None of us deserve the love we expect

leonard cohen said that. wow.

to learn of pine, go to the pine

my day yesterday went from mediocre to shit. there are so many things and people that i seem to not able to deal with lately. i am not sure if this has always been like this. as it has many times before, i hope it all shall pass too. i am trying really hard to understand myself. i am also trying really hard to understand those around me. this must end here.

if you want honesty you must turn it all inside out

i went to a dress rehearsal of a play and watched director and actor go at it. it was SO beautiful.
whenever i work on my film projects, i always get really tense and very serious. i always thought of it as my flaw. watching this director make an issue out of so much more made me feel good.

san francisco conference

the conference was 'quick and dirty' as dr. di paolo would say. i love olivia, kara and dan. we had such a great time two summers ago, the bond is strong! i also had a great time with walt. we walked, we talked, we joked and had some awesome conversations, about life, love, peace and linguistics. i went to dinner with my committee member alice. it was really nice, except i relayed a joke that someone else said that if someone blew up the hilton lobby full of linguists, there would actually be jobs in linguistics. i thought it was funny. alice didn't think it was so funny. at some point i got lost wondering around the city. downtown san francisco at night is a trip. i have never stayed right downtown before. it is so different from the rest of the city. every single person could have been a character, was a character in a movie. this picture is in a vietnamese restaurant, that had screaming waiter, tables filled with very famous linguists that olivia kept leaving us for, most delicious seafood soup i've ever had, friends.

dagny is 14

you are so lovely. the way you move, talk to others, take care of your father and your friends, the way you plan your life, it is all so full of elegance. you may ask, elegance? yes exactly elegance. your thoughtfulness and kinderness continues to amaze me. i hope one day all the wisdom that you have accumulated turns out to protect you. to save you from major heart breaks that are inevitable, jealous friends, loveless marriage. you truly were the best baby ever. you came with to my classes; stayed up with me into the crazy hours of morning, while i studied; laid next to me as i cried exhausted; never complained when i made christmas decorations from a newspaper and had nothing under the tree; i have never treated you like a little kid, your opinions have always been asked for, in many ways you've had to grow up much faster than many of your peers. now at 14, as you roll your eyes at me and most of the time 'bark' at me rather than talk, as you only want to hang out with your dad, as you make me run around and forget to say please or thank you, as you have stopped saying 'i love you' to me, i will not hold any of this against you. because when i look at you, i see an amazing beautiful thoughtful and intelligent young woman in front of me. i see a young woman who is trying so hard to break away from her mother who has been such a dominant and constant figure, whom you are always compared to. you are constantly told that you look just like me, you sound just like me, you act just like me. well, what i see is a young woman who is an individual, who has an identity that is uniquely her. i can only hold my breath thinking of what you will do, where you will go. as for me, you have brought me fulfillment in my life that i didn't know existed. nothing would have been the same without you in my life. i would have never known how much love i am capable of. thank you.

this city is silver

silver with love and hate,
another break in in the diner!
come on people, if you are going to take someone' hard earned money make it someone like starbucks or village inn.
it is violating.
i just wanted to be ok today, except the call at 4:30 am about the missing register and broken door...
it amazes me that you can figure out how to break the door lock but not the register lock, so what happened? they took the whole register with 100 bucks in it.

although mind and spirit was occupied, my body was taken care of: i did yoga, had a heavenly massage and got a tan! and it all felt soooo good!

just got a call from girls, the voices in my head are telling me:
"... must have beer..."
would that be taking care of my body because of satisfying my desire for thirst or mind satisfying it by the ingenious conversation between coley , sof and i or perhaps the spirit for giving me the strength to get up and leave my writing session?

victories of last year

in my yoga class, the teacher asked to think about last year's victories.
i guess we forget to think about the great events that surround us, we especially forget to think about them as victories.
1. got through another year of graduate school
2. survived dagny's 7th/8th grade
3. went back to georgia after the august war
4. made 48 hour film
5. presented at the first linguistic conference
6. blue plate business has been great
7. went to african continent

i got my hair done with emmaly today. it is so nice to be in touch with high school friends. there is something very special when the friendships have began at such a young age...

after picking a color for dagny's room yet another time (she seems to want to re paint it every 6 months), we went to dinner at spaghetti factory. it was their anniversary, so everything was $2.00. curt came with us, john and him had been having drinks. in fact they were both fucked up. it was funny. dagny drew pictures of them, its john and curt about to make out.

another victory: i feel closer to john and to dagny than a year before. i feel closer to some dear friends, like curt.

just got a call from girls, the voices in my head are telling me:
"... must have beer..."
would that be taking care of my body because of satisfying my desire for thirst or mind satisfying it by the ingenious conversation between coley , sof and i or perhaps the spirit for giving me the strength to get up and leave my writing session?

i love my dogs

planet earth with my books and my friends, like paco.

earlier yoga with dagny (her first ever!). it is cool to go to a yoga class with a teenage daughter. she even wanted to go eat afterwards. what a shocker, when it wasn't to go and we stayed at the restaurant.

and before that a long working sunday at the diner.

... over 500 palestinians dead in gaza, about 1 israeli casualty... seems so unfair ad wrong.
i feel helpless.

this is this and that is that

as always the day began gloriously. it usually does. i love the mornings.
i dropped dagny, ola(picture), nancy and braidon at solitude this morning.
the mountains looked magnificent.
it was nice to see everyone so happy to be on top, sliding, climbing, walking the handsome beasts...

there will be a winter when i only snowboard and eat lettuce sandwiches with earphones in my ears.

i spent afternoon after work talking with scotty, lisa and jared. we worked on our idea for the little film. i feel fortunate to have these people in my life and their trust to work on projects together.

azadeh and chris made us lovely, almost all raw dinner. we spoke about unjust steps that israel has been taking toward palestine. those guys believe it is the biggest tragedy that has faced our history thus far.

open arms were calling. night out with dear tower friends at the red door. however surprisingly (i was so looking forward to it) my heart was not there.

it felt as though i was in someone else's skin.

i spilled the wine on a girl with breasts
it is a bad evening to go have drinks
i must cover the blankets over my head today, playing with my fingers in the sheets...

somebody has a long way to go

that would be me.

although i began with a yoga class at freaking 6:00 am, it didn't help for the day to go totally down hills from that point on.

i knew something was up when i literally dropped everything i touched for the duration of about one hour.

the bad day included fighting with my professor who basically controls my funding. smart move huh?

preparing for a radio show that was cancelled.

i haven't felt this unsure about school for a while. perhaps it is that doubt i am experiencing that i wrote about.

evening ended with beautiful, unpretencious, delicious etheopean food with lovely friends like craig, melinda, shawna, erik and elle.

although the evening was nice, the day like today shows me "somebody has a long way to go..."

"when you are lost you are not alone"

in the spirit of new years, i spent this morning writing all the things that i think about when i think about if there was just more time... they are not achievable in 2009 or 2010, at least not all of them. definitely not all of them. but it is nice to remember what those dreams (goals ?) are.

one of the 'decisions' was to write this blog every single day. also to take a photo every single day to have a photo journal, telling the story. i also decided to write about the films i see and books i read.

after a crazy long hectic day at the diner (the busiest day a year), john and i went to broadway. it was lovely. he was being super sweet, although later he almost lost it because he couldn't find a can opener. i think he was tiered.

we saw 'doubt'. what a powerful character development narrative drama. editing is nice. i also doubt he did it. but i was doubting a lot when i came out. i need to find someone who has seen the movie. religion can sit so deep in our hearts, in our minds, from childhood. i have no emotional attachment, or even understanding of it, but it fascinates me. the main character said:
"a doubt can be as powerful as certainty. when you are lost you are not alone."

i began to think how when i doubt something, that doubt in a way brings me closer to that thing. doubt is good. doubt means questioning. doubt means learning. certainty seems stagnant. when i am lost, i need to look around. i need to realize i am probably not alone. also others might be lost, when i am not. being compassionate, really compassionate to what one might be experiencing is humbling.

dags and nancy came in to the diner to have breakfast this morning. they were soooo cute. they were checking out a beautiful curly blond long haired boy, sitting at the counter. i hope dagny appreciates her female friendships.