i am 4 years old and you are 14. it is june and the nights of our new northern california home are warm and lovely.

i follow you outside to where you have set up the chaise lounge chairs. one for you and one for me. i am amazed at the brown flannel sleeping bags that lay before us in anticipation. it is my first introduction to the concept, and i marvel at the pictures inside the sack, of hunting dogs and ducks flying away. you tuck me in and then get in your own. our mother interrupts the moment to coat us in "OFF" mosquito repellent, and despite my protestations that it smells toxic, she thoroughly covers each arm and my face. i am astounded at all the things adults know...about how to keep away mosquitos, sleeping bags, the multiple uses of lawn chairs.

mom turns all the lights out in the house and you lay beside me and tell me that now we get to stargaze. i ask you how to do it, and you tell me to just look up at the sky, that maybe i'll see a shooting star. you teach me the poem for wishes and show me the big dipper. i am soon asleep.

i wake in the middle of the night, disoriented, but quickly soothed by the sound of your snoring. it is so comforting, and the feeling is familiar. a combination of joy and gratitude, and a sense of being very, very lucky.


i am 35 years old and you are 45. it is june in colorado where you now live, and the sky outside is stormy and there is thunder in the distance. you are unconscious and an oxygen machine hums next to you. i am laying beside your bed on a couch, taking in your jaundiced skin, your bloated stomach, your parched lips.

soon you are snoring, and i am completely transported back to our childhood. i have not heard this sound in 28 years, but i instantly realize that it is a sound i constantly ache to hear. the loneliness that rides on my back is brushed away, the tenorous sound of your breathing stitching back together the wide wounds, the sorrow that took the place of your presence when you left home.

the next day it is time to say goodbye. you have awakened for a moment and tell mom that you want to kiss me. i lean down for the last of all good nights. this is not the moment for settling the score, it is for creating a bridge between our childhood and our present. the simplest and most honest thing i can tell you is that you are the best brother i ever could have asked for. your heart blooms wide open and we both cry. it is a totally fucked up situation, but i have to walk out the door knowing i will never see you again. i don't know how to do it, but i just do, amidst your soft protests for us not to go.

mixed in among the broken heart of grief, one thing remains true. a combination of joy and gratitude, and a sense of being very, very lucky. i love you matthew. thank you for being my wonderful brother.

RIP Matthew Good, June 9 2008

HAPPY SPRING!!!!!!


for your viewing pleasure....some of you old skoolers might know what this is in reference to, but it should just be enjoyed, regardles. ♥

[VIDEO][/VIDEO]

i went home last weekend and visited my folks at their new assisted living apartment. it's kinda like a posh hotel, and it's not exactly what i would choose for myself, but the decor, the environment and the general atmosphere is very uplifted. my parents, for the first time in probably 15 years feel like they are part of a community...albeit created for difficult reasons, but community none the less. they eat three meals a day prepared by a chef who considers my folks "his favorites" and they often share tables with the other tenants. i met phyllis, who, despite having introduced him 8 times as "leo" kept calling my dog "joe". there was myrna, who talked onandonandonandonandonandonandon, until my father used the muscles that aren't paralyzed to make funny faces at me showing how bored he was. he and i stifled giggles while my mom kept up a polite facade (we got a talking to afterwards). i had some very bittersweet moments with my father, who at one point turned to me all bright eyed and said, "when i get out of here, when i can walk again, and if i have any damn money left, let's take a trip. would you like that? just go on a plane somewhere and rent a house?" i suggested we go to the cornwall coast in england. "oh yes, let's do that. let's go to cornwall". i don't know if he'll ever walk again, but for that brief moment, we pretended like everything was ok and that there was enough hope in the world for miracles.

here we are fucking around with photobooth:



i took several drives while i was up there to look for wildflowers. spring still has it's chin resting on it's fist...it's in the "hmmmmm....i think i'll start blooming..." stage. but i got some great shots. i also found a pioneer cemetary.



blue lupin

red bud





killed by indians

dorothy was 10



cat tails



apple blossom


yesterday miss bliss and i went to the "BYOBW" race. that, folks, stands for "bring your own big wheels." we wore matching outfits and bliss wore heels, and we skidded our way down the crookedest st. in SF. NOT lombard street, the steepest and crookedest is actually vermont st.!



i'm the super slow one that goes by on the left right after evil knevil bites the dust. the guys in the tobogan were my favorite. as well as the guy wrapped in bubble wrap. next year we are going to bring cheerleaders and wear capes.

i was slow, but i still crashed twice and got road rash on my elbow and ass.

and finally, i have a new tattoo that i just finished getting colored in.



by gordon at braindrops in SF



tell me about your spring adventures.

"your life is an occasion. rise to it."

this little phrase is what i will see every morning from now on when i wake.

i have been so shattered by grief that rather than remember the truth of a phrase like this, each day has been simply filled with the effort to get through. and then i forgot that i was just getting through and the shattered-ness began to feel like normal. and with the normalcy of coping has come the remembrance that there is more to life than sorrow and tragedy. and with the remembrance has come just a little more room in my heart to let the magic back in.

my father will not recover from his stroke. he is still alive, but his quality of life is gone. he is paralyzed on the left side of his body and is bed-ridden. he and my mother have moved out of our little home in the country and are living in an assisted facility, a little apartment. things have not reached a place of stasis, new problems with his health keep cropping up and my mom is about to lose it. but what has occured is a clearing of dust. at least for me, i am remembering that there is nothing for it but to keep on living. not just getting by. i have been so depressed, and at least for right now, i am ready to be something else.

finally obtaining an ipod has helped a lot. now wherever i go i have my own soundtrack. oh oh oh! i did not realize what i was missing out on. it's absolutely wonderful.

so i've been putting on my ipod and listening to music by yann tiersen, or sufjan stevens, or coco rosie and going out and taking pictures like this. it is spring, after all. time to emerge from the dark soil and reach for the light.









i've also got two new myspace pages:

for my burlesque troupe

for my accessories line "gibson girl antiquities"

and check out http://www.etsy.com/gibsongirlshop for my etsy shop too.

thank you for reading and thank you for all your sweet comments on my last blog. LOVE YOU!

so here's the thing.

aging sneaks up on you. i hear people, OLDER people, talk about how aging happens to you. i've always brushed that aside, as some kind of flaw of the resistant psyche, a lack of introspection, some kind of refusal to age gracefully. right now i'm understanding that there are two types of aging. one is the kind you welcome, that you do consciously, the result of choosing to create landmarks in your life, the willfull accomplishment of rites of passage.

but there's another kind of aging, one that feels pressed upon you, from external events. life rises up, fierce and unfriendly, and suddenly promise and hope have a shortened life span too. you find yourself standing in the midst of your life, disoriented and raw, bare branches and bones, all your little schemes and plans and ways of avoiding the right here and now are gone, and you discover you're in a blizzard and you're not wearing any socks. or a hat. or coat. or scarf.

two weeks ago, my father had a stroke. years of high stress living and even higher blood pressure finally took it's toll, despite taking ridiculous amounts of medication that would make a street junkie drool. the right diet, excercise, and pills that took all the joy out of life, all in an effort to avoid this. fuck doing the right thing, all it did was make the last 20 years like going to a carnival without any ride tickets or money for cotton candy, forced to hold your mom's hand while you watched your brother go on the roller coaster without you. the blood vessels in the right side of his brain collapsed, not quite at the finish line, stopping the blood from going through. first he lost his balance, then he lost his voice, then he lost use of the left side of his body.

my dad's 80. some of you know that. so it's an experience that's been a while in the making. it still feels too soon. for all of us. it's my dad. i had just talked to him 2 days before, when he cried in joy at some good news about my life. sudden stroke and death, i had expected. 6 mos. of bed-ridden illness and then death, i expected. stroke and unknown amounts of time as a cripple...no. i did not expect that. nor did i expect that a nursing home may become unavoidable because my mother is not strong enough to lift a man who cannot lift himself. i might move back to redding. god fucking forbid. but it turns out what is more important to me than my own everyday happiness is being with my father in the final moments of his life.

the peculiarity of it all is the way my life suddenly feels shortened. after awaiting this time for most of my adult life, to finally have it here reduces the span of the future a great deal. suddenly, i AM 35. i am 35 and unmarried and without kids and still in grad school and still not sure how all that stuff about home ownership and settling down and making a life and also travelling the world and doing some great epic thing with my life is all going to work. and i feel like i have a lot less time. because it is now, and my father is dying, and the horizon just got a whole fuck of a lot closer.

i also have regained a large portion of my childhood, with a wasp swarm of memories that are crowding into this ark with me. i recall that there was a huge part of my time with my family, with my father, that was not magical. that was not adventurous, that was not nurturing and yummy and creative and fun. most of my childhood, kids, sucked big donkey balls. suffocating and boring and soulless and an eternity trapped in the living room with my father's depression and my mother's suppressed rage. ha ha...guess what...i inherited a little of that. but i took a psych assessment test the other day for depression and it came up negative. hey! whaddya know! then i took a test for anxiety and it came up as severe.

oh.

i am holding it together. i've got it contained. i'm seeing clients and i'm doing burlesque and my social life sucks shit but that's mostly cuz i'm busy and i'm making crafty beauties and trying to sell them and i still feed the birds outside our front door, and they come when i call now, and i feel like snow white, except i've given up on prince charming. this weekend i am building a dias de los muertos altar and i am thankful that, this year, my father will not be on it. saturday i am doing a medicine ceremony and my best friend is in town and i just bought awesome victorian boots the other day, and the rest of the time i am gasping into corners when the overwhelming reality of my father in a wheelchair collides with the memory of my daddy riding a rototiller around our garden.



just to prove to you that i have not lost my sense of humor...

hmmm. last time i updated was may. seeing as how it's now september, i think it's time for a little seasonal change.

the best way to catch you up might be through some pics.



i have started an accessories line called gibson girl antiquities. i make feathered hairpieces, jewelry and decoupaged boxes, using primarily found materials ("found" to me includes yard sales, flea markets and recycled costumes). i have more pics that i will post once i download them. if you want to place a custom order, shoot me an email at gibsongirlantiquities@gmail.com. i hope to have a myspace page up soon.

incase you don't know, this is the story of the gibson girl. she was the turn of the century image of the smart, independent, feminist woman. all with great style.


i recently had some mushroom fun at the point reyes national seashore. apparently, this is the look i give you in an altered state of consciousness.


i felt exuberant...


...and almost fell off a cliff. here, i'm laughing with relief.


we also made a little friend


of course, i spent some time this summer at the hotsprings.


i got a haircut. this is the best pic i have of it...next to my retarded housemate.


"peekaboo burlesque" did a great piece at the beginning of july.









i've got some great "i'm in ur" pics of me from the silliness boards, and i SWEAR it will not be 4 months before i post again.

i don't blame you if you don't believe me. and do please know that i read and appreciate all your comments, but rarely find the time to write you back. this august marked my 4 year anniversary of being an SG! and times have changed...so much so that i just don't have the time or oomph to give to being a good internet friend. but i still luvs all of you. ferreals.

so in the spirit of more blogging, stay tuned.