Tag: travel

Schwangerschaftsverhuetungsmittel

“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” – Thucydides

I’m packing for Burning Man today. I feel unprepared because everything feels so last minute, even though I made sure to make an excellent reference of my suitcase last year and I’ve already collected and tested out the majority of my heavy camping gear. (Repaired the air mattress, rinsed out the water jugs, tested my tent in the park across the street). I only have days to be ready, instead of weeks. I leave for Seattle on Tuesday, then I don’t get back from New York until the 23th, at which point I turn right around and go back South again, a flame headed pendulum, slicing not hours but days from the time I have to prepare. There’s no margin for error. If I miss something, the only chance to get it will be on the way, which is likely to be scoured clean of supplies by other Burners.

I have to pack for my New York trip today, too, which, even though it’s only a quick weekend trip, feels almost more overwhelming given that we’re going to not one, but two fancy dress occasions. How do you pack for a costume ball when you don’t know what to wear? My stress amuses me, though. I feel blessed to have #firstworldproblems.

I’m hacking my cycle today as well, kick starting my period two weeks early rather than having it hit me in the desert. (The first cup of tea was a wash, made by accident with rosehips in, but the second stinging cup has been okay, should be enough. Mint instead of raspberry, that’s the key.) Odd that tinkering with my basic biology has been the least stressful part of the day, but there you go. Maybe I should pack my seriously silly-sized tutu. That and a corset. Too overdone? Hard to dance in. And red stockings. Do those exist in Vancouver? They must.

This on top of the 1500 photos I have to cut down to 50, print out, and assemble artfully into an erotic pillow book for a client. (I’ve already cut it down to under 500 and I’ve been staring at a perfect ass for so long I’m starting to think I’m at Addrianna’s house.) Sleep? What’s that?

you can’t steer a train

The New York whirlwind weekend seems to have sprouted wings! It just so happens that Dances Of Vice is throwing a party the Saturday we’re there, Enchantment Under The Sea, a 50’s prom themed gala at Morningside Castle, and then the Coilhouse crew has just scheduled their Black & White & Red All Over Fundraising Ball for the Sunday! Given that I planned this about as carefully as a drunken carpenter, this is brilliant luck. Apparently there couldn’t be better timing!

Today’s other good news: I’ve scored a ride to Burning Man with my friend Jordan.

conjunction

just a trim

“Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” – Paul Brandt

As unlikely and unexpected as it might be, I have even more good news! Not only am I going to Burning Man, I’m going back to New York. Not as time-serious a trip as last time, but a weekend jaunt concocted just to see the PunchDrunk show, Sleep No More, an astoundingly intricate 100 room retelling of Macbeth.

Ridiculous, a bit, as it was playing while I was there, but I didn’t find out until after my trip, when Mordicai attended then posted about it, so now I’m flying all the way back just to see it! It’s wiping out my emergency savings and much of what I earned as the photographer at Mishka’s wedding, but I figure that after three years of scraping, living in crazy poverty to pay back Heart of the World, it’s about damned time I starve for a good reason, something that makes me happy instead of twisting me bitter. It also helps that I’ve been managing to move forward with surprising rapidity with Burning Man prep. Though I’ll still probably be scrounging until the last minute, (still no ride, still nowhere set to camp, etc), I think it will all be okay. I don’t think there’s going to be any reason to panic.

In a lucky turn, Tony’s going to come with me, which also makes my heart glad. I was willing to go alone, but I suspect it might have been a little bit of a tragedy, as Sleep No More is designed, down to the last bit of insane writing on the wall, to every minuscule atom of splendid performance, to be shared. Everyone that goes in walks a different path, discovers different scenes, finds different hidden treasures. Everyone gets a unique narrative, an incredible, very personal experience, so it’s extra important to be able to share. (I would probably go twice if I could even remotely afford it). I’m also getting contact lenses for the first time, all proper like, just so I can wear the mask. I’ve only worn them once before, found the learning curve to be a little bit crazy, but this time, I can barely wait. I’ve been dancing everywhere, ever since we booked our tickets.

We fly out of Seattle late Thursday evening, and arrive first thing, the morning of Aug 19th. (We’re staying in Greenwich and leaving Monday evening.) We have tickets to the Friday, 7 pm, Sleep No More show, and for the Sunday’s Fuerza Bruta, (because Tony wanted to see it, after my rave reviews). Besides that, we have nothing planned.

Are you there, too? What are you up to that weekend? Let’s visit!

born yesterday but stayed up all night

dawn

Milwaukee at dawn.


They were unprepared for the squalling, sniffles, small screams, the bundled misery. (Parents didn’t know she needed to pop her ears). I reached over, fixed the child, but still didn’t sleep, mind furnished with too many crooked curiosities, matching floral sets of regrets limned in the light of painful neglect. I wrote out a letter before I left, but didn’t receive even the barest politesse, an acknowledgment back. So self ethereal, my gestures made so pointless, so invisible to archaologists, history-less, the plane felt like a casket and myself a misfit, unwanted ghost, passing by the country at heights too rarified to survive. Landing was the last thing I thought about. Landing or getting to the other side.

if there’s any other way

Talked to the Irish Embassy today. They’re going to send me the appropriate affidavit tomorrow. Once that’s filled out and the paper records have arrived from the Holmes clan, I can apply. The only drawback is that the current application process time is six months. This wouldn’t cause concern except that it seems I also have to send them my passport as part of the Foreign Births Registration package, which would trap me in the country.

On the other hand, it turns out moving to Montreal could be significantly less risky than previously thought, as apparently there’s a provincially subsidized language program which might pay me a small stipend to learn french, easing the transition as well as teaching me a useful new skill. Also, more locally, I may have hit upon some small crowd-sourced education funding, as long as the classes are super cheap, (in the couple of hundred dollar range), and apparently the unemployment office will now pay to upgrade my First Aid certification.

taxidermy runs in the family

I bought my father a death certificate search yesterday. It cost twenty-seven dollars. (This is not the strangest thing I’ve ever done, but I believe it to be the most unsettling credit card purchase I’ve ever made, and that’s saying something, as I just sent someone a pewter-cast bat skull tie-pin as a birthday present.) Basically this means I have hired the Department of Vital Statistics to search through the death records of the city of my choice, in the three year period of my choice, to try and find out if my father has died. Course, a few hours after I did that, some very delicate social grape-vine contacts informed me that he’s still alive. So, okay, wasted money, but at least it rescued me from my position of doubt and perplexity – the uncomfortable dilemma: what outcome I was hoping for?

Fun fact: Anyone may order and receive a death certificate for someone who died in British Columbia. Release of death certificates is not limited to immediate family.

Back east, my amazing uncle Francis unearthed all of my ancestral paperwork, like my grandfather’s birth certificate, his marriage license to my grandmother, (which, amusingly, lists her birthplace as only “Russia” and her occupation as “spinster”), and my father’s birth certificate, and e-mailed them to me as high quality scans. They are beautiful artifacts, history manifest. Now, according to the immigration requirements, it’s a matter of either signing an affidavit that states my father is too dangerous to contact or having a family member far, far away request a copy of his current identification. Either way, it’s very likely that this will wrap up much sooner than expected.

Fun Fact: According to my father’s birth certificate, my grandfather was an embalmer.

maybe I’ll be lucky, maybe he’s died.

I’ve begun pursuing a potentially dangerous course of action, something I’ve been putting off as long as I possibly could:

I’ve started the steps required to get my Irish citizenship.

My father’s father was born in Cashel. Because of this, according to Irish Naturalization and Immigration Services, I’m eligible for Citizenship Through Descent. Naturally, you might be curious as to why this is a risky proposition, and why I haven’t followed through with it before, especially as I’ve such a bee in my bonnet about getting the heck out of Canada. Well, here’s the caveat: even though my family in Winnipeg already has copies of all the tricky, hard-to-find, turn-of-last-century, grandfather-related paperwork, the application also requires documents that relate to my unstable, schizophrenic, murderous father. Very particular documents, the sort that require permission to access, like his full civil birth certificate and copies of his current identity documents.

When I had set up to move to London a few years ago, my plan was to apply for all the paperwork from the safety of another continent, where there would be no possible way he would go so far as to show up at my door with a gun or a sharpened crowbar. My work visa would cover my UK residency until my citizenship was finalized, freeing me to finally wander the EU as I saw fit, but when that move didn’t happen, stupidly superseded by the failed Heart of the World project, my citizenship application plans were put on the back burner, only to be considered as an utterly last resort.

Given that my 29th birthday has just come and gone, it seems to be well past time I dust those plans off again. Which raises some interesting questions, like “would contacting my father to get permission, as hazardous and a bad idea as that is, break the terms of the restraining order I have against him?” or “because I have a restraining order, and he has a proven history of extreme violence, is it possible that the government would let me circumvent him entirely?”. I really have no idea, nor do I know who to contact to get those answers.

In the meantime, while I call endless office drones, attempting to find out what I need to know, (and to discover who, honestly, I should be calling), the family clan in Winnipeg are my angels, sifting through old boxes, looking for the relevant paperwork to scan and e-mail to me, so I don’t have to apply directly to Ireland in the middle of a postal strike.

confluence

Sweetness, sunlight, warm days and two wills held up like a slightly cracked mirror. I stayed up late, walked everywhere, and, for awhile there, I did not feel so fragile. On my second day, we went out on a lake in Central Park in a little rowboat like the owl and a pussycat singing handfuls of song, and posed for our very first photograph, magical, digital evidence of our parallel lives finally coming together. It had been shocking to see him at the airport, standing casually by the side of the baggage carousel as if he could have been just anyone, instead of my dearest friend. Two weeks later, drastic change, while on the surface, things are the same. I am back on the west coast, still reverberating from my trip.

happy birthday to me

morning

Happy Birthday to Me.

I went to Coney Island today and sang on the boardwalk and had my picture taken in a photobooth and saw the sideshow and went on a ferris wheel and battled with brenno at two rounds of disco bumpercars and remembered all of the lyrics to a thousand pop songs. Earlier this week I went rowing at central park, enjoyed a late night circus arts show, danced at an interactive media chiptunes concert, answered questions at a quizbowl, took self-portraits with cornell boxes, rode the staten island ferry, saw the statue of liberty, conquered half a sheep’s head for dinner and kept the skull as my only souvenir, and had my very first art gallery showing. It wasn’t all that I wanted to do, I haven’t been dancing yet, haven’t been to any all-night beauty bombs, but it has been enough that I feel alright closing today like a book and going to bed. Tomorrow, hopefully, my birthday, will be even better, as will the day after that, and the day after that. Every minute here has been a tiny miracle even when I’ve been unhappy, flowering, blossoming, treasured, better, and that, in itself, is truth.