confessions of a football player

he plays football, american football for university of utah. he is huge. he drives obnoxiously, unnecessarily huge truck. i see girls stare at random parts of his body as he walks into the diner, which he does pretty frequently. most of the time he sits at the counter. most of the time he is alone, other times he is in a group with similar type of dudes. when he sits at the counter, he likes to talk to me and i guess i don't mind talking to him. yesterday it went like this:
- do you like sports?
- yeah sometimes.
- what kind is your favorite?
- i don't like football, i am sorry... when i was little my granpa watched a lot of soccer so i like soccer because it makes me think of him and home in general, i like basketball games too, they are fun to watch and baseball is cool because you can just have hot dogs and beer and watch the sunset.
- (with total excitement) i love soccer!
- really? soccer?
- yeah, i think soccer is so much more fun than football. i can't really usually tell anyone this but i think soccer is awesome. i think its my favorite sport. i don't really like the football fans and cheerleaders and all that shit.
- i agree, soccer is so much better. its kind of funny that you like soccer, don't you think? so, why do you play football?
- i guess i am built for it. have you been watching the euro games going on? Spain was winning...
- yeah, little. here, i think your eggs and toast are up...

later that evening i went to a soccer game with tinisha. it was super fun. as i watched the game, i thought of my grandpa vano yelling 'goooooool' and eating a lot of watermelon and i thought about the regular at the diner and about how much more complex people are than the stereotypes that we form would have us believe...

a farm? a farm. a farm!

there is a millionaire that lives up above park city and he has a farm. it is not an ordinary type of farm, it is a car and motorcycle farm. it is called ' a farm' i suppose to just be cute. he owns literally hundreds of cars and bikes from the 20s and 30s, sitting there among the beautiful uinta mountains. some of the machines are literally like pieces of art, the colors are of different era, but surprisingly resembling the future. as we rode our motorcycles through the property, it felt surreal, like a movie set. i found this rooster in the abandoned kitchen in one of the barns.

all hikes should end at a bar

while at torrey, three of us decided to go on a long hike. it was a hike i remember doing with dags and john years ago. both sofe and coley tried to convince me to go on a shorter one, put i was persistent. i remember the narrow red rock that surrounded the most of the walk, the waterfalls, walking in the water on the shiny, poky rocks...

the first 5 hours of the hike we were doing fine, we had enough water, none of us were too tiered yet. in fact we found a skeleton of an elk. the whole thing was still there, it was pretty cool. we saw cougar prints and beautiful flowers. as another hour or so passed and we couldn't see the end of the hike (visitor center), we began to panic a little. it was mostly sofe. she made us get off the hiking trail and we started to head up toward the top of the mountain, very tall mountain, so we could see over and see a road perhaps... after another long hour or so, we found a road that was a dirt road but there were some car tracks on it. as we followed the road in the direction that seemed to make most sense at the moment, but for no particular reason, we walked and walked and walked and ended up at the entrance... to the patio, the only local bar in torrey. not only we didn't anticipate that at all, we thought we were hiking totally different direction. when we walked into the bar, we must have looked pretty bad, because when we asked the bartender if someone could give us a ride to our car, which was back in the park, he said, absolutely no problem but sit and have some water and beer first. which we did. we had one and two and three, happily. we stayed long enough to make friends, i think there was tim who likes to play music, lorain who collects rocks and rollerblades, mr.x who wore his shirt open really low and kept asking us if needed a ride, kile from loa who was really proud of it and said small towns in utah are like mafia families, it is all about which family one comes from, and there was doug who i knew from long ago and who bought us many beers.

although lost for a while, this hike had the best outcome and the best destination ever.

some heels for camping?

i love outdoors and i love new york city. i love the trash, sirens and dust of the busy streets and i love the serenity, eerie quietness and calmness of remote spots. i love pure beauty of both of them. i feel lucky that i have lived in utah and have had this amazing opportunity to experience the desert, red rock and surreal beauty of lake of salt. there is a chance i would never know this place if it was not for the randomness of me coming to utah and still living here now.

in fact one of my favorite places in the whole wide world is a little town called torrey. torrey is in southern utah, right at the entrance to capital reef. there is something about this place that connects to me in such a deep and at the same casual way, as though we have known each other for a long, long time, known each other well, if you can know a town that way.

johnny and i go to torrey often. this time i went to torrey with some of my favorite girls: sofe and colley.

our adventure started at... target. sofe forgot her swimming suit so why not do some shopping? i am not sure what town we were in, but we saw a polygomist family in the parking lot. i have such an interest in that whole culture, subculture i guess. but that's another story.

eclectic, accumulating, post-modern and sad

i got woken up by my hone buzzing at 7:00 am, never a good sign. the cook from the diner said there was no opener at the diner. the first server was late, super late. tomas said he can give customers coffee and maybe they'll wait? from that moment on, the day at the diner was truly exhausting, like it in the way that only happens once in while. even the best employees seemed to have gotten up on a wrong foot. by the end of the day and many breakfasts and lunches served, i needed a drink.

the wedding in the afternoon. john is in canada, but i didn't want to miss it. it was elise and travis. and unlike many other people, i actually find weddings kind of interesting. i had two dates. one of my dates scotty LOVES weddings and funerals, as soon as he heard i was going to one, he asked if he could join. my second date was duncan. duncan's dad Utah Phillips, amazing, very respectable, beautiful american folk singer, had just passed away a week ago. i know it has been a crazy time for duncan and we haven't talked since he came back from california, his father's funeral. so much of duncan's life seemed to evolve around going on the road with his dead, help with benefit shows, etc. i figured the wedding might cheer him up and it might be a light place for us to catch up.

before we left for the wedding, we set at my house and drank whiskey. duncan brought me three books from his father's private library. they were about writing systems and one on prague. it was really sweat of duncan. this morning dagny left for virginia, it is strange not to have her at home. it was so nice to hang out with the boys that we showed up at the wedding as the bride was about to enter the back yard, we were right behind her. farley was taking random shots of random people doing the social wedding things, like eating cake, having drinks, laughing and playing with someone else's kids. duncan was in a dark mood. he talked about the funeral, hundreds of people that showed up at the funeral. utah phillips was history, his music, what he stood for and the type of affect he had on his family. he definitely had a strong impact on duncan, this evening it was all coming to surface. scott walked around the wedding consuming drinks and food and saying some of the most bizarre comments i had ever heard.

progressively we got more and more drunk. everyone kept asking where john was, i explained over and over again. salt lake is so small, so protective... we decided to get away and went to .... strip clubs. night continued to get weirder, but super fun. first club was foxy and fancy, the second one was simple and working class with florescent lights. duncan felt comfortable here. scotty felt comfortable in the first one. i felt comfortable... in both.

night ended with duncan having to leave abruptly because he was having a difficult time, scotty and i staying very calm and enjoying ourselves. later we met up with lisa, scotty's girlfriend, who had a really bad day at work. it reminded me about my crazy morning at the diner. lisa said she was ready to give up on her business, beehive tea room. i would probably feel the same, if there was no john and i was doing it alone.

the worst thing that happened today and the most important one is that bob from the diner passed away today. in the middle of the business, we got a strange phone call with the information. really? bob who was so looking forward to going back to alaska, who set at the counter every single day, drank coffee and talked to every single one of us. bob was probably the most simple, nice and polite man that i had ever known. i have no idea how to deal with his death. in fact i have no idea how to deal with anyone's death. it is THE most difficult and confusing topic for me.

i wish i could have gone to tbilisi to see my grandmother before she died. goodbye bob.

jean-luc godard

i interviewed richard brody from the new yorker magazine, who just finished a biography of jean luc godard. most of the time i was just jealous that he had met a person who made a film that i feel like has changed my life, 'breathless'. i know that sound totally cheesy but it is the truth.

although a simple procedure, i am having super hard time creating a link, here is an address you can paste if you want to hear the interview.
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/krcl/local-krcl-715342.mp3

you need something?

i lost my check from the university of utah. i went to the payroll services website and it told me that i had to go in person to sign something. when i got there, the day was hot. i rode my scooter, the song that was playing on my ipod as i rode my bike was perfect. i followed the instructions and went exactly where i was told to, to get a new check. the receptionist was on the phone. she pointed her finger in the air, signaling me to wait, wait silently. i did. her conversation of personal nature continued for a while, but i found it amusing, so i waited. finally when she got off the phone, without saying a word she held her finger up in the same manner as previously, again. she walked to her purse and got a bottled water, she unscrewed the top very slowly and took three long sips of water. next she got a make up kit, one of those shadow boxes out, opened it and began to apply make up, looking into a little mirror in the box. i began to open my mouth to ask her a question and her finger went back up into the air, again without uttering a word. when she finished applying her make up and put everything away into her purse, in very slow steps she approached the counter that separated us. she looked at me in that expression that usually means: " yea, you need something?" i told her my name and where i worked and that i was a student and an employee and that i had lost my check and needed it replaced. without looking away from me she said: "what do you mean?" so i repeated everything that i said before. the whole time i was talking, she had her eyebrows expressing the look of utter confusion, like i just fell off another planet. i remember in my head wondering, if i had accidently been talking in georgian. after what seemed like a long explanation on my part, she just said: "did you loose a check?" i wanted to yell, yes, that's what i have been trying to fucking tell you. i can't be the only fucking person employed by the entire university of utah that has ever lost a check. instead i just said: "yes", signed the paper and ran far, far away.

42 years around the sun - for john

it is amazing how one day can go from absolutely shitty to absolutely beautiful. johnny turned 42. i love surprises, in fact i love anything that is spontaneous with as little planning as possible. i had 42 clues and little presents planned for john to lavish in his bday: massage, beer with friends, sushi, dinner with family, afternoon tea, movie, etc... however perhaps i was trying to plan a perfect toma birthday, because john hates surprises and has a really hard time with things that he doesn't know about. his phone kept ringing and he had to do bunch of stuff for work, diner, etc. in the morning dagny was totally rude to me and i couldn't stop crying for an hour after i dropped her off at school. but as the day progressed and i managed to get john more and more relaxed and dagny got out of school and acted like nothing was wrong, evening somehow turned into a total magical time. farley, lois and lisa dropped off beautiful flower and rum, beautiful rum. roy and anne brought by books, great books. my mom came back from her travels in canada and brought gifts and stories, murry joined us as we set into the late hours at the bakery drinking coffee and listening and laughing and talking. dagny sowed bunch of materials together and wrote a poem for john. the poem said how much she loved him and how hard it was for her to express it sometimes. could this be the same person that told me to fuck off earlier in the day? coffee was sweet, the night felt warm to my skin.

two great photographic events yesterday and today and no photos. boo... went to a wedding reception for matt and april yesterday. it was funny, because it was all the people that hang out at trolley cart bar, but everyone was dressed up. it is funny to see the same people in different contexts, it is kind of endearing.

tonight was saturday's vooyer 30th party! salt lake acting company is such a great theater company and i think they truly do a great job. i love the theater world, even though i was never the drama girl, i feel really attracted to that whole world. i wonder what it would be like to direct a play vs. films? finley, mary, sofe, colley, eligio came up and worked the party with us. they are awesome!

while we were finishing up serving meatloaf and fancy cocktails, dagny called and wanted to go to some party and her friends' mom was going to pick her up. i finally got the friend's moms number and when i called the mom sounded little too young for me. right away i turned into a suspicious mom and went to check out this party. dagny wasn't there yet, she said she was waiting for irie to finish up her side work at jumba juice. again, being suspicious i rode over there. i saw dagny sitting in the corner waiting for her friend to do her side work. i ended up waiting for her. by the time irie finished it was 11pm, dagny didn't want to go to the party anymore. sometimes i imagine the worst case scenario, i really need to be more trustworthy. but then again, i am a parent and can't help it.