Watching the days grow shorter, night time is the right time for music around a big bonfire, toasted peeps and even stars.  Time to get away to the smoky foothills and pig out on some great open-air fare, leave the fish-and-chips for another day.

Final bittersweet practice and birthday party (Muffy AND Scruffy) tonight in the Possum Lounge before the big heave-ho. Costa-Hawkins does not apply, as I have lived here since 1994, but the Fatal Flaw is I have Two Apartments! . . . Oh!  The Horror!  I choose to keep the sunny, clean, party-garden-studio (and the Deck that Steve Built) and leave the haunted past behind. Perfect night for it, as it includes a view of the Aquarius Blue Moon through Redwoods.  Uh, this is an old photo  .  .  .  not a full moon at all

Slowly sorting things out.  The front apartment would be mine if I didn’t have the (rent-controlled) back apartment, in my name.  I am lucky to have it, happy to be able to stay here, off street parking, what’s not to like?  Manhattan, in the redwoods.

So tiny, though, and in such a rush, and so brutal.  The pain will fade as I get settled in. I am moving my round table and brown carpet in and getting a smaller bed, replicating the flavor of the front room so I can still have people over to visit and practice.

I am playing music out about 4 nights a week.  Just did the open mic at the Missouri Lounge on Wednesday,  A big hit–the sullen bartender brightened up and gave me (and Tara) great praise.  This is new for me to get up and sing and play by myself, this is what I was meant to do.  It was always a struggle to drag Steve away from his couch, he was so conflicted–clearly this is my challenge.

Anyway, things are looking up, I paid off Steve’s bill from October, and the emergency room bill seems to be covered, getting help with my overdue taxes.  Soon I will have time to smash the state, get a land line installed, travel, (key west?) and such stuff..

So, now WordPress has been upgraded.  I hate the new format, can’t find my way around to know what I posted last time.  I do find the new little dot-in-a-circle download icon to be infinitely amusing.

Not much happening, except the hell of uncertainty vis-a-vis my housing situation, the crisis regarding non-filing of relief for my deceased loved one’s hospital bills, unfiled taxes, and piles and stacks of miscellany I have to, literally, decimate in the next three weeks  .  .  .  Plus, I have taken on more work.  No time to do art.  Not right now.

I’ll just put up a random watercolor that I did of the hill and firetrail above the Claremont Hotel, seen from my spectacular apartment on Emerson Street in 1981.

Saline Valley salt tram

Muffy brings news of another dream, of Steve and me moving, of his enormous CALM, and my anxiety.   I wish I could feel that calm around me.. I wish I could learn to channel him, but, that is my lesson.  I hear people say I must keep his apartment; then almost kill myself trying.  Shut up about it!  Since being locked out and harassed by the LL I am always anxious and fearful.

I don’t know what will happen, but tinystudio at $600+ will make life a little simpler, while my broken heart heals a little.  I am working to embrace it and enjoy it, I need a total makeover, everything out and back in again. Then I will have a little space, a little time, a little money for travels.  For now, I can only hope to dream, remember what fun we once had  .  .  .

Our best days were in the desert, in the 4Runner, just the two of us, self-contained, close to the Middle of Nowhere, always seeking that road a little further on.  Maybe I need to start another blog just for that.

Plus, there is still the East Bay Community Law Center.  .  .

And a week of almost no work, and several photos I could see as paintings.  I will put in some time on the couch with a sleeping bag and a book, as well as sorting these boxes of Actual, old film-type photos from 1992 of the desert, Four Corners (that fuji film came out pale and wan) and the trip through the Southern Utah Six-  Waterpocket Fold, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks  .  .  .

And some shots of Antelope Valley in the 90’s, or so.

from Palmdale, where we scattered Steve’s ashes from a hilltop overlooking the Antelope Valley, Tehachapis, Rosamond, Quartz Hill, Desert View Highlands and the wild desert where he grew up, now much concreted and over-planted with giant track houses.  A beautiful, cool, windy hill top in the setting sun, with a murder of crows skeining overhead, a little more than half a moon as we walked home, wispy smoke still hanging over Elizabeth Lake Road.  In the morning as i drove away, I stopped to snap this photo from the turnout by the wash.

Please save this place from developers–at least for my lifetime.

June 3, 2013

Get used to it!   I cut the ugly rosebush to the ground so now I can get out of the driver’s side door of the Westfalia.  I filled the green bin, put out the trash, recycling, all the old court papers.  Not all–there are boxes more to go through.  So many boxes of books and papers I need to clear out.  It seems impossible.  Little by little I am making dents here and there.

Still in a state of despair and dread.  The uncertainty as to where I am going to live, or if I can keep my home of 20 years with or without struggle, crisis, subterfuge, is poisonous .  Would that I could just grieve and work and live and pay bills in a normal manner without this underlying deception and ugly, negative bullshit!  My landlord is truly a criminal.

As time moves on, the fear and anger dissipate a bit.  I can do little tasks,  but it is so hard, and then grief explodes.  I consolidated his two small bottles of aspirin-wracked by sobs and sorrow .   A little while later the pain wears off and I can go back to that medicine cabinet and find something I need, dental floss, neosporin, and throw the empty aspirin bottle in the recycling.  Everything is like this, a herculean task.   I washed and folded all his clothes and put them in boxes.  Sweats, old, worn t-shirts, shoes, socks.  It’s just too much to sort, to decide.  How can I deal with real things if I can’t throw out his paint-stained sweat-pants?  How can I use these as totems to heal, to answer my prayers, to solve the mysteries of life and death?  Time will reveal all if I just push through, watch, and wait.

So many different enormous tasks and struggles to face.  Doing normal things, working, paying bills, eating, sleeping, driving, playing music–these are not so difficult, I have practice.  They are grounding.  Dealing with all these new issues is terrifying–a vampire landlord, hospital bills I can’t and shouldn’t have to pay, unreadable forms I don’t know the first thing about approaching.  And then there are two worse-than-useless cell phones, the ancient computer on the verge of crashing.

People keep saying, let me know if you need anything.  How do I match them up with things I need doing?  That will be my mantra:  yes, I need help with  .  .  .  this thing!

Can I lose myself in my art?  maybe tomorrow.