Summertime Sundays in the Sucka Free City

10:30
park's stuffed already
Spills over into hidden meadow, poison ivy shaded nooks
Sharing bread and cheese and fineries
Blankets, sunshine, beer'n'wine,
ocean breeze (occasionally)
Dragon flies stare me in the eye
one hawk glides overhead
In a gulch o' raised up trees and stone steps
People perch steep hillsides, sleep
Brazil beat the aussies and everyone is here
Yellow, blue and green scene
seu jorge represents
straw in a to-go cup sounds his instrument
A section drum circles
Another does one massive electric slide
We are all alive
in portuguese
we're pleased

Intermission Aimee Mann
Lost in Space reels us in again
Listen, her lyrics
Hazy heads of sunshined wine
People mill
Make connections
seeming sad self-reflections
start and sleep sets in
lay back, relax decompress from
depressing any mann

The day's over we recycle
Climb back up to street level
Take off every way and out

First of the series
Bleary.
Beautiful, lazy Summertime Sundays.

Good Days Turn to Dust So Quickly

Sometimes, even hung over during an assembly, a person can have a good day.

Sometimes, even having 5150ed people right before graduation, a person can have a good day.

Sometimes, even with grades hanging over one's head, a person can have a good day.

Sometimes, a person's cell phone makes the tiniest blip of a noise, and the person is startled because they have dropped their phone so often that the phone rarely makes any kind of wurble and then realizes they have just gotten a text message.

Sometimes the text reads: I love you so much i'm sorry.

Sometimes that text is from a student.

Sometimes that person calls the student and says, I love you fiercely too, I am so happy to receive your text, and what exactly does this mean? Did you hurt yourself? Are you thinking about hurting yourself? And though the person promises that they haven't, they are not believed and when they start to get tired the person has to say to the sleepy and acting strange but no longer weeping controllably person: Do you have any idea how much I love you? I love you to the point that it would devastate me; it would change my life unalterably, I might never ever recover, if something were to happen to you. And the other person says: I took 50 Tylenol. And so the first person says: When? /A half hour ago. / You have to walk outside with me on the phone and you have to tell your dad what has happened and I need to talk to him, ok? / Ok.

And sometimes the person is meanwhile on the phone with another person getting them to call the dad's cell and tell him that his child might die if he doesn't get that child to the ER right then WHILE keeping the person awake and on the phone so the person says, Oh hey, um, I need to call you back later because my dad is at the door and he says that we have to go to the hospital now.

And so the person says, OK, I will talk with you later. I can't wait.

So sometimes a person gets a text message that changes their day dramatically. And thanks any possible diety for hearing one tiny bleat.

Wrapping It Up: Teacher Life

I like bowling. Turns out I like to wear other people's shoes and hurl balls at little pins far away. Turns out the stale air is good for me. Turns out I am a far better bowler than billiardist (word?). Turns out I am better at each of these things under 2 circumstances: 1. Drunk (but I wouldn’t know about that, since these were fieldtrip/parties for my munchkins.... Although one of my students COULD speak to that.... In the form of his spiked sprite bottle.... He got maybe two sips before I nailed him.... Its not like I was born yesterday) and 2. Not paying any attention to what I am doing. Turns out I somewhat belligerently don’t understand why bowling balls can be all sorts of glittery glistening colors but pool balls are never pink or turquoise or lime or brown....

Turns out that I am a SAP because I even love these pain-in-the-ass ball-and-chain children in JUNE, even while I was singing the "go home go home sarah needs to be alone" song at 10 or 11 or who knows when on Thursday night after a long ass week with so many of them kicking some peer education ass at conferences, etc. with me almost taking a nap on a pool table during our never-ending-year-end party despite loud music, big big boys surrounding me babbling in my ears about god know what and who, schooling bad-decision boozer-boy, gaggles of cute teens playing pool and eating pizza and being sweet to each other in the weirdest ways by saying things like....

R to B- You KNOW I mean you KNOW T_________ wont play me cuz she's hella scared, man.

B to T - T_________! Ya know what? R__________'s over there saying you're scared to play him cuz he's that good.

T screaming across 4 tables to R - WHAT?! R________! You say I'z SCARED to play you?

R- I sure did! (fat grin)

T- R_________! I'ma gonna to kick ya ass. And then I'm gonna kick ya ass at pool, boy. (oh, pizza! can I get a slice? Thanks, sarah.) R__________! I kill you. Don’t make that face boy. I'll seriously kill you. I won't even use this pole.

Me: (Audible) Sigh.

THREE more days ....

When Live-In Brothers Come to Live With You...

Here is the kind of paraphenalia you can count on finding on the floor. A little bathroon reading?

On a totally separate note, while describing the Light Man's job on a gay porn set to my friend R, I was reminded why it is to have old, good friends with kick ass memories. He reminded me that shortly before my stint of dating the alcoholic artists I was with the amateur porn star and it was only when I somehow mentioned that to the alcoholic artist #1 that he became quite suddenly VERY insecure. Woops. I would've completely forgotten that episode. Thank you, R.

Happy Birthday Gemini Sister

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw. I love these ladies. Cute as buttons, aren't they?

The Streets of San Francisco

Is there any faction of the U.S. not at war?! It is madness out there. And haterism is even reaching all new heights even in the live and let live Sucka Free City stenciler community. Long gone are the whispered debates within queer communities: support gay marriage or not? Everyone went public with the Support Gay Marriage stencilers versus the Gay Shame Counter-Stencilers versus the Fuck Gay Shame Uber-Counter-Stencilers. In retrospect, that little display all over Dolores Park sidewalks a couple years back was NOTHING.

Check this one out:


Should you not be able to read it, you've got the but one of the many in the pinings that I call the "Blue Lost Love Calls Out" series of stencils all up and down 14th - 24th streets in the Mission: "Your sweet voice breaks my heart. " Which was snuffed by the "Shut Up Honky" Poo Piler stenciler, followed by the Poo Piler Hater/Stencil Love Defender Scribbler "Snore". And anyone's guess is the identities and persuasions of the Big Snore arrow maker and the Eat Shit scribe. And of course, who ensnared the whole lot in a puffy white heart. Aaaaaaaaaaw. And this is only one of the 10,000 yelling matches all over the Mission cement. All the same people. I wish I had an aerial camera. I would like to have captured their trails over each other. It is like Stalker Stenciling out there. Lord help us all.