes it all the more paradoxical that my big fall happened free of cars. It had nothing to do with those around me and everything to do with my own obliviousness to my self as a being with agency in the game. To put it simply, I was the girl who didn't know she was there.

I had been riding on cruise control along a particularly cushy stretch of road on my commute home. It was flat with a bike lane and a set of generally benign drivers. My wheel faltered and edged itself into a curb. I edged through the air onto the adjoining sidewalk where I lay splayed, glasses hanging off, dirt clouding around my body, with a newly ripped a hole in my gloves and had skinned elbow through three layers of clothing. I was embarrassed but moreover, I was frightened. After all, I had just re-realized that shit, I do exist!

A week or so ago, I sat in the rain behind a truck and realized that, wait, I was in the rain, behind a truck and I should be pretty miserable. I had thought pleasantly of my ability to zone out so fully that I could be free of my surroundings. I think this is how drug addicts think, though I can't say for sure. What I do know, now especially, is that being blissfully unaware of myself in my surroundings is an ignorance which can only last so long before it comes to a nasty, gritty end.

I caution you out there in reader land to think a bit more about your presence as you move. You may be perfectly able to write your shopping list or think about your vacation while keeping an eye on external danger. Yet  the unperceived danger, that of an absent self, is just as treacherous, if not more so, than the errant dinosaur or car- however you describe it. After all, this one predates from the inside out.

[ginnybin-blog]

Sins of the lung

The importance of a cigarette lest not be diminished by all the nasties and consequences we know to stem from it. Cigarettes are brutish, nasty things, it's a fact; yet in the night outside a bar or hovel, it cannot be denied that they do hold value as a social tonic, a lubricant for conversation and a means to melt the ice between strangers. 

It was outside the bar tonight that I met Nina. Her thoughts on fur were the same as mine, as was her opinion as to how one might approach the methodology of dating. She told me that she always has a pack of cards on hand should she need a means to provide activity in provoking amiability. On this evening, I gleaned Nina was on a 'date' not only with a new fella but also, it turned out, with a goodly sum of his group of friends. No mean situation for my small new acquaintance, she told me that her knack with card games had enlivened what could have been an interview with a reject frat "family" into an irreverent and inevitably slightly drunken fest of Spades and Presidents.

As my tactic is so often so similar, I sympathize with her. Speaking one-on-one for a prolonged period of time is something of a phobia of mine. To drum up conversation topics, follow-up questions and follow-through in answers is a challenge I face with an eagerness perhaps similar to what Icharus felt when facing the golden sun- a slight dread and perceptive sweat breaks over me and I, like his wings, begin to slowly melt. Better to have diversion, be it in cards and pool or ample alcohol and drunken bystanders, something or anything to break the cloying singularity of one and another, two entities focused solely on each other and with only each other to draw from. 

Nina and I shared nicotine as a means to allow us to move beyond the event horizon of strangers in silence and into the beyond-the-blackhole of common dialogue. From there, we drew on our surroundings for topics of conversation, all with the understanding that nothing could be seen as non-conversable in our short, cigarette-imposed period of interaction. 

It's an attribute of smoking not often cited by the FDA or CDC. Similarly, as I was looking at data not to long ago on the benefits of moderate drinking, I found that what advantages existed (many, in the case of the evening 'wee dram') were often almost begrudgingly reported and were usually followed by a myriad of reminders as to the detriments of over indulgence.

Though not exactly the same, it may be conjectured that smoking has often been treated in a similar vein. Of course, I agree that we need to call a spade a spade and a killer what it is. Further, smokes are no false friend and this is less of a secret now than it has ever been. Yes, they work unceasingly to choke out life.

Cigarettes are disadvantageous to use but- but, as much as one might like not to admit it, they do have, and will continue to have, some small, yet none-the-less existent benefit. Like trivia, movies, horse racing, car crashes, crab cracking, and card games, they are a bridge, a tool that may foster bonhomie between people to whom otherwise, straight conversation might be too much to ask for, or with strangers, to much to even fathom. 

[ginnybin-blog]

ecstatic existence

This evening on the way home from work, I found myself flying down Stone Ave* on my bike, not pedaling just coasting. The air hit fast and fresh and I felt that I was simultaneously existing yet non-existent.  

Two-thirds of the way down, I found myself seized with a feeling of delight at being alive so strong that is almost overwhelmed me. For a touch of clarification to elucidate the elation, tonight was not the first time this has happened nor does the feeling only arrive on bike.

Further, I don't think that the sensation is purely based in the senses, though I do think that plays some role. Rather, I think it is a culmination of things. Say I find myself in a situation in which my senses are already stimulated pleasurably- speeding down a hill- and there are a critical number of subconscious variables just right enough to prime my attitude. In a condition like this, should I happen to float upon or somehow find in my mind some additional tincture of pleasure (as I did this evening) an ecstaticness sets fire across my body and all of a sudden, I feel so very fortunate that I should get to be alive in this moment. It is always a genuine feeling and never preordained. 

And it is after moments like this that I come to think that for anyone, no matter their background or current juncture in life,  there must also exist the potential for a spot a time, even if only a blip or ripple, when the business of being is not so bad. 

For me, it makes the contrary occasions when consciousness seems a cavernous empty gloom or when I'm stuck in the middle of any number of unfortunate things, to me it makes those times just a little more bearable. whew for that. 

*(a steady mile long descent...ascent, at times)

[ginnybin-blog]

Southern Comfort

Two weeks into Washington and I've already had to get out my Kentucky guns. Don't misread this; I don't mean literally machines that hold ammo and regurgitate it on command. I had to unpack half my bag on the airport sidewalk  to stay under the weight limit as it was- no way in hell I'd sacrifice choice clothes in favor of carting a heavier- though strangely about just as legal- option across the country.

I mean guns in the sense of gumption: standing up for the state I grew up in, in the face of those with too much ego about where they live and too much ignorant arrogance to read up on 'the downtrodden everywhere else'.

The situation, lest I lose you with any more qualifiers: On the latter end of a beautiful, cruise-y bike ride today around beautiful, cruise-y Tacoma, I decided to treat myself with a fancy macchiato (like a capuccino but with less milk, duh.) from a fancy  coffee joint downtown. There I sat on a cushy northwest couch, sipping away at the deftly crafted northwest fern that danced atop the foam in my cup and leafing through a trendy alternative paper and damn if I didn't feel pretty chuffed about my new home. 

And then this guy at a table nearby starts talking about Texas. And how Texans are terrible, overly-conservative people. And how he asks his family in Texas if they even vote? And do they even talk to the other people in the state to try to change their minds and their stupid opinions and idiot ideologies?

Obviousy, my ears sparked and since I have to cross the room anyway to deposit my emptied cup, I decided to chime on passing him with something about being from Kentucky and knowing how hard it can be to try and talk sense into people who veer so vehemently from the liberal mind. 

Now here's where things go from downhill to really downhill. Rather than taking the conversation to a more fulfilling level, ie, returning to whatever it was that got him talking about Texas, this man makes a flippant remark about how I come from a state where you can't marry whoever you want, but can marry your sister. 

Good one, mister. Next, tell me about how many teeth West Virginians have. And how Tennesseans are dumb backwoodsies. I love played out jokes, so please, keep them coming. 

Or don't. I respond by saying that actually that's not legal in Kentucky, nor anywhere else. I also tell him that though Kentucky does not yet (yet!) allow gay marraige, it will recognize those which occured in other states. And finally I tell him about how our governor is a democrat and almost 40% of the state went blue in 2012, not a win, but progress.

Then I ninja barrel kick his superiority. Or something like that. If by something like that I mean I politely said good-bye to him and the barrista and made a quick exit on what I think to be a high point.

Kentucky has shortcomings, but it's also where I grew up and where I call home.  It's true that I often find myself qualifying the state, comparing it to others and using it's shortfalls as a basis for progressive theoreticals.

Kentucky can be joked about, but do not sucker punch it. 

[ginnybin-blog]

c.r.e.a.m

In my move to Seattle, I took over someone's lease. If you've ever rented any place, you've likely had to put down a security deposit. If you've ever given your lease over to someone else, they've likely paid you this security deposit so that you may essentially wash your hands of responsibility for the place. After all, it's not your's anymore. 

The same idea was true for me. I wrote Natalie, the original leasee, a check for a sum of money that was large enough to make me a little queezy and I then dropped it in the mailbox for her. Piece of cake.

Apparently however, writing a check isn't good enough. It turns out that the check also has to be linked to a current and fully operational account, not one that has been closed a couple years, even if if would have been through the same bank. My bad. I guess I might be a part time fraudster. 

With no valid check book and the weakening hope that my leasee would be cool with an IOU, I had only two options. One: screw everyone and head for the border. Two: hit up some ATMs and pray the bank doesn't think I;m stealing my own identity. Over the span of two days and  across three banks, I successfully withdrew over a thousand dollars. I may be on my own watch list now, but no real big.

Funnily enough, riding around town with a large amount of cash was only scary when I opened or closed my bag, shifted it on my back, put it down anywhere, swung it, stopped at an ATM or so much as glanced a police officer. I'm just not sure he or she would have bought my story of paying off a former housemate, or, as they might say: 'is that what they're calling it these days?'.

Luckily, the transfer went through this time with out a hitch. My former room occupier didn't even seem to mind recieving over fifty twenty dollar bills. whew.

Tomorrow is my day off- maybe it's time to open up a big girl Seattle bank account.

Then I won't have to do this again:

[ginnybin-blog]

Confession

This is my confession. I just spent nine bucks on breakfast. No big deal, right? Had I spent nine dollars on a breakfast that included an omlette with home fries and coffee, true, it would be no big deal. Had I walked into breakfast with the mindset that I was going to spend nine smackss, it might be no big deal. Had I made coffee to bring before-hand and then still bought coffee because the waitress innocently asked if I was having it, it would be a big deal. I think she’s trained to do so. Had the two other items been a muffin and a little roll with cheese and ham- something I don’t even eat because I’m a vegetarian, it might be a big deal. And finally, had I been a pretty broke twenty-something about to leave the familial teat (if you will….which you will), it could be a big deal.

This is my confession. I just spent nine dollars on breakfast. And it turns out, it’s a big deal.

So now, as with every other time I wrack myself with the catholic-esque guilt that accompanies such dumb decisions, I resolve to never let it happen again.  But, guilt lasts only as long as digestion and when it’s gone, so goes resolve.

Maybe this time, if I put it in writing, I will remember. So, it’s in writing: I resolve not to make such dumb decisions again. This time is the last time, for a long time. Next time I find myself dangerously close to the precipice of regretfullness, I will take steps backward to avoid tumbling in.

Next time, I will ask: How much does it cost?

I won’t ask: What do you recommend?

I will say: No, I won’t have that, thank you. No, It’s just a bit too expensive for me. No, actually, I change my mind, I don’t want a four dollar, two-bite. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. I don’t even want it. I don’t even need it. No, no, thank you.

Next time, resolve. Next time, strength of purpose. Next time, will be different.

And you out there who feel like me, cut it out. Confess no longer. Maybe together we can build our wills, practice our responses, learn to use and re-use our two letter friend. And maybe, just maybe, we will able one day to say yes without guilt.

Today is not that day. But maybe one-day. This is my confession: I don’t want to confess again. 

[ginnybin-blog]

Nemesis

I have been thinking for a while of how to word a letter to my nemesis. Strong word, nemesis- it implies a history of tit-for-tat and intimates an understanding between two equals that no peace shall ever come from their interactions. The relationship I have with my anti-me is nothing like that; I've never met him(or her) and I doubt he feels as coldblooded about me as I do about him. More likely, he never thinks of me at all, except in thanks.  

Perhaps this might explain why a letter has been so long in coming. Now, I feel that while the words I have may not be perfect, the time has come to produce something.. Nemesis, this is how I feel about you and the current situation in which we find ourselves. 

To the person who stole my bicycle, 

How are you enjoying my best friend? Is the ride a little too stiff? Are the puncture resistant tires suddenly seeping air? And the saddle- slowly killing off your little fish?

I hope so. More probable however, she's rolling just fine. I bet you've never stolen a smoother ride...if you're riding her at all that is. But perhaps that wasn't your M.O. in taking her from me. Maybe you had in mind something more base. Now you strip her of her parts, joint her like a slaughtered lamb and to send her down the back channels for sale. Good luck: her componentry is her name- the work of voodoo and spiritual synthesis; she's made of so many parts and people that you'll find more trouble than luck if your following that route. 

Or maybe you've passed her on for a quick few hundred. Easy come, easy go. After all, every bike owner is a sucker in training.

This might have explained why you managed to blithely push out of your mind when you cut my lock that you were stealing a thing that belonged to a person- a person who cared deeply for it. You didn't pick up while knicking,  that the bike at hand didn't seem like one a weekend rider cruised on before locking away for the rest of the week. That her accessories didn't exude clues of a wealthy owner, nor of one who looks only for utillity in her ride. 

If you had unblocked your conscience, you might have seen that this bike was clearly something more. It was a best friend, thief. My best friend. 

In the way that Butch Cassidy had Sundance. In a platonic way they loved eachother deeply. That's how I loved Voodoo. Each had her own suits of strength but I felt a bond with that bike that I couldn't share with anyone else. Like Butch and Sundance, when you never go a day without being in contact with something and when so much of your time together is spent exploring, wiling away time or racing against it, the connection is unavoidable.

Yes, thief, I get it. It's a bike. I understand perfectly well that Voodoo is not a human, not capable of emotions. But, that's not the point. After all, Snowy was a dog, yet TinTin would have mourned his loss no less. Love. What about the Lone Ranger and Silver? Black Beauty and Joe Greene? Both Love. 

Knowing how I feel won't make you change your mind, I gather, but it make clarify why I will continue to be vigilant in keeping my ears and eyes open, and my hope alive. It might explain why I won't tire of refreshing craigslist, checking with the police and, as soon as I live in Seattle, spending time in every pawn shop in town. And it might explain why if you happen to ride by me, you better believe I'll set aside my passive tendencies for a minute. Too bad you don't know what I look like. Just imagine I'm a Texas Ranger. Except it's when you're in Seattle look behind you. That's where I'll be. Like a lady Chuck Norris, ready to bring some justice for Voodoo.  

Regards, 

your nemesis. 

[ginnybin-blog]

workin' out

There's a little red zig-zag that floats under many of the words that I type. It tells me, 'your french word isn't english' or, 'it's English with a capital E, dummy' or even, 'teh is not a word, nor will it ever be, so slow down'. While most of the time the words that sit upon these rouge lava waves are spelled exactly as I would want them to be, or would be found with a simple read through regardless of signifier, here is one case in which I am continuously thankful for the spell-check tool:

Ok, here goes. I'm coming clean.

I like to excersize. No? No.  I don't like to excersize. I like to...excessive? That's what you think I want? Crimson marker, what are you telling me? Let me try again: I like to exersize. Still no dice. You think I like to...oversize. Interesting. You and I obviously have very different ideas of what 'working out' achieves. Still, I like that you're not making this easy for me. You could say it's like you're giving me a mental exercize. Close! While I might have spelled this verb incorrectly, yet again, you- my little orthographic helper, you have finally given me an option I can use.

It turns out, I like to exercise. Who knew?

Thus, for all the times when I find spell-check a haven for the lazy and non-editing masses, this is one specific circumstance that stands justly in the way of complete abhorrence. What's more, it even makes me like spell-check --in a manner. After all, in this case, spell check is making me do the work, making me think through other ways in which 'exercise' might be spelled. It guides me down a guess and test path which will eventually reveal a solution. It's like you want me to learn!

It doesn't mean it will ever really teach me how to spell exerzise correctly on the first go, nor that I appreciate its blatancy with most of its corrections.  But that's teh way the wurld terns, I gess.

ps. spellchecker: zig-zag IS a word and IS spelled correctly. Same goes for signifier, ya dumbass.

[ginnybin-blog]

pit crew

 In life, there are two kinds of people.....at least. People who won't compromise their reputation for a joke and people who don't even have one of those things to worry about. Let's see where I am. 

As some of my readers may know,  for quite a while now I have had two healthy manes of hair flowing beneath my arms.   Acquired during my college days of liberation, they have ebbed and flowed in their presence, reducing themselves when I don't want a sweaterset to pair with my tanktops  and growing more prevalent pretty much every other time.

I've loved my pit hair like anyone loves something he/she rarely sees but sometimes smells a little. That is to say, I didn't think about it very much. Until a few days ago, when looking at in the mirror I decided I was a little bored of these strands of lazy protest. New season, new home, why not?

And, just in case any of you out there are feeling a similar boredom, here's a list of instructions for one way you might go about making the change:

.

1. Strip from the waist up and step in the bathtub. Maybe grab a pair of scissors before you do this so as to avoid running bare breasted around the house frantically searching. Kitchen, high end hair cutting, safety, pretty much anything with a blade will do,

3. Trim (underarm) locks until they are a length equitable to that of the hair of a ten year old who listens to limp bizkit and wears "no fear" tshirts might have. Looking pretty punk-ass now.

4. Brush yourself off, step out of the shower and have a long think about how much hair it would take to clog a drain. In you deem the quantity present less than the critical amount, wash it away. If not, I don't know, do something more responsible or whatever. 

5. Wax armpits. If a successful transfer of hair to wax strip happens, stop reading. Congratulations, you're not a feminist anymore, but your pits are SMOOTH.

If not, keep reading.

6. Retry strips until the wax surrenders to the power of the hair and, like glue, sticks to it. Don't try to get them back with more wax; it won't work.

7. Here's where you might have to locate some other materials. First, attempt to dislodge wax by scouring it with the 'soothing wipes' that may have accompanied the wax strips. That failing, progress to scrubbing and rinsing the area with soap repeatedly.

8. If this doesn't do the trick, you'll want to dry the area before moving on to next solution. A towel or, my favorite, toilet paper, will work. Enjoy the added challenge that follows of now also removing bits of lint or paper from this unfortunate situation.

9. Lotion. Preferrably face lotion. Just as it leaves the skin clear and moisterized, perhaps it will leave the pit clear of the wax and accruing debris.

10. If, as you may imagine, this was a dumb idea and doesn't work, it's time to get serious. Hit the shower again and hope the decision you made in instruction four doesn't gum up and bite you in the ass. 

11. Shampoo and rinse the area repeatedly until finally, finally, you have very silky, only partially sticky, pits. 

12. Congratulate yourself on a job well done. Though your underarms are raw, you'll leave the bathroom cleaner than when you entered and  only thing your slightly shaggy underarms will be sticking is 'it' and 'to the man'. 

Until you try again in a few days, that is. 

[ginnybin-blog]

Now, where do you think you're going, all gussied up like that? 

Meet Voodoo bike. Don't let her bright colors and knack for matching floral and wool decieve you, this babe's got a brain, too. She's refined yet crass, defined yet versatile, with the body of a figure skater and the strength of a nordic skiier. She's a real stellar cycle 

But careful, suitors. She can be real maintenance, too. Her plans for the immediate future? Luxuriating in her pillow and blanket lined box for the long haul from Kentucky to Tacoma. No hokey local transit, this girl's first class, federal express or nothing. 

See you on the other side, you slinky minx. 

[ginnybin-blog]

I missed Valentine’s Day by a hair. If a hair is about as thick as almost an hour central time, that is. 

Regardless, I want to close it out for all of you dream boats and on bored dreamers with a little lullaby from a little movie I like. 

I hope this soother leaves little space cowboys in the crevices of your mind to ward off nightmares and ensure safe passage of pleasant dream herds through the tracts of the sleep ranges.

And that when you wake up, it’ll be with even more love surrounding you. After all, Valentine’s day is great, but feeling love on not national holidays is less showboaty and just as special. 

And the candy is half off.

[ginnybin-blog]

man. man. where is beauty from?

Here's a little ditty I did today while my charge, Andrea, was rapidly losing interest in his own works. The television held more interest than the tempura. 

So, this fellow is taking information on a bird. Which brings me to my next point- information.  It exists but doesn't. Too much but too little. Full to popping with dialectical dilemmas. wooppee.

Obviously, someone with enough fingers to type this post and enough morning to fiddle away to allow her to do so is less than enthused about writing more on the subject of information. It's like writing about how Facebook is ruining society...a bore of a read that we've all snored through before. Just had to bring it up so as to create a stepping stone to  what I would like to fiddle away the sniff of a morning I have left on: beauty. wisdom. where is it from? what is their provenance and when do they meet in the air pockets of the universe chemically composed in a way  to all them to combine?

I have a few ideas, but can't say that any one is so riveting I believe it it worthy enough of writing down, so stunning as to open the eyes anew the readers to a dewy new day of higher knowledge. I do know a few places where beauty and wisdom are not from, though. I will even go as far as to outline them in a brief list.

Five places where wisdom and beauty are not from: 5. a list of the top five of anything     4. a list of the five best or worst of anything       3. a list of the top x number of signs that some organism or inanimate object may exist in one of a myriad number of capacities.   2. In throw-away knowledge presented in bite sized pieces to be ingested, digested, forgotten like last tuesday's breakfast.  1. In most variations upon the same theme.

I admit that I take in a list or two a day, like a snack when I don't feel like reading something substantial. But I've grown into the understanding that doing this provides me little nutritional value, fostors little further reflection, doesn't make me feel particularly connected to any larger group more than tangentially. 

I do have so much more to say on the subject but, ramped up a few too many coffees and sweets of the morning, I think a run is in order. Oh thoughts, how you do have trouble finishing yourselves!

[ginnybin-blog]

What’ll it be today, G? A diatribe against something in the paradise of your location? A lament that you don’t know where you are going to be with your life? 

Well, for one thing, I am actually growing pretty damn fond of these screwballs. In the last few days I have even been feeling a twinge of wistfulness when planning my departure.  This is  followed by a resolution (albeit perhaps a flimsy one based on how full the date-book of the rest of my life is with pencil-etched intentions) that I will return again someday, that I revisit this first date, but perhaps on slightly different terms. Specifically, next time I plan do something more than be a professional big sister and exotic oddity, that I live amongst folks are old enough to share a drink stonger than milk with, and that I speak the language of the natives well enough to be able to argue eloquenty- although I'm getting pretty good at this italian thing. I can now get by, and, given two or three years, might even be fluent. 

For another thing, last night my mother started talking to me about the actual logistics involved in changing one's location (moving out of somewhere else, asking for help from those more grounded than oneself, spending money that doesn't exist). Thinking about that, the shitty period of months between decision and new apartment, job, security and friends....imagine a marshmallow near Mercury and you’ll accomplish a vague illustration of how I melted down.

Not into revisiting the thought just yet. 

So, amici (means friends). None of that, today. Nope, this time I just want to do one thing:

-wish you a happy thanksgiving!

On Sunday, I am making thanksgiving here. In the fridge is the rest of the turkey. Imagine Mercury. That’s the fire of excitement I have for what is about to happen. I'm already thankful to the nonna who procured it for me (and understood when I politely explained that tomorrow we won't be eating pasta or a primo at all...that's not how thanksgiving works) for the family that is getting excited to eat it and share this experience with me, for everyone who is helping a kid in her last months of adolescence. Just wait until the post where I get really sentimental.

ps. I apologize in advance for depleting opinions of me after this video. 

[ginnybin-blog]

where.

Well shit, kids. I think it really comes down to this. I don’t know if I’m ready to leave the east coast yet. I suppose I haven’t actually lived there that long, after all. Sure, I count Oberlin as east-y enough, but bonafide east coast living adds up to about ten months total in Virginia, DC and Maryland. The rest of my adult life, legally speaking - I know I’m not kidding anyone referring to myself as a real grown up- I’ve been vagabonding around the world, neither East nor West.

The thing is, I have a feeling that once I head west, that’s it. No turning back. There’s a movie called Fivol Goes West. There’s no sequel called, Fivol Returns East Disillusioned and Yearning for Assholes and Dirty Cities Again. Once I get to the West Coast, my destiny will have manifested it, I’ll have reached my paradise, it’s where I’ll want to stay. Unless of course I’m vastly over inflating the west coast and specifically the PacNorthwest- which, according to almost everyone I’ve ever hear talk about it, I’m not.

If I know that, why don’t I just go now, I ask myself. Likely, you ask me, as well.

Truthfully, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because I feel so certain that the west will suck me in that I’d like to be well and truly tired of the east before I leave it. I want to experience more of this place before I head to the cleaner, more open alternative. Maybe I’m apprehensive because I actually do like the East coast quite a lot. I have a friend from San Francisco who now lives in DC. Once we had an argument about how east coasters act- where he said they were assholes, I said they were straight forward and practical, offering a sort of refreshing  truthfulness. Where he said people from the west were more friendly I…well, I said, sure they are. But that’s not the point. The point is that there is a grit in the East that I seem to like in my teeth. After all, The East lets you get mad, kind of wants you to get mad every now and then. The east allows you to self-deprecate yourself and down play how great your life actually is. It’s kind of nice. In the West, is there anything to complain about, even?

The east has some stuff I still haven’t done. Like live in New York. Go to Montreal.  Go to a jazz gig or two and eat some pretty good donuts. It has some people I don’t want to say good bye to, some folks I’ve been telling I’d live near for a while. It’s small. It’s about four hours closer to Europe.

Then again, the West is about four hours closer to Asia. It has hella mountains, oceans abounding, I can be outdoors all I want, and the food is as mama nature wants it, pachamama makes it. People are pleasant.  Also, I feel I’d be more likely to get a job doing what I want (editing or something related to words).

So I’m stuck. Maybe it’s time to cut my losses and head over to the lighter side. Maybe I should stop telling myself that if I head over, it’s forever. Maybe my apprehensions mean I want to stay here in the east.

Hudson, Seattle, San Fran, Brooklyn. Dunno where, but sometime soon, I’ll be there.  

After all, this is how hard it is even for me to choose a ten day holiday...

[ginnybin-blog]

Meatloaf appears in Italy.

Role Models appear throughout one’s life in spurts and dribbles. Sometimes they’re the go figure types- of course Barack Obama is setting an example of how one should strive to live, of course Pope Francy is the epitome of goodness. Yes, Oprah is a dream. She’s also Oprah.  

Sometimes, however, a role model will present his or herself less blatantly, perhaps through a veil  of mascara. Yesterday evening, wound up on a little wine and exploring options for traveling down the east coast to meet friends upon my return to America, I realized that I was, proverbially, fucked. Not only would I have no money to travel anywhere once I arrived in states, but I wouldn’t even have enough funds to even do anything in Europe. Last night, I was sleeping in JFK airport and traveling for about only about two days on this wonderful continent in which I find myself currently. Last night, the cost of traveling skyrocketed. Ten separate windows open on my computer, I was poised to book any number of rather limiting journeys.

Poised, I was. Poised. But poised implies that no jump followed. Mais, oui, inspector reader. Bravo. Saved from the precipices of silly decisions made in frenzy, a role model appeared to me.  He gave me wisdom that he, himself, had once had to follow. So important to him, that he even wrote a song based around this advice and how it affected his own experience. Meatloaf, you are my savior of rationalism. ‘Let me sleep on it.’ Obviously! Thank you Meatloaf! You are a trans example of common sense, something I sometimes need.  So, with his chorus in my mind, pumped from my heart, I slept on it.

Turns out, this morning things aren’t quite as dire. Turns out, I can still travel. Maybe no, not excessively. Maybe yes, followed by a period of saving austere enough to make Angela Merkel proud.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve turned to Meatloaf as a role model. Be it in fashion, make-up, or straight up intelligence, he’s had my back and infiltrated my thoughts in tough times- much like other role models of mine: the Robin Hood fox, my grandfather, great uncle and brother, and sure, Barack.

I hope that they continue to do so, too. Otherwise, it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to wake up the morning after terrible decisions.