shake_it_up

oh wow, I updated my profile. 

Who's still here? 

I wondered when my last post was. I'd never stopped posting for more than a month or so.  Up to last year, I read and commented faithfully. 

Well, I posted 6 months ago, just before I started my new job. It's going pretty well, more demanding to get into my new role than I expected, but it's coming along.  I'm working for a very dynamic organization that promotes and funds housing for homeless people with mental disabilities.  I'm in the lending unit, and it's pretty exciting.  

Also demanding.

At the same time, I'm in a new relationship.  Today we started moving into our new place, in Hollywood near Paramount and Larchmont Village. Very beautiful 3-bedroom place, and a very livable neighborhood.  We're pretty thrilled.

I will be around LJ.  Read recently in polomex 's Facebook page about how the critical mass has kind of gone away.  Well, I appreciate the nudges I've gotten from maxauburn  and joncub.  

Actually, this journal might need a kind of reboot so I'll be tinkering with it if I find I have time.

I'll be in and out.  In the coming week, I'm moving.  Following that, a trip to Boston for a week (April 15-24).  So I hope to see a few of you I haven't seen for several years.  

More later

I'm boarding to go to Dallas (oh, Love Field, not DFW!) and had to go through the scanner a couple of times.  As I was repacking the TSA guy held up my studded snap-on cock ring and asked, "is this like a dog collar for a tiny dog or something? This is what was holding up the scanning".  I just said "No, it's more personal than that".  He laughed and I just packed up.

Just here for a few days, packing up family stuff I left in my trek across the country.  

Fun bike ride down to the beach today with Josh,vwcub.  About 15 miles round trip, boy am I out of shape!  Also, my tires were very low, we had to go to Pep Boys and put some air in.  


I've been doing the same stuff: consulting in Venice with a sideline in Palmdale.  I applied for a job at "my dream job" location, and had a second interview. It seemed good and productive (although I did step in a big cowpie on an issue related to my current project in Venice).  Both clients know that I am up for full-time work that would take me away from their projects. 

My apartment is palatial by some standards. But hard to fit everything.  I got some shelving that helped me sort junk out and get useful stuff in useful spots.  Now I have to move some big bookshelves and get their contents back in them.  Always a bitch. But I can get some paintings framed/glass replaced, get some new curtains, paint a little (no more violet, seal the wood bathroom floor, touch-up), etc.  I can get books and records out of the kitchen and maybe get a new table there.  

Off to Phoenix for the holiday, think I'll post some pics first.

More on Flickr



I hope you all have a happy July 4th Holiday! 

 

 

 

My father passed away today in Oregon, after a long spell with Alzheimer's.  Just 3 weeks shy of his 89th birthday. We were not that close/a little close.  My parents split when I was 2, he had gone off to Israel to live on a kibbutz, and she had decided to keep the kids in New York.  he was a bit of a dreamer, well, a lot of a dreamer, maybe that was part of the split.  

Both my mother and Dave remarried, she to an artist she had a tempestuous relationship with, he to a wonderful woman he'd met at the same job where he met my mother.  When we lived in New York, he was around regularly, though I think he was away for some long trips for photography.  I remember weekly visits, and gifts of models and toys.. probably the gun in this picture that he shot (the icon).  He had another son when I was 7 or 8, only one child.

When I was 9, fourth grade, my stepfather packed us off to Rome, Italy where he could be an artist (composer of modern orchestral music) and Dave took his family off to Japan where he had a concept for a sociological photo-essay.  Our trip was shortened due to finances (damned Guggenheims, or maybe it was my parents' budgeting skills), while Dave and his family stayed in Nagano-Ken for 8 years. The photo-essay was left uncompleted, though I believe the layout exists and the negatives are there to be printed. They became potters and moved to the Oregon coast.  

While they lived in Japan, we spoke once a month by phone.    Although they lived a very frugal existence, they were generous with gifts and an occasional letter- I still have some of the art books he sent.

After they returned and moved to Oregon, we kept in touch as I grew up.  Talking at birthdays and holidays, usually, and I would visit.  Maybe 6 or 7 times since the 70's.  

Anyway, he has had a slow decline over the past 15 years.  He lost his sight, suffering cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration.  It took him several years to learn to use the books on tape that are provided to blind people.  And over the past few years he has been more and more befuddled. 

I'm grateful to the side of the family that grew up with him that they helped him be comfortable in his decline.  He was a pretty strident atheist and not a believer in the afterlife, but sometimes it is good to pass when the body is played out.  He will be remembered.

PS  No arrangements yet for a service. He will be cremated.  I don't have a photo of him, other than one from my last visit, and he explicitly asked me not to share that.  

I had two dreams.  

One, I had lain down for a nap in the afternoon, I was just tired. It was a restless sleep but I did fade out.  I felt I was part of a quilt-like pattern.  That was the dream, it was kind of like the pillow at the beginning of "Mullholland Drive".  I got a phone call and was all buzzy, groggy.

Then this morning I had a dream of being with friends in a neighborhood that was a bit sketchy, but where we felt safe.  We were talking about leaving our windows open at night without worry. (I should hope so!)  Then we were talking about how Bruce Springsteen's son lived in the area and he had security around to make sure he'd be ok.  

This could pretty much be my own neighborhood, which is mostly solidly middle class and "USC adjacent".  My block is safe, there are parts of the surrounding areas I would stay away from.

Anyway, our opinion of Bruce Springsteen's son seemed to reflect that he was a bit of a pampered brat, protected by his father's wealth.  I was awake for about 10 minutes musing on the dream before I came to and realized that Demi Moore wouldn't be the mother, rather Patty Scialfa.  Must have confused my Bruces. 

I had a nice weekend, spent it alone.  Saw a lot of "Law and Order:  Criminal Intent" 'cause I have a crush on Vincent D'Onofrio (well, the whole cast) and it's good, too.  Last night I saw a 2006 episode where they gut the rationale for torture and waterboarding used by the Bush administration at Guantanamo.  Well done, a bit late, but well done.

• I've had a lot of great visits lately, which is nice since I haven't been out of town in awhile.  bostonbear  (Glenn) was here in March, a quick visit and get-to-know-LA trip taken while he was in California on family business.  seabear59 (Gary) came for a few days 3 weeks ago-I'd say the showing of "How to Train Your Dragon" followed by a trip to Mozza Pizzeria were high points of the trip.  bearsrider (Paolo) was here last weekend, and I was happy to show him the beautiful Norton Simon Museum, a quick tour of LA, bring him to visit our friend Dave(Dave) who has been out of action with eye problems, feed him real LA burritos from King Taco, and get his guidance in my spaghetti sauce.  Pictures to follow (my camera is broken, only takes a few shots so these are Gary and Paolo's pictures).

• "How to Train Your Dragon" is worth its own post.  I really enjoyed this, and I have mostly withdrawn from the current blockbuster mentality based on younger people's childhood toys ("Transformers" triggered my leery eye).  Certain elements of this were stock, like the boy's effort to please his father.  But the execution was incredible and artfully designed. Full of little epiphanies and grace notes, when the final credits rolled over beautiful illustrations I was really grateful that they planned these little surprises of beauty all the way through.  I guess that my fascination comes from getting into Norse mythology after exhausting Greek and Roman stories, in children's books when I was learning to read.

• I've been getting back into reading some, started with a brief book by David Reiff about the illness and death of his mother, Susan Sontag.  Good book, sincere, with a little repetition of the key themes and a few obvious pokes at family rivals (hint, Annie Liebovitz is mentioned twice, the second time in the context of her "celebrity death photos" dragging SS into shame).  I may write more about this book later.

• After sitting around all Saturday, I went to the LA Times Festival of Books on Sunday. I got a cool t-shirt from swaptree.com (ok, it is white with black lettering and XL). They broker book trades on the internet.  The Fair is huge, taking over much of the common open space at the center of the UCLA campus. It even goes into the courtyard of the Architecture building (one of the homeliest buildings, which features a naked bronze nymph that must have been the model for Phillip Johnson's horrible lady/angel statue at the AT&T building).  

• I took the bus home and ate a hamburger, stayed up too late watching "Criminal Intent" and catching up with bear411/www messages. 

A few photos to follow another day.

•