7.29.2010

Wimberley Brewing Company - Flight

Kept at a cool 55

Duchman Winery

The Salt Lick's BarBQ

The Salt Lick

Sculpture - Hindu Temple

Garden - Hindu Temple

Pond - Hindu Temple

Street crew hard at work

Transformation

They have turned our little Bed and Breakfast into the set for a new TV show coming out (in the fall?).
There are actors rehearsing lines in the driveway (outdoor cafe) and lots of workers running about screwing, nailing and banging... we were the only two fucking, though.
Thank you thank you, I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

TV Set: My Generation

MLS 2 : ManU 5

In play (3)

In play (2)

In play

7.26.2010

Hunnymoonin'

In Austin, Texas baybee YEEHAW!!!
It's been a blast so far; the locals so super nice, I may just return minus a tad bit of attitude.
Ha. Fat fucking chance.
Next week I hope to at least waltz back home with a kickass pair of boots and equally diggable tattoo, after somehow leaving my own weird impression on this most bizarre little place.
I am fast falling in love; one more vintage store and you might never see me again.
Enjoy the photos.

Playing Chicken Shit Bingo

Vintage Guitars

Parking - Museum of Pop Culture

Austin Speed Shop

Museum of the Weird

Kite Runner

7.20.2010

Not THE Killers. Singular, as in Killer.

As if this month couldn't get any weirder.
Last week I received an email about an old online buddy of sorts, who used to blog alongside a few other tragically bent souls (including myself), every day on a social networking site called Tagworld.

Rewind: Takin' it back to ol' 2005, holla.
For a time, a handful of us who joined this site would chat, email, write, draw, paint, create and create and create ABC and XYZ, outdoing the next guy, nudging the next guy, challenging the next guy, onward, upward, let's see what else we can do. We uploaded photos, poetry, blogs, artwork, asked each others opinions and collaborated on as much as possible. It was one of the more creative times in my life. This wasn't Facebook where you knew who your "friends" were. It was a small site still in it's infancy and none of the people whose blogs I read every day, did I honestly, in real life, know. I liked that anonymity. With those of us on the same war path, there was a lot of communication outside of your normal comment and reply. Online identities to the wayside and you share more than ideas, you share names, hopes, dreams, secrets, personal information that you are sometimes surprised you volunteered to what is essentially, a stranger. I chatted in invite only groups, formed coalitions with other like minded individuals; exclusive clubs of fools. All of this interaction and after a time you get a sense of those you contact and who contact you every day. A type of friendship, one might say, develops.

A few times in my life, I have met some of the people that I began talking to strictly online. After Tagworld sort of fell apart, and this group of dedicated bloggers went their separate ways, I kept in contact with a few of the people I felt kinda lucky enough to have crossed virtual paths. Any of them I would have had lunch or dinner with had we ever been in each others time zones and five years later, I would still say the same thing. We still talk. We still talk about meeting.
Well. Maybe not now.

So, back to the email.
It wasn't from him, it was about him. The him who had been my buddy. At first I did not reply because after my other experiences communicating online (which were not sunshine and happiness but filled with intimidation, hatred, and anger) I tend to keep my distance and default to paranoia before I even get past the greeting portion of any new unprovoked letter.
Yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah NOTHING I thought I knew about this "friend" was any where near the truth for the entire five years we kept in contact as revealed in a short conversation I had with an actual friend of his who sent me the email.
But that's not the weird part.
First Degree Murder Charges. That's the weird part.
Rather than fluff about it anymore, I present to you ladies and gentlemen, the online buddy I thought I knew.

Mugshot

She was 15 weeks pregnant. I didn't even know he had a girlfriend.

For me, I think the creepiest thing about it all is that last week his Facebook status messages were about going to confession after 20 years of not stepping anywhere near a church. In typical me fashion, I joked about his moment being like Chunk from The Goonies movie; I even blogged about it, my image of his snotty nosed, whining to a penguin clothed Fratelli brother more than amusing.

I am not so amused anymore.
so. fucking. weird.

7.12.2010

Never forget the ketchup.

It looks as though my tiny Armenian grandmother's potential leprechaun birth, is actually just some lame tumors.
Cancer - Serving 3 bajillion and counting.

So. Yea. She's dying. It's even weird to type.
I don't like to talk about it. I am not sure what to say and when I do talk, it feels like I just spit out the same story, over and over again. To tell you the truth, I am getting bored with my own voice. Everyone wants to know what's going on, what's her condition, how she is doing, how I am doing. Fine, Everything is fine, you know, just like normal. I wake up too early in the morning, if I have slept at all, take a shower and cry my eyes out, face the day absorbed in my work, answer phone calls regurgitating information until I can go see her again and deal with the barrage of bizarre family issues surrounding her deterioration, back home to collapse in a heap of exhaustion and silence as my brain tries its hardest to process what's happening.
At night I feel like a zombie who has the flu unable to sleep for the nightmares.

I am sad, angry and very bitter; at the choices, judgement and assumptions, of which I won't speak to, lest my tongue lash lasting stripes on those around me.
Issues and memories like swollen nerves.
This week I am going to have to figure out how to wash this all away. There is not enough time, we never have enough time and I don't want to waste it, my choices more important than my feelings at the moment.

What matters most is that I see and talk to her as much as I can before she leaves. I am going to miss her so fucking much.
This amazingly strong, beautiful woman who provided my sister and I an unparalleled environment of peace amidst the chaos of a violent sea at war with a stormy sky.
She said to me last week there was nothing quite like being a grandmother. I disagree. Being her granddaughter has made me richer than a thousand Persian Princesses.
I'd give her the moon if she asked. But true to form, she is content with only salty, greasy french fries from McDonald's. With ketchup.
Never forget the ketchup.