Lemonade in the Winter

A friend is doing this pretty awesome gift idea. Making a calendar for another, with quotes collected from even more. I saw the email list gathered and this one really struck me.

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. "

I like that. I don't know who said that, but it's perfect.

Our struggles are the ribbons around a beautiful and unseen present.

Rain

I haven't seen it rain in LA, at least not in my part of town for a while. Not since I came back in August. That was over three months ago. Three months of everything around me surviving off the conflicting forces of tons of sunshine and a few midnight dews. I'm sure whatever rain had visited, was far before my arrival. So how long has it been? Half a year?

It wasn't long ago when living in Transylvania that I experienced the same awe at seeing the trees and plants come back from what looked like death and four months of winter. How did they survive that cold for that long? How does LA survive the thirst?



A woman I met in a store complained about a weather reporter's ill-predicted forecast of rain. It was eighty degrees outside and November. She told me she couldn't remember the last time she saw rain. "Really rain. Not that drizzle for an hour thing it does here. And when it finally does rain," she added half frustrated and half amused, "I'll have to explain what rain is to my little girl!"

Tonight it is raining. Like spring's first shoots of green along the dark arms of naked trees, rain wakes Southern California from her burning, endless summer. Earth we've left uncovered soaks it up, adhesion helps the grains hiding beneath the unrequested cement tomb.

Good thing I put off washing my car. The time was better spent with friends.

Last night I looked from it's windows. Puddles fill depressions in the street. When was the last time I saw a puddle that wasn't from a carburetor and swirling with oil rainbows? It's been too long, I thought. Outside the clouds wash the streets, the cities sins flow to the ocean and I felt grateful she drinks for us.

At work I walk by as the kids are asked, "When was the last time you seen it rain?" No one answered. The pool sticks and games were momentarily forgotten as mesmerized faces pressed against a window. Their attention was focused outside today. The question seemed coincidental considering I asked myself the same the night before in my car.

It was probably the first time this year it's rained, really rained here. Considering their age, for some this will be their first memories of rain. I watched as they were pulled away from the storm and scooted back to their games.

When will they see it again? Will they think back on today when years from now they wonder, when was the last time it rained? Will today be their answer?

The Story of a Woman Who Starved to Death Eating Leaves

Once there was a woman who only lived to collect moments.

To fill her cases on love she'd find a man and do just that. Love him and love him until all he could do was love her back. And when they'd give her their hearts, with a satisfied grin, she'd leave with the memories and emotional win.
"Are you crazy?!" One once said watching it go on a shelf. "We used to be in love but really, you only loved yourself."
However, it was all in vain, to the woman love was just a task. After the warmth was extracted there was no need to keep on love's mask.
And in a jar his set, in between all the rest. Her assortment ever updating and barely perused, to one day remind her of the life she collected and the people she used.


Painting By Gary Jefferson; garyjefferson.com

Pause

The rat race leaves little time to take five on the sidelines. That hare will surely speed by you dare a rose keep your attention too long. The simple things, like using your nose to smell a flower, become luxurious pastimes appreciated far more because of their rarity. This is the one beautiful thing about working too much, free minutes are savored like the rain drops in our desert.
So if you too are stuck in a workers rut with vacation relief seemingly far away, here are some everyday moments worth relishing in.

1. Watching a dog hump your friend.
Ageless, hours of entertainment.

2. Solving a puzzle.
Whether it's jigsaw or crossword, five minutes or five hours, your mind will feel refreshed and ready to solve one of your own.

3. Clipping yo' nails
Its meditative.
Did you know that you can get pin-worms from the funk under there?

4. Excepting invitations from random strangers
They are adventures and friends waiting to be met.

5. Watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with your dad
Dads aren't there forever. And neither will be movies like that.

my new tattoo , ive been saving up for, for like 1 month now. it's pretty damn sweet, it just came to me one night. ........... a medium aged dragon, standing up straight, wearing a pair of air jordans, and throwing a pair of dice. then, underneath that, in fancy cursive , the words , "high roller" . i know what you're thinking , the same damn thing i'm thinking, pretty effin' sweet!!!!

Waiting For My Pirate

Back story: I met this guy a couple of years ago, he was really sweet. He would come talk to me while I worked, patiently trying to maintain a conversation with me as I cleaned fish tanks and occasionally walked away to tend to other customers. He was diggin' on me. At the time, I was not feeling the same. Not that he wasn't cute, he was...it was just his fixation with pirates that kind of scared me away. He was in a pirate drama club of some sort and his deep and scruffy voice sounded just like a pirate's, minus the "arrgghh's" and "mateys" of course. But really, add those in and no need to fake an accent.
His long, dark hair was pulled back into a pony tail and on the first date it was hard for me to not picture him in the missing hat and eye-patch he must have left at home. Anyways, I was 24 or so at the time and just not ready to date a pirate.
A few weeks ago I ran into the guy randomly after not seeing him for years. He was still doing the pirate thing, even more so now. His drama club had expanded into a Pirate performance troop of some sort and they graced the stages of many a SoCal summer festival with their vestige of pirate themed songs and acts. His career masquerading as a plunderer had been more bountiful than I could have imagined--his pockets were filled with little leather pouches and chains he designed specifically with the buccaneering man in mind. I was offered the headphones of his MP3 player to take a listen to his voice, rapping, about pirate stuff. I was in shock. Even more so that he did not somehow throw in the word booty. "Of course," he explained, "there's going to be an entire album of pirate songs! They will all be different though. All different genres..."
And I gave him my number. But he didn't call. And then I began to wonder why not. Where was he? I have nothing to do this Saturday night. How desperate have I become I thought, to be waiting for a pirate to call?? Oh, ode to my missing pirate....

Once you beckoned to me from atop your mast
I was clearly in your sights
like the shrouded peaks of Bali Hai
Your scope skimmed our heights

But I couldn't walk a pirates plank!
Afraid to take the leap
Later waiting for your ship to come
Bare horizons steal my sleep.

(the following is a later addition)

We circled the waters edge
never breaking the islands veil
For one night, and me, you left your treasures
threw the wind into the sail

The stars painted stories in the sky
But by dawn, they were burned away
the suns brutal reminder, washed ashore
for pirates never stay.

Grand View

Standing on Grand View Avenue, wondering where the hell the name came from. I shared my smoke with an old tree trunk turned tiki-pole/roof support structure for Mar Vista Bowl.

Grand View? All I saw was dark streets lit by a Karate, Goodwill and Laundry Mat sign that glowed the stars away.

Go ahead tiki man, take a hit. I hoped the late night, three bikers I saw riding the Venice lane home didn’t catch me holding the lit cigarette to my wooden friend’s mouth. You gotta’ give the bikers respect. I talk a big environmental game but the true livers of the dream are those willing to pedal home at 1am. They actually fly by pretty fast, I felt me and my new friend were safe.

The streets were empty considering…Saturday night, West LA, bowling for $20 from 10pm to 1am? Where was everybody?

Screw um’. I was chilling. Inside my friends and a friend-with-benefits-gone bad were taking my turns.

Footsteps and voices startled me as they crept around the corner. People coming. I regained my composer and my cigarette. Two very drunk men crossed the street headed my way but a group of girls and their high-pitched good nights cut them off.

Phew.

Filled with liquid courage and the belly to prove it, one of the guys wobbled after them. Unimpressed, the girls kept their backs turned and haphazardly continued their conversation, pretending not to notice the strange man and his mumbles at their heels. It only took a couple of blurry, “Gimme some of that’s…” for him to realize they were into more sophisticated game. They all disappeared and so did my cigarette. I had to go back in. Damn.

I looked around one more time just in case I missed something. A couple of Fichus trees, pavement and asphalt, a tattoo shop, a liquor store. Nope. I turned my head down the avenue until it darkened. I stopped focusing on the corner I was at, obviously not the inspiration for the name Grand View, wondering, hoping that maybe down yonder it was more so.