the apron chronicles

My Nana Florence recently told me about this exhibit and reading through the various stories, I was moved to share them here...

www.apronchronicles.com/chronicles/ada.html

For my birthday this year, my mother made me a beautiful apron with beautiful bright colors on one side and dancing dia de los muertos skeletons on the other side. (She gets teased a lot for her love of all things Day of the Dead, but I think it's because we have lost so many loved ones in the last 10 years - those little figurines remind me of how previous life is and how thin the line is between life and death.) She embroidered my name on it and finished it with piping. I wore it last night while I made navy bean soup and reflected on 2008, looking forward to the new year, hoping that 2009 proves more peaceful, sane and joyous for the planet.

When I opened up my email this morning, I found the link to this beautiful and touching project. I remember my Nana Jane wearing an apron in her big farm house in Corralitos, California - I have a vivid memory of laying on my belly on the lawn with her while we watched a parade of ants as they climbed up blades of grass. Though I was only 3 or so, she had me imagine what it would be like to be an ant and started me thinking in abstract terms.

She died when I was 12 and I have always wished that we had had more time. There are so many questions that I would ask her if she were still alive. But whenever I think of her and talk to her now, she's right there. In some ways, it's like she never left.

dream #4: this one's a three-parter...

dream #1
i'm at some sort of indoor snowboarding camp that's inside of cornucopia. it's a huge convention center with slopes like the ones i used to fantasize about on the mountain sports commercials from the 80s. but it's only big enough to cut a few turns. i'm boarding i a skirt with no underwear. (reminds me of the time at a wedding in Philly when A came out of the bathroom with her skirt tucked into her pantyhose.) the center of the building is like the haunted house at disneyland - lots of cobwebbs and ghosts. i argue with Jon outside about a hot pot for soup.

dream #2
i go to woodlands market. i have lots of portfolios and folders. i talk with a manager. he says Monica will be coming back to work. i get really pissed and leave with all my stuff when he's not looking. Chichizola is there. i go outside and it's like a hospital near a lake. i am worried that my papers will get wet. i handily whip out an umbrella. i am surprised in my dream that i could make one appear on command. i get to the drive-up near a restaurant/emergency room. i see Monica and beg her not to work for Gilmore. she leaves and i am watching an old woman pull up in a burgundy oldsmobile with her dead husband. someone takes him into the ER and she is still in her car. i am there too, but invisible. she laments over their pension and poverty, sprays herself with loads of perfume and then steps on the gas, heading for the lake. her tank is empty, but full just enough to sputter over the edge, into the lake, to her death. i go with her and feel the car plunge and sink. i feel her emptiness.

dream #3
young boy - once like a highschool football star. something happens to him. i am his girl, but he blows me off like Griffin on Party of 5. he turns into Todd (from beavis/butthead). i see him driving across dust flats in Detroit. the trunk lid is off and there are a bunch of skanky girls in the back of the trunk - screaming and throwing beer bottles. he winds up at the woodlands/hospital, but now it's a high school. i am standing with female psychologist. she asks Todd if anything tragic has happened to him recently. he doesn't want to deal. i jump into the car and say, "yeah - i knew it! something happened and he kept is all inside until one day it overtook h im!" the woman asks me what happened to him and i say, "he blew off his head." she realizes it's R. i am inside R's room with him, invisible, when he puts the shotgun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

spoilers/context...
cornucopia - the health food market where i worked in carmel
A - my friend's cousin who came out of the bathroom at a wedding with her back end hanging out. no one rushed to her aid.
woodlands market - the cross-over market where i worked in marin
Jon - the owner of said health food market (he did not like my purple hair)
Gilmore - the general manager of said cross-over market (he did not like my restless spirit)
Monica - my first babysitter and great family friend
Chichizola - i have no idea. could be señor pedro chichi - Liz's chihuahua?
R - a friend from high school who took his life

fri, jan 23

dream #3: israel of alaska

i'm in some sort of jail camp. we're on a peninsula in "israel of alaska" (the same place that has been tahoe in previous dreams and the location of the icy precipice where i drove a truck off a cliff in another dream).

one of our prison mates is lost at sea and we a have to save him, but we only have plastic floaty boats and one dug-out. no life jackets. bad sign. my mother is on a huge luxury liner getting ready to sail. in her room, she has plenty of zodiacs. she won't even give one to me. i am furious.

we are all forced into the boats. i know we'll all drown. we'll be in the water for at least three days and nights. the water is polluted and the coast is totally industrialized. each time we get out into the water, we start to sink.

thurs, jan 22

note: for the record, i have a great relationship with my mom.

dream #2: the dolphin...

i'm at the dolphin (restaurant at the end of the santa cruz pier) but it's part restaurant, health food store and girls camp.

pete and i are eating and lori gives us jobs to do. all the seats have a wooden pull like a cutting board. the furniture is really dark and old. pete and i are vacuuming the seats and sofas, scrounging for change. i find a bunch of quarters and tickets to the boardwalk.

i participate in a dress up with the girls and then i'm told to go stock the tofu before i leave. as i'm working, pete sits down to read. eleanor walks down the hall in tiny surfer shorts, topless, and over to the sink. she washes her hands and tries to get pete's attention. pete keeps reading. i'm slightly pissed. she goes to the shower and when she comes out, she's totally nude and squeezes on a tiny pair of pants. i'm jealous of how small they are. pete still doesn't notice.

we leave to go on the rides and start walking up highway 1 (the dolphin is situated now where cornucopia is). i get to atherton drive and say, 'why are we walking to santa cruz? we'll never get there!' we turn around and walk back on the north-bound side of the street. a big moving van pulls over and the driver gets out to tighten one of the doors. behind the van is a huge petrol truck that looks like it can fly. i'm sketched so we walk around it quickly. on the other side is a radical asphalt bank and i wonder where it came from and why i haven't seen it before.

i skate the bank in my old fleuvogs, pulling sick tricks and fat ollies. everyone in bumper to bumper traffic is stoked.

wed, jan 21

dream #1: christian revivalist camp...

i'm subletting my uncle scott's tweaky dark-wood cabin, out all night. three kids from the neighborhood (two boys and a girl named melissa) throw a revivalist camp in the yard and 40-50 people in sleeping bags are all over the property. i ask them to leave and it gets ugly. a boy shoves me up against a fence and screams, "will you take blows for god?" he holds an iron hammer to my chest and i'm terrified.

a black man shoves me aside and says, "i'll take the blows for her," but he is spared.

i say to the man, "that's the most courageous thing anyone's ever done for me."

he looks away towards his children. a gnarly state-of-the-art wheelchair rolls up with his two cerebral palsy kids.

looking at them and then deep into me he says, "we don't even know what courage is."

tues, jan 20

dreams...

so i just unearthed a dream journal from the bowels of my filing cabinet. there's something really strange about reading old dreams - some of them came back to me as i was reading through them but i have no idea what year the journal is from. kind of like watching a david lynch film - you think you know what's going on, but really, you don't. only david lynch knows. so this is my internal, bizarre, subconscious life.

all of the entries are totally weird, which is to be expected because i have super crazy vivid dreams, often lucid (ie. i realize i'm dreaming and can control them to some extent - this usually ends up in me flying). many of the entries are just totally whack, but thems the breaks. i figured it would be a really interesting exercise to post them here. i welcome any and all dream interpretations...

i love this guy

i cannot even tell you how much we love this guy. too bad his career will be over when he hits puberty.

la fonda, baja
sept 6

yet another reason to love NYC

the red line, nyc
mar 31