nataliedee.com

Today, I found myself floundering a little in my bed, trying to think of reasons to get up. It was one of those days I was going to need coffee and a To Do list.

To Do:
-That really important thing you get paid for
-That second most important thing you get paid for
-Dishes
-Laundry
-Money making scheming
-Start a salon/art movement (not the hair kind)
-Write blog

So here I am sitting in my robe drinking coffee once again, except now my robe is really wet because all my towels are dirty, and my coffee is black because I’m too lazy to walk to the store I live directly above to get milk.

Last week, I had some great dinner experiences. Friends came over, and we ended up spending hours drinking and talking and cooking and eating. The first dinner, after running downstairs to purchase the second bottle of vodka, we came up with this really amazing idea for a salon. A SALON. Okay, so remember when you used to take that white liquid Elmer’s glue and rub it on your hand and let it dry so you could peel it off? Yeah, that was kick ass and sounded like a really good after-dinner activity. My hands, dry and flakey from doing dishes and cooking, were as tender as meat cutlets after the glue did it’s magic. It’s also really satisfying to peel off your hand from your hand.

We started to have visions… visions of slathering hot rich trophy wives with glue, putting them under heat lamps, and then making them shed skin like snakes. People would love it and I bet it would be fun for those skin peeling enthusiasts (I know you’re out there!).

The next dinner was full of hardheaded discussion of the nature of the world and political agendas and missed opportunities and isolation and selfish mentalities and community organizing and lots of good stuff. And I thought to myself, wow, if we could all get together like this more often, like, everyone in the world on rotate, I bet we could really figure some things out. My own pessimistic view of the world grew hopeful, and I could see dear old motivation rearing her head for the first time in a while.

I thought about how lovely my stranger dinner potlucks were.. People coming together for the sole purpose of sharing a meal, without any strings or futures or drama. People presented themselves how they wanted, spoke about their passions, grew less isolated, and more connected to humanity.

That is when I realized…. the universe is telling me something! I should start a salon! But not an Elmer’s Glue Salon, a social exchange salon. We need a place to invite people that isn’t a bar or restaurant. Somewhere we can be for cheap and spend hours talking and listening to music and sharing stories and hanging out. Intimate, cheap, fun, interesting, always changing. It would be a great way to meet new people, develop ideas, create community, etc.

Luckily, I’ve been reading a lot of books about art/literary movements, and Gertrude Stein, so I’ve been able to outline some steps to initiating a forum like this. Here’s what I have come up with so far:

1. Find a venue.

This place has to be a private home. It must be intimate, so it makes people feel at home, and it must not be money driven, like a bar or restaurant, so people can relax and not worry about whether they paid enough or too much, or if they can afford it, etc.. It has to be a place people are welcome to stay for hours, and which has a spot people can go to remove his/herself from the festivities with one or two other people. (Those moments where you find respite from the group creates intimate moments where a real connection can be made.)

2. Pick an active day for the salon.

I knew someone who had potlucks every week at her house in Seattle. Different people would show up all the time. Also, Gertrude Stein seemed to have a constant flow of people who would just show up at her door around dinner or tea time or whatever, which I think is awesome. In order for a salon to be established, there should be a time and place that it always exists. That way, there can be a community of people who always feel like they could be invited.

3. Get people to come.

With the Stranger Dinner, I would make invitations monthly and get people I knew to invite people they knew. In this way, we kept it pretty safe, but always had new people come and participate. I think this time I’ll do the same kind of thing, but also reach out to some pre-established communities. I think making up some cards that I could give out when I meet new people would also be a good way to invite.

The only snag I envision is that my apartment can at most accommodate six people. More than that and the connective, intimate nature of the event may be lost. I will have to include an RSVP on the invitation, and accept the first six who RSVP for a particular week. I wonder how that will go!

If you live in the Bay Area, and would like to participate, leave a comment or email me: arianna [dot] davalos [at] gmail [dot] com . I promise you will have a time, and good or bad, you’ll meet some new people, exchange some new ideas, and maybe even find some inspiration!

Don't you wish you could be in your bathrobe at noon?

This morning, the brand new used coffee maker I bought yesterday at Goodwill kicked off at 7am. T’s alarm started going off soon after, every five minutes. At 9am, the jackhammer started. I think the universe was trying to tell me something.

Yesterday I spent all day feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. I’m not good at getting things done when I don’t have that much to do and I’m working with vague deadlines. I need pressure, a deadline, fear of God or something like that to get things done.

I ended up torturing myself most of the day until the afternoon, when I said to myself. Self, if you’re not going to do it, just don’t do it. Why do you gotta be a martyr about it? Why don’t you just do whatever you want all the time?

Whatever I want all the time is my prime motivation in life. When I grow up, I want to be able to do that. Flow easily through most things, have sparkles come out of my fingertips and leave a trail of pretty flowers and magic blooming in my wake, like in Fern Gully when the forest starts healing itself or some shit.

I think the only thing that’s really blocking me is my thoughts. My thoughts tell me I have to be really awesome and amazing and smart and beautiful to do anything. It says I can’t to anything I want until I do all the things I have to do, like becoming really awesome and amazing and smart and beautiful.

But I have found a solution! Shut those thoughts down! Just stop thinking them. Just think… I’m thinking evil thoughts.. don’t think about that anymore! Think about what’s for dinner and what delicious cocktails you will make and listen to some music and dance around.

Yesterday, after I killed those thoughts, I went to the farmer’s market, got a coffee maker, found some cheese, made some delicious dinner that was lit by candlelight, made some muffins, and listened to music. It was fuckin’ bad ass. Life is more fun if you’re not berating yourself in your head and feeling guilty all the time.

And I’m starting to realize that if I just shut up those thoughts in my head pressuring me to be really cool and awesome (and successful and rich and popular), I can finally have the breathing room to be really cool and awesome, because that’s what I am naturally. COOL AND AWESOME. And hot. Yeah.

Also, I’m starting a salon (not like hair, like intellectuals and booze), because I want to feel like I’m in France all the time. ALL THE TIME. If you miss living in Europe you may know what I’m talking about: late nights, consuming things that are bad for you, long walks, and philosophical conversations over 3-6 hour drinking and eating sessions. It’s going to be fun and you wish you could be part of it.

My boo and I went out last night. We drove through dark residential neighborhoods, looking into the lit windows of people’s houses. We drank tall boys on the sidewalk, listening to hipsters name drop and out-cool each other. We drank coffee at our favorite cafe, listening to a lady sing and a man strum his guitar. We listened to Journey in the car and when we got home we watched a movie about an epidemic wiping out 90% of the population of Earth.

I love my boo and I love the apocalypse.

A few months before I met him I was writing a column for  Sustainable Style. I had been watching all these documentaries about peak oil and energy and 2012 Mayan Calendar end of times junk. Sometimes I like to fantasize about the apocalypse. Usually I skip the bad stuff and end up somewhere safe with everyone I love. We build shanties and cabins and grow gardens and live this amazing communal-hippie anarchist-back-to-the-land existence where it’s always spring and everything is wonderful. When I think about all this I look forward to is as a time where I will be released from the confines of having to actually work for money and instead I can just build and grow things and do that whole mutual aid thing, which I’m totally into.

Then I met my boo, T. When he asked me out I invited him to this potluck series I was doing. Every month I would find 6 strangers and invite them to a potluck at my house. I’d sit in the kitchen, serve their courses one by one, and record the conversation they had. So our first date was really me listening to him relate to 5 other complete strangers about life, existence, humanity, philosophy, and experience. At this point, T was a stranger to me. He worked across the street from my shop, and whenever I saw him I got totally drunk by his charisma. Not that he really did anything special, but to me being in his presence was like being next to a pop star I was really into. Like Billy Corgan when I was 13.

In the kitchen, I heard him talk about jumping out of planes, traveling the world, talking to shamans. He whistled the sound of a hawk. He spoke of seeing visions while sick with ameobic dysentary. He talked about the philosophy of the Tao and traded lessons he’s learned about society and human nature with those around the table. It wasn’t just him, everyone at the table had their own piece to add to this night. At the end of the evening a pipe was brought out, all the wine was drunk, and people sat on the stoop smoking and literally singing with each other. It was the best potluck of the summer.

He stood out. We moved in together after a month. It was magic. He would bring me wild flowers and we would sit on the porch for hours looking at the stars and talking about the dragon that appeared every night in the bush across the street, under the streetlamp. He told me about all the different lives he has had, all the things he’s learned and seen and suffered. He even helped me build a shanty in the backyard one Sunday, and we spent the summer living in the backyard, watching movies, eating, sleeping, listening to music. When we didn’t have a barbecue, he made one using a pitchfork, a few bricks, and the rack from the oven. When we got locked into a park all night, he built a big fire and we spent the night talking and watching the trains go by. And when it came time to move, he spent the day cleaning the gutters, washing all the windows, and loaded the truck down the windy staircase all by himself.

And in the back of my mind, I knew. He was the person I wanted with me when the shit hit the fan.

Right now, we live in the city, struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food in our mouths. We spend days in front of our computers, learning, stressing, dealing with clients, and reading. But I dream of the day when the population is wiped out and we are stuck on our own, surviving on what we can do with our two hands.We will be the ones to build a safe haven for those we love. We’ll be really buff from chopping wood and gathering wildflowers and swimming in creeks. We will have an amazing hand built house, delicious hand-grown and gathered food, and all our friends will finally be in bucolic harmony.

But even if that day never comes when the apocalypse strikes, there is still the catastrophe of everyday to manage. And it’s so nice to know that no matter how little or big it is, he is always there, making it a little easier.

I think I might have an issue with social anxiety.

On really good days, I am a fun, funny, outgoing, open-hearted person. I think up projects for meeting strangers, like putting up a tea party booth in the park. My dream is to run a multipurpose space for shows, classes, art, happenings, secret cafes, and dance parties. I love throwing elaborate parties, making friends, and seeing how other people live. At night I like to walk around the neighborhood and look into people’s windows and see what other people are doing. My favorite song is “The Sky Opened Wide like the Tide” by The Blow, which is all about driving around looking for your friends. “and what I want to know is where all the people are, and where they go. And what I wouldn’t give to know where everybody gets together where it is that they really live.” Oftentimes I feel isolated, like I don’t have any connection to the world around me. Sometimes I feel like everyone is a stranger to me, and I long to have some kind of community to be a part of more.

It’s been hard, over the last year, with all my best friends scattered around the globe. I’ve heard from so many of my friends how hard it is to move to a new city and find friends to hang out with. Unlike school, where there’s a built in community and constant activities to share with the hundreds of people you are living with, it’s a lot harder to make friends naturally in a city. People are busy working, living with partners, and often have an established group of friends already and aren’t looking for new people. You can go to bars, but most of the time when you approach someone, they expect you want to have sex with them, not hang out in the park and drink beer.

And while on good days, I’m open and confident, funny and outgoing, and able to make people feel comfortable around me, on bad days I’m scared of everyone. I want to hide somewhere and turn off my phone and be invisible in my gmail so people won’t try to talk to me. I’m terrified of running into anyone I know, or having to interact in any situation. I’m not really sure why that is. I have this fear that I will do something wrong, that people will judge me, or be mad at me for some reason. I’m scared of being asked to do things because I’m afraid of failing. I also afraid that if I see someone I haven’t seen in a long time, they will think I’ve made a turn for the worse, that I’m not as good or cool as I used to be. I’d hate to disappoint them.

I know these fears are irrational. I know they are not justified. I know deep down that I’m bad ass and can do pretty much everything I try pretty well. But after a year of being unemployed, continuously rejected from jobs I apply for, depressed, feeling unwanted and like a failure, those little hater voices in my head have undermined my confidence.

I’m working to get it back. Shut those voices up in my head. Feel the physical signs of anxiety and calm myself down, remind myself that what I think is not who I am, and I don’t have to believe my thoughts. That my head sometimes plays tricks on me, likes to overanalyze and worry, and that those things are unnecessary and what I think isn’t always true. That no one hates me.

I am definitely getting better at this, and I have big plans for some new fun social sculpture projects this spring. There will be potlucks and parties and tea and strangers and cake(!). It will be a blast, so stay tuned.

doggies!

We woke up late today, after falling asleep in front of a movie at around 9pm last night. I don’t know how people go to happy hour and then out again to party on a Saturday night. After a few 50 cent beers down the street, and a good dinner of hamburgers on wheat toast, I was down for the count. Full and sleepy.

I hate to clean on Sundays, a day that should be lazy and full of mimosas and barbeques and sleeping in the sun, but it was the chance we had to do it. We got out of bed, unpacked some of out last boxes, took out the trashed, rearranged our kitchenette for a more satisfying cooking experience, and organized everything that had gotten away from us during the week. By 12:30, I was cranky. We hadn’t eaten, and T was listing off all the things we had yet to do.

There are some times when, no matter what you have on your to do list, no matter how little time you have to accomplish it, and no matter how crazy your week ahead looks like, you have to stop. You have to take a rest, catch a breather, come up for air. I demanded we go outside and walk around in the sun, to hell with all this cleaning. T agreed, without much coercing, grumpy himself by this point. After getting some coffee, and walking down the sunny side of the street, we settled in at Duboce Park to eat a bagel and watch all the dogs out for their Sunday stroll.

After a few minutes it was clear that this was just what we needed. Watching puppies of all different shapes and sides jump around, sniff each other and come around to say hello and demand affection, our grumpiness faded away. We took a long stroll up Haight St., watching people of all varieties stroll about, drink, eat lunch, and shop. We ended up at one of our favorite places to go on a day like this. From Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park you can sit for hours, watching all the people, listening to the drum circle. It’s a true happening, with people doing acrobatics on the grass and naked babies dancing. You can see friends being made, items being traded, and picnics being had. It feels good, to be around so many people just relaxing, sitting in the sun after so many days of rain, and not having to do anything in particular but sit, and watch the world go by.

We came back to a clean room, a bottle of not-bad cheap chardonnay, a sweet, borrowed dog of our own to walk around the block, and a brighter outlook on the week ahead. Hooray for Sunday.

T playing the piano to relax at Haight St. Music Center.

The entire pond covered in algae.. gross!

Hangin' on Hippie Hill