Best of Friends and Still Strangers

I have been part of a group of women whom I hold in my heart as life long friends. I know alot about their inner lives and daily routines. I know about their kids. I know about what makes them happy. What makes them sad. Oh and if I walked passed them on the street I wouldn't even recognize them. The internet is like that.

This July I am going to... ha ha ha ha... I almost called it a reunion.... it sorta feels that way except without the RE I guess. For 3 days I get to talk to these people without typing a single word. And I am doing it in Chicago! Check out the house!

http://www.chicagoguesthouse.com/Newport.html

I am suddenly nervous! Do I actually know how to hold a conversation face to face?

Ha!

Its called a cask! It is NOT "wine in a box" anymore!

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=56577

CALIFORNIA WINEMAKER FISHEYE WINES IS rolling out a $4.5 million national TV ad campaign that highlights the packaging of its award-winning wines, marketing its premium wine cask to 25- to 40-year-old wine drinkers.

The spots, which are airing during ABC hit dramas "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost," and "Desperate Housewives," also aired during E!'s Academy Awards' Red Carpet shows and will run through the first half of 2007. Kase Media Solutions, San Francisco, did the media planning and purchasing for FishEye.

FishEye's brands include six premium vintage-dated varietals: Shiraz, Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio. The wines come in three-liter containers that store the equivalent of four bottles of wine in a cardboard package that fits in the refrigerator and stays fresh for up to six weeks.

The ads compare 18th-century wooden casks and their hip, flexible, 21st-century equivalents. The campaign, whose tag line is "better wine, better idea," was developed by B.A.R.C. Communications, San Francisco. B.A.R.C. used computer animation and stop-motion techniques to animate a painting in the William Hogarth tradition in which 18th-century revelers tap into a cask of wine, then transform into modern-day pop art characters drinking from a FishEye cask.

Finally I am cool!

The Loop Effect

http://www.glumbert.com/media/onewomanband

Choreography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Z-DIAthbM

200 Miles can be farther than you think...

My daughter came to visit me for the week. On our way home from "half way" (ie about 200 miles). I told her I am a lesbian. I waited until we had both shared our stories and music and questions. I waited until we were close to home in case she wanted to get away from me...hated me... was embarrassed...

She was quiet... I assumed she was mortified. Perhaps she was but instead she took a deep breath and said, "God Mom I thought you were going to tell me you had cancer. I was so scared!"

I said, "Oh honey! No, for now I'm just gay. And if it makes you feel any better I was scared you wouldn't love me anymore."

"Well," she said, "I still love you."
"Well" I said, "I'm just a lesbian....it isn't fatal."

She then asked if I would buy her 99cent tacos from JBX.

Its done. Yet its just begun. Funny how life is always like that.

Random Acts of Kindness......

I think they are supposed to be anonymous. You are not supposed to go around and say "Hey! Guess what I did!" But after a half a bottle of Ameretto I decided what the fuck.

ilyaimy Check them out. They are very talented and they know how to entertain a crowd. We, Kym and I were at Pengilly's for open mic to see James play and they were 2nd on the playbill. They rocked the house. During their set they mentioned that they were taking up a collection so they could find a place to sleep or assuring the crowd even an empty couch would be welcome. If you read their journal you will see they spend most of their lives on the road entertaining those lucky enough to cross their path. Kym and I were suddenly hit with a brilliant idea... the rest is in their journal entry.

It was fun to do it. She said it would be the first time in ages they would have clean sheets and a shower. I woke the next morning appreciating my own clean sheets but also wishing that I had a taste of the life these people lived as well.

Take my advice. Check out their music. Its great. Their journal is amazing as are their pictures. ilyaimy journal and just as an fyi I am the "michelle" she is referring to. Old names like habits are hard to break.

love,

nina

Opening Night at Nina's Bistro

So who is coming?

I Told Today...

I held on to it since I was 8. I kept our secret safe always with a smile and dutiful compliance. Never wanting to cause a stir.

You with your creative gynecological diagnosis and a tidy tray holding shiny blades that I thought looked like spears. My mother trusted you, and I trusted my mother. A trust that gave you permission to do what you did in places you had no business being.

You did it to me 3 times. And then I learned how to lie. I learned how to hide. How to pretend to be well. And I learned fear. Deep, black, sticky tar like fear.

I lost trust among many other things with your shiny spears. I lost the ability to care for myself as an adult. To seek help when I really need it. Because of that black fear that lives in my stomach which paralyzes me anytime I try to make an appointment. I have lost the ability to decipher whether or not I feel fine or if I am just pretending to. Because of you I am afraid. Because of you I don't trust myself.

You went to jail long after I learned to pretend to be well when I wasn't. You went to jail for a crime of child abuse. You had a booming practice. How many others did you do this to? Perhaps worse things? Those poor children. I wonder what you stole from them as well.

I don't know what happened to you. Perhaps you died in prison. I don't care. I told today. You aren't a secret anymore. Part of the weight I carried has been put down now never to be picked up again. I will not let the fear you gave me stop me from proper healthcare anymore. I no longer will allow you to have power over me.

Perhaps a Summer Treat for my Summer Feet?

If I find a design I like I think I might Henna my feet.... and then if I really like it I might make it permanent as in t-a-t-t-o-o....

thoughts?

Mad Gab Monday

1. Minnie Soda Vie Kinks

2. Jeep Herb High Deed Doesn't

3. Nose Sects Beef Form air Itch

4. Seal Indy Yon

5. Nose Sects Beef Form Air Itch

6. Mack Haul He Call Ken

Happy Easter!

Sneak Peek

(before)



(after)



Already it looks different as I have dumped crushed tumbled granite in between the stones. Plants 3 tall bushes which screen the area from the street and just yesterday I added a fire pit on the other side of the area for those chilly nights that conversation keeps you outside into the wee hours. More pictures to come hopefully soon and hopefully of the finished project.


and now for something completely different.... I found this picture of Katharine Hepburn

I have so many things to talk about...

but if I tried to do it in one post it would turn into a 80,000 word essay that would set us all to tears. So I will try to do a little everyday. Today I would like to talk about the best birthday song ever written and visual art. About the song. It was written by one of my very most favorite blog persons in my life.

My friend eb wrote this wonderful little diddy for me!

A birthday song for Neener:

Neener neener
She's a cool beaner
I ain't yet seen 'er
But I hope to some day
Neener neener
A lesbian dreamer
A funky cold medeener
I like her that way
Ohhhhhhhhh Neener neener
She's a hot steamer
She don't like no weiner
She wants it her way
Ohhhhh Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeener

I turned 45 a couple of days ago. I think I am going to like 45. Thank you to everyone who sent me well wishes and kind thoughts!

On to visual art:

Most of you know that I am a black and white photographer. Most of you know that my taste leans toward the erotic lesbian image. Artists such as the late Tee A Corrine and Jill Posener come to mind but there are so many others whose art touches places deep inside me and send my heart into tachycardia. I found the perfect introduction to my latest photo from a writer named SDiane Bogus. It is a portion from a piece entitled "Dyke Hands".

"Because dyke hands are the sexual organs of lesbian love, they can be as shocking to view as the penis through an open fly, or as bold (delicious) to behold as the breast of a woman suddenly uncovered."

She states later in the same piece:

"Not all dykes are teasers, as such, but you can bet if they have dyke hands, and they are brought forth, they seem to appear at the end of their wrists the split second before you are touched..."