new beginnings

I'm hoping to reinvigorate my blog postings.

An incredible amount has changed since the last post. I got a promotion, Ian got an amazing job, we bought a house, my sister had a baby.

 Plus summer is here and I just unpacked all my cameras yesterday and ordered some film.

 Jaxon Elliot showed up yesterday. I really like him.

snowed in

So I thought I'd remember warmer times. I never did finish our June roadtrip. These are the rest of my digital photos. I have a ton of film from San Diego and Palm Springs, but they all need to be scanned still. 

Going through all these I realized we stayed in a lot of places with amazing bathtubs.

The Requa Inn: 

One of my very favorite places. It was small and beautiful, right on a river, with delicious food. We're actually hoping to go back there again this summer and explore the Redwoods more.

Fern Gully:
Or that's what we called it. This was one of the most magical places, and another one I want to go back to this summer.

San Francisco:
Wandering around the city made us want to move there. We found an awesome sandwich shop that we kept going back to. We spent the majority of our day at the old arcade on the pier. We wanted to go to Alkatraz so badly, but since we didn't plan anything ahead of time we were there on the wrong day for the tour.

We stopped in LA and San Diego after this, but that's mostly film.

Salvation Mountain:
This was on my list of places I wanted to see, so we drove far out of the way in 112 degree heat. Through an empty small town full of trailers and out into the middle of nowhere. We almost turned around several times. It was quiet and empty and blistering hot.

Harmony Hotel:
A tiny little place near Joshua Tree Park. All of Joshua Tree Park is film.

The Ace Hotel Palm Springs:
This place was rad. All we did was tan and swim and drink for a few days.

Metro Hotel:
An adorable Bed and Breakfast in northern California wine country run by a very french man. It was the best bed I slept in the whole time, I wish we could have stayed more then one night.

Rhododendron OR:
Our last stop was in this beautiful secluded house in the woods. No TV, no internet; you had to cross a metal bride to get to it. We cooked, played scrabble, wandered around the woods, and of course used the lovely bathtub.

Those were two of the best weeks ever.
All we knew was where we would sleep and the rest was an adventure.

welcome dear

Leon Alexander; soft and smooth and quiet.

A whole new soul swaddled up and ready for a lifetime.

the ache of fall

Weekends consisting of nights in and studying. Poetry specifically. But the smell, the air, all of it scraping my lungs with the aching cold. Ache is the perfect word for what my world feels [tastes, smells, sounds] like in the fall.

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,

are heavy with it,

it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion

and are turned away, beloved,

each and each

It is leviathan and we

in its belly

looking for joy, some joy

not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of

the ache of it.

Identity

Plans for Where Life Begins 11 were canceled due to lack of permits and a huge amount of police and media attention. So we journeyed out to the Gorge for Identity Festival. Going to a huge organized legal festival is a lot different then WLB. The organization makes it kind of nice (camping, toilet paper, cold water) but there's a lot less freedom: no camera's with lenses or pain killers allowed inside. I had to dump all the contents of my backpack on the ground to get in.

We got there Friday night and set up camp. The party raged till the sun came up. And even then, the music only stopped for a little bit before the party started again. Dance floors popped up everywhere: in front of RVs, in the road, on top of vans.

Didn't get any sleep, but had a fucking ball.

And then we went to the festival the next day.

learning to use chopsticks

Success.

champagne and orange juice

And we all fall down.