Deja Vus, and other stories.

Yesterday I read and napped and found two people to cover shifts and biked and stretched doing amateur yoga (needed now after biking now I am getting strong muscles!) and I had a desire for the ocean, (though it was too choppy and crazy for little cook-ey me.) I left Molly at home so I could walk slowly, and let my bones soak up the static hum of the constant waves, I meditated on the rocks and the changing clouds like smoke signals. Searched the debris of civilization for patterns, the concrete rip rap like huge concrete runes flung and stuck in the sand where they landed.







Billy at Tioga with the board Barney shaped, that Billy painted


it was choppy but beautiful




After our evening at the windy Tioga avenue where the clouds were morphing above us fast as the churning waves we met Barney at English Ales, where they each have their own mugs. I had three Big Sur Pale Ales and crumbling veggie sandwich and fat french fried. I don't remember the last time I had french fries! Barney is building a train car for some mean rich guy and is having brass casting problems, I actually knew exactly what he was talking about with my dental lab experience. I said I can help, I have blow-torch holding experience! Barney put his gum on the edge of his mug and everyone stared at it when there was nothing to talk about.



Last night I had a dream I picked it off the mug and chewed it.
Also dreamed that I was in a pale blue iceworld, I was with strangers from the past in I don't know, like Neanderthal time. I looked around, we were in these crazy animal skins and fur, I was as fat as a seal from it, there was primitive but well done stitching throughout my warm coat. the boots! Ugg boots on PCP, I was walking in a line, we were traveling, through a gorge of pale blue ice, we were walking quietly, I could tell we were going a very long way, IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. I heard barking/howling, got scared for a second thinking of the coyotes, but when I turned in the direction there were gorgeous fluffy white and gray creatures, at least a dozen wolves. Wolves! Wherever I was I didn't want to leave, it was genuinely peaceful and lovely. THey were just passing through too and were curious about our line of humans like walking walruses. We were in a larger pack than they so they didn't try and intimidate us .Oh, it was beautiful. Then we came to a clearing, there was a sand box type of structure, but no sand just ice and dirt, things were melting now. There was someone in it on her side, shivering, wearing only a pink tank top and black pants. She was shivering violently, like she was going to die, or seiszuring. I walked to help her, and was shocked to see, that it was me. In my outfit I usually put on straight out of bed or the shower because I'm not a robe person but a yoga pants person. I grabbed me and rubbed my arms to warm me and tried to wake me up. It creeped me out more than anything to not be able to feel, even though I was in the form of someone else, I couldn't feel the hands trying to warm me, smacking my face trying to make me waken. Then I was in my normal body, waking up, and saw people dressed like Inuits walking away in a line with wolves play calling far away. What was that? I have to remember that dream, the beautiful ice. Must remember and write about that dream when you wake up. I watched them walking away, amazed, and wishing they told me what they knew, what they saw on their journey

I am still feeling the beat-up sinking floating flying feeling the ocean instilled in my skin for 3 hours the other day. My hip bones and ribs are sore and bruised from the board and my neck and back and arms are stiff and very sore. There are photos I took but Billy took the camera with him to LOmpoc because he got a call his grandpa probably wouldn't make it through the night. Last night we barbq'd, Barney came over, we fed him because he let us go in his garage and take his gigantic tandem surfing board, and he wanted to see the woods. So we went for an evening walk, luckily no coyotes. But a strange thing happened since we've been there: The big oak above where her body was found, next door to the hawk's Nest, it broke off at the base of the trunk and fell, right on top of her memorial. I tried pulling the cross which hung from the crook of the tree out from the ground next to the other cross, now sticking out from oak branches, but the force hammered it into the earth.

This morning opened.
Took a nap after our bike ride: had vivid dream: My jaw had gone out of place again like that winter when I couldn't close my mouth after play-boxing. I could see through a huge gash in my cheek that the mandible joint was scraping against my cheekbone no matter what I did, and I had to hold it there so I didn't hurt it more. I heard a grinding sound, and woke up and I was grinding my teeth and my jaw was all sideways and throbbing, the window was open I was cold but Molly hadher paws around my next in a very cuddly way. The last thing I knew I was petting her before I passed out, I must have been more tired than I thought.

Billy called me crying like I hadn't seen him ever cry in our ten years together, and it broke my heart and we just hung on the phone crying. He says his family is all around him, he is heavily sedated, and his lungs are full of water, and Hospice says he's got about four hours left.

The dolphins came out to say happy birthday, I hadn't seen them in so long. They didn't feel like flipping and somersaulting though, since they were following bait balls. I was tired, had a nap enough to keep me going past sunset, having opened, and having to open again the next day. BIlly had two bottles of wine to split though we mostly drank the red with all the Italian food he brought. & key lime pie bars for dessert. I'll remember the tourists girls who ran to the sea like they were in a music video and screamed in shock and pain at the cold, they guy who shy and giddy came to Billy and said he made his hands bleed trying to open beers did we have an opener? His girlfriend tucked in the iceplant in a nook waiting in a blanket, the words Billy said to me with tears forming in his beautiful eyes, he said special things but he also said I know you've been worried lately about me not loving you as much as I love surfing but its just that I can't love you any more than I already do, and it can't get any better than this so it's just a plateau.

Is that what happens after you've been together for ten years? There is no limit for me to expand in love with someone.

Like he wrote in my card my simple birthday celebration DID make me feel loved and nourished and it was just what I wanted and we were able to reconnect.







watched a sailboat ride the light instead of the wind


the other night at Tioga, Billy surfed and I read


I missed the shape shifting fog while we were in Colorado


That night I dreamed: First I became conscious in the dream kind of slowly, I was sitting in a circle of about five people, they were taking turns clockwise saying important random things. Me, still barely coming-to, had to give up my turn because I was out of it, but I started realizing what was going on when it was two people away from my turn again. Now I can't remember what exactly the guy said, but it was philosophizing by observation of people, and I had the feeling these people were now longer alive. They were all about the same age just a bit older than me, and dressed oddly but comfortable and I wondered who were all these cool people and where was I? Something pressing about the ceremonial way we were sitting, that said it was special and I ha better pay attention, there were objects in the middle but I can't remember what they were, then my turn came. I thanked them for inviting me and my ears were open then. I felt like they were happy with my just being there and I had their full support. Then I turn my head, there is a road in the middle of nowhere with a telephone pole stretching far away along the road next to peaceful hills. There is an ambulance parked in an abandoned way on the side of the road. It is warm and sunny and bright and completely windless and quiet and a little creepy. I run towards it and around the ambulance my gramma is just standing there, in one her 'house dresses' she says so seriously it makes me feel like I do not know her: "Stacey dear I'm getting very tired and lonely here and it's not going to be much longer before I go" She was way more alert and energetic than normal. I just accepted it and told her I loved her very much and then this person rode a bike by and was panicked and breathless, they needed help! They had a grocery list! They started reading things off like, get potatoes carrots and tomateos!, then I need to go here and here but it was life or death, and important to this person so I drove the ambulance about a hundred feet and they said okay right here please! I scratched my head I didn't help at all they jumped out of the ambulance, I got out too. My gramma was sitting on a ledge in the sun looking happy to herself. I heard gunshots, I looked up and there was Brett Grossini from high school, the good looking class clown that had way too much energy who could make anyone in any group laugh and feel like the most special person in school. He's in the Army Special Forces now, stationed in Afghanistan, grown a beard to fit in and apparently is having the time of his life with al that energy he has to burn. He visited Billy's house at Christmas when we were home, but I was sick and went to bed early and didn't get to see him. Tommy says he still keeps in touch with him and is fired up about some machine gun nicknamed 'the Breath of Allah' by the soldiers. Who would have thought hunting Osama Bin Laden would have been his perfect niche. Anyone in my dream he was straight faced and not happy, in his own world shooting this gun. He didn't seem to notice me running towards him screaming to stoop shooting, and the bullets went right through me, I realized then that I was dreaming, and didn't have to worry about the gun. So I followed him around, wondering what happened to him, his spirit looked broken, did I remember him being so gorgeous? I thought he had a beard, Tommy said he had a middle eastern look now where is it? But he was taller than I remember and wearing a cutoff shirt and looked more like a sixties soldier than one of our times. I just follwered around and felt him out, and never realized just how troubled, deep, and brave his spirit truly was and Billy said out of nowhere as he appeared behind me: Who I realized was following me around following Brett around trying to figure out what I was looking for: He said holy shit you guys go perfect together, and I looked at him, like yeah, some peoples stars are just crossed, and that's how it is, didn't you know? You can't say it will be one way because it has a life of its own and wants to go six ways at once. I followed Brett to an abandoned building against a hill, it looked like it had been a 6 sided building, I wondered what kind of festivals and carnivals that were held here and why it is forgotten about now. Feathers caught my eye: they were covering a wall beneath a ledge. I thought yeah right like I would find something of any importance, I already have feathers, and then all of a sudden the feathers were hanging lined up on the over hang like they were trying to get my attention. I walked over and was in awe, there were golden owl feathers, large brown feathers, pelican feathers, and blue heron feathers. There was light coming from inside the roof and up to the left, but I couldn't quite see. So I stuck my head in to see but spider webs kept me from jumping back. That's when my alarm went of at 2:45 a.m. and I thought of that dream over and over all day, the importance of it kept pressing on me, felt between states of consciousness all day. It was more vivid than I've had for a while.

I needed solitude
There was a freak low tide at 7 so I got to sleep in till five thirty!
so drove to Point Pinos, watched a heron fish at the golf course, but didn't bring my zoom









look at all the muscles it's eating!



I'm a Cancer too, little guy


this was the other day



Had Thai Food last night at Deanna's, with white wine and fried banana and ice cream for dessert.
Before that we got back from a bike ride to East Garrison and back, Billy opened the garage door and an alligator lizard fell on my head: he said it was hanging perfectly dangling just above my forehead, it must have thought my hairs were tree branches. Before that, my eyes ached from crying because we got in a mini argument but it's fine now. At least his mistress is the sea and not some hoe. Even before that I took a quick nap with Molly Sue. Before that, I tried finishing my hair but I'm still a couple away. Before that I had two avocado sandwiches, and I'm about to have another, with Billy's amazing mouth burning chipotle sauce he makes. Before that I went thrift store shopping and got a pair of pants, a work shirt, wine glasses because I broke all ours and a coffee mug for work with two birds on it. Before that I bought avocados and salad stuffs and olive oil and eggs at the produce mart where we used to live. Before that I opened, I saw Florence! I forgot about her. She said she still has the postcard I sent her from Tahiti.

Sorry I couldn't find it in my heart to cut this rare evening display of visual fortune







To be able to see clearly Pacific Grove and Santa Cruz in the same shot is just incredible


classic gold


There were only 3 people on the entire beach


there the two peninsulas are again


unedited color on the sea, just stunning.


this one's edited though, I like bright color when it comes to people. Oh look it's me and Billy! He sometimes lets me take pictures of cheeseballs

Yesterday I put on my wool pants under my pants and jackets and a scarf around my face and followed Billy to Marina Beach, I felt like getting out my zoom lens and with numb hands took pictures of him surf and birds and things.

Later we drove up to the Santa Cruz redwood forest to pick a surfboard Billy won on Ebay for $99, and what a cool little property that was! There was a girl hanging up laundry outside, light was filtering through the tall redwoods and there were dogs running around barking at us when we drove up, and there were a million weird head sculptures all over the place I wanted to take pictures but wanted to be respectful. Billy thought it was a real commune.

Since it was right down the street from the Mystery Spot, we stopped there to see what all the fuss is about. THere were a million people there! I thought it was this park you get to walk around but you have to be in herded group tours.



( IT'S NOT JUST A BUMPER STICKER! )

also, we talked about taking two weeks off in January to go on a road trip to Humbolt county just because we've never been. And, a week in spring if it's not too hot to go to the Owen's Valley, to see the Booming Dunes, the ancient Heiroglyphs, the Ancient Bristlecone pines, Mono Lake and the desert. Billy went there for school and said I would fall in love with it. He says if he had to ever live away from the ocean, it would be Owen's Valley.

http://www.mysteryspot.com/history.html

Refugio Beach, Santa Barbara











Hot wind blew in the evenings. Dolphins popped up and looked us in the eyes. Billy and me slept together outside so we could fall asleep watching the stars. We kayaked, we snorkeled, we walked, I crew, I took pictures, we ate meat over oakwood every single night, we had beers and fritos and vodka infused fruit cocktais.

I got stung by a bee in my fingertip and it swelled up and was hard to wrap around the paddle kayaking, the dogs got off and ran away and then found again, Molly broke off her leash to get a dog who looked like a coyote, and bit Tommy, and broke out of the tent at 3 a.m. to chase a skunk who sprayed her and out tent and we poured Trudy's bloody mary mix over her and almost died of painful nausea and gagging, we had to throw away our pillows and luggage bags because it went through the tent. We spent half a day in town doing laundry and buying a choke chain. Molly was a crazy post traumatic stressed out depressed dog camping :/ I was horrible, burned throat and nasal like onions and rotten garlic and hair permanent mixed together and I got sick to my stomach, it didn't smell like skunk at all, just horrible.


for the other hundred pictures go here!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/9621192@N02/page6/








*

my final Grades!
OCEN2 4.0 B
ANTH2 3.0 B
ART2 4.0 A



Saturday: Had the day off and Billy took me and Molly Sue out deep in the Carmel Valley for a new hiking spot he found sampling one of the rivers.



8 miles roundtrip, I have been told NO TAN LINES so I had on a long sleeved shirt that was too hot. Except for when we took off all our clothes by the river in the sun and made Molly stay on the other side of the rocks.



Beer and beandip for lunch and Molly swam for what we thought was the first time (and was terrified)



and I slipped in deep water and both Holgas around my neck got submerged but I save my digital at least!



Sunday was a long eight hour day we probably had fifty people come in all day, I had waaaay too many pastries and a shots of espresso to pass the time. When I got to my cell phone there was a message from the photographer, Rob, to go along and help out with a Pebble BEach wedding (!!!) That was bigger than normal for one man to photograph, he said sorry last minute and I was probably working at Starbucks Sunday morning but he thought he'd try anyway! I'm so bummed I missed it! But I'm happy he's thinking of me for the job....

I slept SO GOOD last night and had crazy lucid flying dreams, where I was in the oak forest with Molly & Simon and they were following me on the ground as I flew around the trees. I got so good at landing on branches. And sex dreams, and hiking dreams.



Today I have mosquito bites everywhere and could be poison oak on m legs there. Oh it's driving me nuts. I need more coffee. The house is a mess; today is my last day off before the big weekend! so much to do.

Ta Da! (Mr Hanky poses with my new plates)



(  + others of lately +  )

Stuck in traffic yesterday morning, made up a poem on the way about what people have on their cars and roadkill dying unnoticed in the bike lanes..listening to the classical music station. I felt like crying I was so happy for some reason. And my period's over. Began the Artist's Way book, I've read through it before but now I'm applying it. And so far everyday since I started the morning pages again I have stirred poems in me, one a day so far, and

Cormorant



Hi Stacey, thanks for the update! I have to go visit your albums. Billy sounded so happy that you had dinner for him tonight!! I bet your tofu spaghetti was delicious! I have to admit the tofu takes on the taste of what you are making, and I bet it is very good in spaghetti!!

It was so good talking with you yesterday, with dad and rachel and me. I have a wonderful family! And I am proud of each and every one of you!!

Talk to you soon!

Love,
Mom



~~~

I got a 76% on the Anthropology test : /
An 84% on the Oceanography test but the class did so bad he had to tweak the grading scale and I got an A :)

Can do better. Must study longer.

Cluttered schedule the next few days---- Homework and laundry today. Pack lunch. Close at work tonight. Wake up early, shock yourself with caffeine, class fieldtrip 8-4 saturday, studying the Big Sur coast by bus, not so bad? close saturday night at work again. Work Sunday Morning. Study date with Billy, because bright and early Monday we will have a reunion in Court with Merrily, ha! she thought we'd just forget about a whole Grand.

Heron by my school at La Mirada

When I got out of class at 7pm I met him at Del Monte Beach, the same beach that swallowed his original wedding ring. He popped open champagne, we ate sushi with the sound of waves and crackling oakwood, and he even brought dessert. It was the perfect valentine's day, except for a couple from Modesto who asked us where they could get pot and we said I have no idea, there was no one else around, just us and the lights of Monterey. And the old Fisherman's Ghost, snooping on us just like the old days

(  fire + water  )

We woke up early-- after a dinner and drinks at Hula's that was hard to do. Van Ghoh clouds, evaporating fog above the ponds of the old neighborhood as we passed them on the highway. Good music, the day would fly by fast, feeling that good! it did, the hypnotizing surf, naturally subwoofing you felt it in your chest, walking over a floor of crushed abalone from the old Japanese fishing village days, they are glossed rainbow specks in the dirt after the rain. Small window of summer mornings. Electric teal ocean, a few brave souls, both fighting with and adapting to the element: water. Sat until my legs were numb first on sharp granite then on pokey- iceplant, feeling spray hit my face, outdoor spa, finally saw the big wave surfers. Or at least the ones who weren't lined up at Maverick's. I have a sick desire for a Tsunami to hit, just to watch in awe before it would kill me. Billy called Dave & Susan and they met us there to see it just in time for the security guards to come and make everyone leave, because probably the rich guy who owns that point and is never there had no trespassing signs up on old cypress trees.

Then we ate I had a beer and a vegetarian burrito with no cheese or sour cream, yuck no flavor I hate Papachano's. Billy went into work, I took a nap that lasted the ret of the day, and now my limbs need movement I wish we still lived by the rec trail.

Billy has another job interview Monday, it's for a job testing for asbestos and other toxic things, would be triple what he's making now, but if he got it, we'd have to move when our lease is up, again.

Yesterday I cleaned my old car out really good, the sky was so pretty I had to keep stopping to take pictures of the sky

go here to see the 40 or so pictures from this morning at Pebble Beach if you're bored (flickr's down) enjoy.

http://sports.webshots.com/photo/2505011690040119327MuwAIC

I have a messy kitchen to clean up.