140 summer themed icons
no fish, no cotton, but lots of fun

cross posted from my icon journal: "dakinicons"

steal freely, comment liberally, enjoy!

( and the living is easy )

175 (or so) icons inspired by the end of the world
crossposted from the home base of my square little meditations "dakinicons"

want, take, have,
comments always eaten with gusto

( and hilarity ensues )

u gotta respect the folkie who covers the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as prince

After a long period of deliberation I have settled finally on the Hebrew words I wish to transcribe upon my body permanently, like the abomination that I am. However, in an effort to not completely humiliate myself should I ever travel to Israel (or New York City), I would like to at least get my blasphemy spelled correctly. Here is the lettering I have come up with after a bunch of research. There seems to be several different spellings for the phrase, depending on where I look. I am hoping this translates as "Sacred Earth" as opposed to "Holy Land" (which means specifically Israel). I want it to connotate that the earth itself is sacred. Not that I am a travel brochure for the Holy Land.

So... kita? marciaelena? Can you either confirm or deny that this is correct? I plan to tattoo this on my back before the summer is out.

XOXO

sacred earth Hebrew words meaning "sacred earth"

I stumbled across this little personal essay on line by Sharon Keating. For some reason it really touched me. Enjoy:


I recently heard a reporter on a national news network refer to one of the hardest hit areas of New Orleans as "ward Nine." He went on to explain that it was a residential area, made up of lower to moderate income families who lived in modest homes. After he gave this rather non-descript view of the area, he said it may have to become a flood plane to protect the rest of the city.

Greater minds than mine will figure this all out, but before they decide to give this area back to the marsh, I'd like to tell you a little bit about it.

Home of the Y'ats:

First of all it's the Ninth Ward, not Ward Nine. And, to those of you who speak New Orleans, it's the home of the "Y'ats" (whose traditional greeting is "where y'at? How's ya mamma and nem?") I spent a lot of my childhood in and around the Ninth Ward so I'd like to tell what's really there. I learned to swim at a New Orleans Recreation Department Stallings pool on Poland Avenue when I was in the second grade.

I used to go with my mother and my Aunt Julie to a bakery outlet store somewhere in the Ninth Ward that sold day old bread cheap to buy stale French bread for "Pain Perdu" (Translation: lost bread or French Toast)

I went to high school in the Ninth Ward. Most of the buildings of our high school pre-dated the civil war, and once my friend Jean and I spent a whole week in detention for sneaking into the attic to read diaries from young girls who lived at the school with the nuns during the Civil War.

Along the Mississippi River there are two identical houses built in the early 1900's they are made to look like steamboats and are wonderfully unique. I have a friend who grew up in one of the "steamboat" houses and I got to visit often.

My husband's grandfather was a United States Congressman from New Orleans in the 1930's. His grand old home in the Ninth Ward was converted into a hospital in the 1950's. I guess it's gone now. I don't have the heart to find out.

This Side of the Ninth Ward:

Just above the ninth ward is the St. Roch area, home to the St. Roch Cemetery, where hundreds of 1800's Yellow Fever victims are buried. I remember the St. Roch Market, where I went as a child with my Creole grandmother to buy fresh seafood for gumbo. There were large wooden hamper baskets filled with fresh seafood from nearby waters. In the hampers were handmade signs that read, "Fat Crabs" or "Female Crabs fresh from Lake Pontchartrain." The market was filled with wonderful smells and friendly faces, both black and white, neighbors who came together to share news of the neighborhood and recipes while seafood cooked in large pots all around.
I remember the smiling face of a black man whose name I have long since forgotten. He always let me taste a claw from the batch of boiled crabs he had just taken out of the boiling pot. "Mind you child, It's hot!" he would tell me.

Our Neighbors in St. Bernard Parish

Below the Ninth Ward is St. Bernard Parish where the Battle of New Orleans was fought in the War of 1812. I used to go crabbing with my three sisters on Bayou Bienvenu every summer Wednesday morning nearby. The people of St. Bernard Parish are some of the strongest people on the face of the earth, and even though they have been devastated, I've no doubt they will return and re-build.
Sacred Ground

Maybe all or some of these areas will be turned back into marsh. But, it will always be sacred ground to me.

not even opiates

Recently I saw a new documentary film about Zen Chef Ed Brown from Tassajara Mountain Retreat Center and one of the founders of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco. He is a large caucasian man I could easily picture as a convict somewhere, making license plates and carving primitive tattoos into his cell mates' arms. Instead he drills mindfulness of food into the participants at the Zen Center's kitchen. During his interviews in the film he did this thing with his voice that has become the hallmark of annoying New Agey white people everywhere: he spoke with a hush. Nothing can send me into fits of raging contempt more quickly than a whispery voice.

My best friend's husband says that Zen gardens make him violent. A counselor he was seeing for pain management had suggested he get one of those little table top Zen sand trays with a tiny little rake, and to stop watching violent films as a way to decrease his pain levels. He suffers from debilitating nerve damage in his back and legs which require doses of pain killers that would stun an ox. At six foot four and over three hundred pounds it used to take a Mack truck to lay him out. Now lifting a glass can put him in bed for three weeks straight. The counselor suggested he rake tiny sand as some kind of miracle cure. He almost punched her. I know how he feels. I bet she spoke with a hushed voice and a serene smile.

It is my experience that the people who present themselves as the most harmless are often the ones capable of the most damage to others. There was a wispy blonde from Southern California who had completed her EST (oops, I mean "Lifespring") Training and wanted to "help" me overcome my distrust of others with a guided meditation so she and I could become closer, better friends. Two years later she purgered herself on the stand in a court of law in an attempt to help my drug addicted, abusive ex husband prove me an unfit mother to our three year old daughter so he could gain complete custody. Giving her testimony in that Snohomish County courtroom she seemed just as wispy and harmless as ever. She spoke in delicate, softened tones to the fat, fundamentalist judge, spinning outrageous tales of "multiple sexual partners in the presence of the child in question", among other demonic lies. I sat next to my attorney and felt the taste of hatred in my mouth with each whispery utterance. At last I knew the real face of the devil.

Of course, your average Buddhist isn't evil incarnate. Not any more than any other random person on the street. Not unless you ask my younger sister, who has had to cook with them on occasion during silent retreats. We are not a quiet family. We come from loud, Italian stock who laugh as much as they shout, usually louder than any other person in the room. When my sisters and I gather, you can hear our belly laughs from down the block (or so I've been told). When we were growing up, I'm fairly certain the neighbors sometimes wondered if murder was taking place within our walls. So picture my sister on silent retreat with Buddhists, attempting to slam out three meals a day for several dozen people, in summer weather, in the crackling mountains of Santa Cruz. She called me furtively one night from the communal phone in the hall, desperate for reality check by someone not trying to be peaceful all day long, mindful of each morsel of food they slowly lifted to their tongues, while she was worrying whether there was enough tofu for the morning scramble the next day. "Fucking Buddhists," she muttered to me over the phone. I laughed so hard I fell into bed with a stitch of pain in my side. Needless to say she didn't last the weekend. The Buddhists sent her home, their peaceful demeanor strained almost to breaking by the slamming of her pots and her shouts of "hot tray!" across the kitchen. I will go to my grave with that image a secret pleasure burned into my imagination.

Ed Brown is somewhat less annoying than that in his documentary. But the signature hushed edge has made a home in his speaking voice, and likely a day in a kitchen with him would set my teeth on edge. His saving grace on film is his willingness to acknowledge his own arrogance and human foibles. I can make allowances for anyone who laughs at themselves almost as soon as I have a chance to.

As for that wispy blonde, she did come to apologize to me years later for her role in that tragedy. She claimed to be spending her time doing penance by working as a child advocate in the courts. That is between her and her gods. I cried and told her how much pain she had caused my daughter, and how long those wounds were likely to last. I wasn't interested in letting her off the hook.

I did come to thank her in my own mind later on, however. It was the last time I ignored my intuitive distrust of the whispery peace waif. I have unfettered license now to declare without pause or reservation, warning: Buddhists (and other sundry New Agey whisperers) make me violent.

hot ashes for trees

I'm building a still to slow down the time...

I started getting the paper delivered a few months ago, even though I really didn't want to, because I am a bleeding heart. Some black young men came to my door, trying to better themselves by selling newspaper subscriptions, and I couldn't turn them away. It takes a certain amount of grit to go door to door in a predominantly white, small town when your patois is decidedly black and urban. A few months later and I've read perhaps one out of nine papers that get tossed at my doorstep each morning. They stack up, still in their wrappers. I recycled them, mostly unopened. The exception being the Sunday Chronicle, which features comics, and the "pink" (entertainment) section. There is something deeply nostalgic and comforting about the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee on a weekend morning. But I still go on line for my news. Unopened papers on the stoop and I'm checking in with the NY Times and the BBC and Reuters and Scientific American on line. It's no secret why the newspaper industry is dying. And it is. A few of my friends work as journalists and photographers and they are having to take side work to make ends meet. Some of them may lose their jobs altogether. Like the folks at Denver Rocky Mountain News. Meanwhile, I have always dreamed of having a weekly column in some local paper. Getting paid to ruminate on various news items and cross sections of my life. I think that boat has sailed. Now it's blogging or nothing. And getting paid for it is the magic trick everyone and their brother is trying to pull out of their hats. Meanwhile, I have a 19 year old young man living with me who skateboards. Correction: he longboards. Street skater who goes for distance. It's today's version of every boy on a bicycle, the ones who had a morning paper route to make their spending cash. Except this boy, instead, gets tickets and fines for riding his longboard. Just for riding it. Skateboarding is a crime, apparently. Life is moving faster and faster around here. West Coast frenzy. Sometimes I think people around here would sell their grandmothers to make a buck. And with housing prices and the cost of living it's no wonder. But what came first, the chicken or the egg? People sacrificed quality of life for acquisition of goods, and now almost no one can afford to live here. Each day I chip away at noble pursuits in the effort to earn a living while contributing something artful, green and worthy to the world. But mostly the average person chooses day after day to purchase objects made in China, regardless of the consequences of that choice. It's a toboggan ride straight to hell and, as we all know well, toboggans have no brakes. I have longed for my entire life to wake up in a world where the choices most people make are in regard for the impact on the natural world, regard for their fellow human beings, regard for the greater good. I've been swimming up stream for a long time. It's not terribly profitable. But I can't seem to switch gears. Nor to refrain from mixing my metaphors. I keep praying though. Can we get back to basics? Can we be satisfied with what is enough?

Papers cut down trees, but I still want to see a skateboarder delivering my Sunday morning paper. I want to get my news on line from around the world the rest of the days of the week but for good journalists to be able to make a decent living. Otherwise what will happen to a free society? We will only be fed "news" that has been issued from spin agencies.

What kind of world do you want to live in? How are you voting with your dollars? How are you shaping the future with your time on earth?

sweetest film moment in recent memory

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2009/04/04/charlotte_roche/?source=newsletter

The dirty girl
Controversial "Wetlands" author Charlotte Roche talks about bodily functions, shaving pubic hair, and why there are so few euphemisms for female masturbation.

Songs about the hard times for the win!

Yeah, so... even though I was disappointed in Joss's whole tack with his new show, I couldn't help making icons anyway. I love Eliza Dushku. And some of you were looking for icons. So... here ya go. Nothing fancy. But Miss Thang sure is gorgeous.

( through the looking glass )

So... in watching the Pilot episode of Joss Whedon's new series "Dollhouse" something finally clicks into place. What all his heroines have in common is that they are all reluctant. In a sense they are all puppets. Buffy of the Powers that Be... Cordelia, same thing... River of those in power in the Firefly universe... now Echo is the puppet of a geek and those who employ him.

I have to say I'm finally completely disillusioned with Joss's deep seated issues with women. He thinks he's a feminist because his women all kick ass. But ultimately they are slaves, imprisoned by mystical or scientific forces. It's like all those bad Bettie Page comics where she is tied up and subjected to experiments.

The show is well done, as all Joss's work is. But I find myself being disgusted and annoyed.

Reminds me of the second Buffy Con I went to were I saw Joss drunk and drooling all over some blonde bimbo all night with fake tits who wasn't his wife. In the end, he's just a geek who made it big.

I hope he finds a way out of the dead end of story telling he has bricked himself into.

kita0610

Oh my BFF... my superheroine. You are the female embodiment of Sisyphus, rolling the boulder uphill just to have it undone by gravity. Strong and tenacious and nonpareil, you rise like the phoenix every single time. Even when you don't want to. I miss you. The years we got to live in the same town were like manna from heaven. May you and your "big spender" catch a break and enjoy a steak dinner somewhere, or the rough equivalent there of.

:::::::::SMISHES:::::::::

ragingpixie

Sparky and smart and insanely darling... heart as big as the West Coast. Hope your day is joyful and stunning.

sisbet

Fabulously talented, a beacon in the dark of the internets... you inspire me in ways you don't even know.

Happy Birthday women!! Aquariis ROCK!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SfQVoMGxfw&feature=channel

She's my sekrit You Tube crush. In that... why wasn't I this cool when I was her age?

Happy Birthday Ruthless!!!

Meeting you during the Thanksgiving holiday and getting to play some tunes with you was one of the highlights of my year. Hope you have a lovely one, full of rollicking merriment!

XOXOXOXO
daki

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STAKEBAIT!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STAKEBAIT!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STAKEBAIT!!!

::::::SMISHES:::::::

sorry about the capslock ya'll, I'm feelin frisky.

: D