Lost and Found

Somewhere I veered off course.  When I started this blog, I thought it would be a mere documentation of my travels through The South.  I started off with a bang after I left LA and traversed Hwy 40, jotting down the kind of food I ate, the songs I listened to, the sunsets I saw.  Traveling opens up your world again and alights the senses--everything is anew and fresh; driving on an open highway is like automotive yoga--it clears blocked energy and attunes you to a greater body at work.  Using my iPhone as a compass and Ragmar's Kingdom as my destination, I thought that was where I was headed and where I would find Liberty.

My friend lives in Liberty, Tennessee, after all, hence the name of the blog.  I think I simply hoped that it would be my final destination and where I would realize a triumphant release.  I did jump off a 20-foot cliff into a river and I walked a mile on a winding forest road in the pitch black of night.  I became friendly with insects, the sultry heat of a Southern summer, and experienced the exact solitude of being human--vital and vulnerable--in a wooded world stirring with life all around.  I wrote about some of my adventures and discoveries, although I censored myself from writing about the wonderful world of faeries I had stumbled upon because I did not feel knowledgeable enough or qualified to write about them.  Instead, I wrote about or to distract me from what I was consumed by: these temporal fixations and hang-ups that came in the name of a boy, but were plagued and fueled by a demon much greater than him.

You may think I have lost my mind.  Writing about faeries and demons and such.  Crazy.  No, I actually encountered them in the woods of Tennessee.  I found a delightful group of faeries who nurtured and tended to me during my two months there and I also began seeing the demon growing inside me as I was left to my own devices deep in the backwoods, 2,000 miles from my loved ones in Los Angeles.  I became bosom buddies with a regenerating bottle of Bullit--a fantastic bourbon whiskey from Kentucky--and drank myself silly.  I dealt with some issues around my father, this boy, and mostly myself and my own inequities during my time in Tennessee and in order to cope with the pain of going deeper and deeper, I drank.

Somehow, I stumbled into my car (not drunk, just hungover) and made my way to Atlanta to visit my dear friend, Charles.  Then, I got back into my car and made my way to Savannah to visit my good friend, Fitz.  Fitz said I could stay at his mother's house, who was away for the summer, and I arrived at a lovely row house in the Historic District and parked my car.  I stayed there for three weeks, slowly losing my mind to Bullit, but the gentle arm of Savannah cradled me and helped me to regain my senses. I stopped drinking and decided to stay.

That is all I will write for now.  It's been two months since I've had a drink.  I've gotten an apartment.  I've made some wonderful friends.  I feel at home here, at peace, and I am happy.  The Boy and I are still talking, but he becomes more and more distant as he continues with his shenanigans and I continue to tread a more honest path.

I will write more about faeries and demons, but I will also write more about The South because that was my intention to do so when I came out here.  I was derailed for awhile, but I am back on track.  I still don't know what this blog is really about or why I even bother to write it, but I do know that on each step of this journey I am coming closer and closer to finding liberty.  Also, I promise to include more photos.

What I Love About Men

I've been grappling with a lot recently--about what I get from men, why I stay hooked, what it is about men as opposed to women that I love and cherish and stay for.  I become infused and intertwined--with their journey, with their grapplings about life, with what they are seeking and wish to fulfill within themselves.  We are all imperfect creatures, but men don't have the same kind of emotional support network that women do.

I love sensitive men.  I love men who are grappling.  I love men who are willing to share their innermost fears and desires.  I love men who show me through our exchanges and soft, quiet moments what they need or what they might be struggling with.  When we break on through to the other side and there is a moment or accelerated journey through true identification of what we need or what we are really seeking in life then I am released.  I feel like my job has been done... for the time being.  Women do that naturally, willingly, I think amongst ourselves and with the ones we hold dear.  Men, however, especially if they didn't get that from their families or ones who are closest to them will hang on to whoever they can get that from--friends, lovers, family members, or true loves.  There is just not the same emotional support network for men as there is for women.  Men have to show and share amongst themselves true care and love--what they did not get from the men in their lives while they were growing up and move beyond the bounds and limitations of what "macho" love is and just share and engage in true understanding as friends--as men who "get it" and are there for each other as guys struggling on this journey of life and love.

I put a lot onto my men.  I expect a lot out of them.  I test and I challenge and I make them work for me--for this love, this deep, deep reservoir of love that I have and hold for them, maybe, if only, because women have always just been the reservoir of love and understanding that men cannot get otherwise.  If I see or know that they love me as deeply as I love them, my love will know no bounds.  I will go the distance, the extra mile, the absolute limits of what I believe love can be.  Love is unconditional.  Love is family.  Love is an endless journey of giving and taking and knowing and breaking your limits--and then, taking it all back and opening yourself up back to what you thought love could not deliver.

I've loved so many men in my life.  But I have never quite been willing to deliver myself completely to them, even though it may seemed like I did.  My Love is Great.  My love is too powerful.  And most have been overtaken or overwhelmed by the power of my love.

And then I have my own inequities and insecurities and inability to voice or show my true fear or discomfort about where my true fears or disquiet lies.  I want to, but I am scared.  I still haven't met the man that I can do that with.  Most of my fears rest in my body--as temporary as this physical place may be.  It is what is.  Most men have been drawn to me because of it, but then have never wanted to stay or love me despite it.  This physical body is a novel telling--a journey of what we have all gone through in life.  The problem is that most men (and women nowadays) are full of porn and/or the "perfect" girl/body/woman/man/guy and can't tell the difference between desire and real love.  Do we just want the "body" that is going to give them what we want at that time--that particular moment... or can we go the distance?  Because goddam, our bodies change!  Women's bodies make babies!  We expand and contort and scar and release and never stay the same.  We change. Can you deal with that change?  Can you still love us and hold us despite your own needs and desires, even though we may not embody what you really want physically, psychologically?

My talk about power does not rest in ego, though.  It does not rest in the chaos of love.  My love rests in the quiet and sweetness of being and sharing--as most women's love do.  The difficulty, usually, is that egos come into play, someone is more busy or caught up than the other, both are too scared to reveal what is truly going on in their minds and hearts, both want what they cannot have, but may have found it in the other completely and are too afraid to accept that love is what it is: plain and simple.  It's just love.

The love that I have for women is different--it's easy and fun, yet also layered and complicated by another deeper expectation of deliverance of who you really are and what you really are doing or embodying in your life.  With a man, they expect less, and they give you the softness that you might not get from the women in your life.  Men have given me a respite from the challenge and pressure I have felt from women to be or do certain things by a certain point--and that is, to say, simply by nature of where we are as women on a certain timeline, not necessarily because they are being bitches and making me feel bad about where I'm at or where they're at.  I have very supportive, amazing women in my life.  Truly remarkable, intelligent, beautiful women.  And, they, always, give me the unconditional love and support that I need when I am struggling and grappling or hurt.  A woman's love--no matter in what form: as friend, foe, lover, family or random link--is powerful and good.  A woman's love nurtures and forgives, reminds and fills, tests, challenges, pricks and then soothes and protects.  But a woman will always call you on your shit and do so point-blank; a man may not.

A man's love is different.  It challenges, surely, but it fills holes and gaps and finds its way into fissures and cracks in a way that a woman's love does not.  It soothes an open wound, it bathes tired skin, it lingers and gives where a woman will not.  If a man is truly a lover, he will linger and love and see and bathe in your open wounds, take them in and cherish still and then take the time to try to help heal what he can, as discomforting or painful as it may be for him, if only because he loves you.  Even when a man is trying to test you or his love for you, if he really is in love with you, he will be gentle.  All of that other madness or bullshit or anger or whatever is simply his own shit that he needs to work out despite you will eventually dissipate and become something else (if he finds his proper expression and release).  He will find another way to expend that frustration or anger, but then, you, as his love, will need to stay attentive and available in order to hold onto his love and you must not buckle.  You must stay there in order to love him truly... and it's difficult when they continue to hurt you.  But love between men and women is difficult: plain and simple.

That is why I stay hooked.  I've experienced that from men.  A few of them, not all of them.  But when I have it's sucked me in and made me give more and more.  Maybe I've known a few good men.  I don't know.  They've had their shortcomings, too, but where I appreciate them over the women in my life is that women want results.  Women want to know and see and believe that what they are doing and why we are doing this now is eventually going to see results.  The men in my life have been more forgiving.  I am probably over-generalizing, as I am prone to do, but this is just my take on things and gender roles and how I've perceived or experienced life and love to be between men and women thus far.  Men, actually, seem to be more forgiving and loving in the sweetest, most gentle of ways; women are more hardcore.  Women want results NOW,  men will be willing to see results later.  If you are a passive woman and don't know yourself yet then you will be willing to wait, but the older you get the less patient you will be to wait for the men to catch up with you.  Yet, love is this: initially intoxicating and inherent and then felt and longed for and met 

But, I don't know the first fucking thing about love or relationships.  Love is what it is and relationships are always in the making.  Love is what it is--and it's a goddam beautiful thing.  The rest of it is just life and living and figuring it all out...

All I do know is this: Love is beautiful.  Love is to be cherished and honored.  Love is rare.  Love is a good thing.  Love is something to tuck under your belt, hold close to your heart and then keep there forever and ever.  Love is good.  Love is forever.  Love is so goddam complicated, but gaddam, makes me so happy and full.  Love is worth it.

The Drunk Geisha

I can't seem to get my head together enough to write the blog entries I want to write, but I am starting to piece through old snippets of writing to try and put this huge jigsaw puzzle of a novel that I have together.  In the meantime, I came across this old "poem" I wrote years and years ago that I thought I'd post just for the hell of it.  I would never call myself a poet--just having fun and playing with words and form.  Enjoy!

The Drunk Geisha


Sitting with knees bent
and archless feet
tucked under a heavy bottom,
draped from the shoulders
with layers of onerous silk.
Her hand cups a wrist to pour
placations, inebriations
for men
wrestling with temptations.
They watch the stillness of her movement
listen to the slumber of her speech.
They wonder what the smile hides
what her mind may know
and what her beauty
will not tell them.
Onyx strands fall
against niveous skin
and guarded lids
cover lashes that slash her heart.
She administers alcohol or tea
to soothe their spirits
laughs at their jokes
and makes smalltalk
to fill the silence.
She is doing a job
that was assigned to her
by a male God
and taught to her by women.

When the evening is complete
and she has purged the men from her hold
she will consume the last drops of liquor
that made her so bold.
Tranquil bitters coat her tongue
Her head hung
Sitting, now bent
and hunched with repent
full of the woes
of being in the throes
of men, those damn men,
who tell her,
"You are simply a rose."

Her sister, the Dragon Lady, scoffs at her kin
says, "Girl, what's your problem?
Why you trippin?"
The Lady flicks her red nails and slugs from her drink,
tosses her black tress and gives her a wink,
"It's business, my friend.
You're not selling your soul.
Get off it, move on...
it's taking it's toll."

2/6/99

A Place Called Home

I've just landed in Savannah, Georgia--leaving behind certain travails and tribulations in Tennessee, having encountered a few glorious faery souls, encountering the dark and the quiet and the lushushness of the woods--and pulling into the park-like neighborhoods, trees draped with Spanish Moss, and the breathtaking Colonial, Federal and Victorian architecture of buildings and homes that have been here for centuries.  I walk past wrought iron gates and find my footing on sidewalks of uneven bricks, concrete and broken shells.

I'm mesmerized by this place, I'm mesmerized by the South.  I've been indoctrinated and seduced by each place I've encountered.  Whether it's the winding roads that by night look like a dopppelganger of another road I had already driven by day or the animals I've come to know and love, the insects I've been forced to accept, admire or endure, the different personalities or ways of living, the familiarity of loved friends who have welcomed me into their homes and given me a respite or place for me to gather and absorb and partake in their world and livelihoods... I have been mesmerized and truly grateful and yet still wondering.

When strangers ask me, "So, where are you from? What are you doing out here?"  I reply in a fashion that is now becoming staid: "I'm from LA.  I'm a writer.  I've never experienced the South."  Sure, my response, at the moment of discussion, may not be that bland and there are moments of more interesting conversations where I'm able to insert other anecdotes or supplementary information about why I am here or what I have experienced thus far, but the longer I am out here, just simply traveling (as much as I LOVE traveling and going from place to place), there are times when I have to ask myself, too: "So, where are you from?  What are you doing out here?"  Why am I here, where am I from, and what am I doing out here, anyway?"

It dawned on me tonight that I have been a hobo for way too long.  I've been basically couch-hopping (or rather beautifully bed- or home-hopping), HOPING that maybe I might find my home or my place if I went... to that next place.

Part of my problem is that I convolute or intertwine my feeling of security or home with a man.  Which, actually, I find curious when I'm one of the last women standing!  I'm a single woman here now--almost 40--by choice.  I did not or never wanted to be "that," I never thought I would turn "that age"... it just happened, and then being single at my age also happened by choice.  Mostly because I never found the man who I wanted to be with and I think I held out for that for most of my twenties and thirties, despite my personal beliefs.  

It was like this: if I had my druthers, I would be the single, accomplished woman who didn't have to rely on a man for my happiness or well-being, but if the beautiful man came along I would go there and love him completely, which I did for most of my life.  I've always been boy-crazy: I was that kindergartner who got benched during recess because I was always playing chase with the boys and who wrote about my "boyfriends" in my first diary in first grade: one, a red-haired mop-headed Jewish boy from the San Fernando Valley and the other, a dark-skinned, gentle immigrant from Tanzania.  I just always loved the boys.  

I tried.  I held out for that ideal of being the single, accomplished woman, but I always buckled because I love the boys just too damn much.  I came up in the 90s with collegiate-feminism and inaccessible, pretentious theory and no utilitarian practice.  That was my big gripe whenever I had to read these texts in college and then had to translate their ideas into what I had experienced or how I saw the world.  Academia is all theory and fuckin bullshit brain power---there's no practice or immediate use for all the great good that the privileged few can do anything with.  And if there is anything good, it takes eons and years for it to trickle down to the masses.  There was always that struggle between reading, learning and processing and then applying it to my life or experience and what I have known or observed.  

Then, I saw too many intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed "men." Ugh.  I looked at them, observing these intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed men, which is easy to do from afar and also desire as an observer or lover-of-being-in-love, but the problem for me was that I could never get my own shit together enough to even  be that.  I was still just grappling with my own demons and then meeting these random guys who wanted me and then who I got involved with in these two-year long relationships that went nowhere because, honestly, I didn't want to be with any of those guys from the get-go, but they were just, maybe, the next best thing to make me feel more whole or sure about who I was and... well, then, they usually disappointed and I did, too.  Me and them.  I didn't have my own shit together or was unformed and unrealized myself and these two broken parts would always come together--never enough wholeness to make a whole functioning unit.

There are two kinds of men: either they want their cake and it eat it, too, and can never settle down fully to commit and not wrestle with those other "I'm -scared-of-committing-demons" (and they'll always "dabble" even if they say they are done with that part of their lives) or they are the staid, regimented, boring types that freak the fuck out whenever you suggest or insert something new or different into their lives.  I don't care if you try to be loving or understanding or work with their insecurities or whatever, whether they are the terrified single dude or the terrified regimented boy they just freak out and either begrudgingly partake in your suggestion or they just won't do it and will stay set in their ways.  Either one is mind-boggling and frustrating and makes me claw at the walls.  I'm probably not picking the right men to be involved with, yes, but I also just get to a point where I get sick of the bullshit and would rather be alone and single than constantly having to put up with someone who needs so much work and isn't willing to do it on his own.  I want someone who has worked on their shit apart from anyone else, someone who has gone through the ups and downs and difficulties of life, but who has taken quiet time out for themselves to learn about why they do the things they do and how these patterns erupt in their lives or who may have figured into that picture and what they can do to change it now. I want to feel their substance and worth--wrap my fingers around their grace and beauty and linger there, dawdle and slip and slide between knowing and unknowing.  I want permanent press with the romance of silk, the durability and contention of hemp, the familiarity and sweetness of cotton, the sexiness of satin, and the modernity of bamboo.  I want to recognize that hodgepodge of fabrics that creates the one I love, but then feel the substance and delight that we are made of the same material.

I want adventure and fun and anticipation of the unknown in my life, but I also want security and deep-felt love and the comfort of knowing and understanding with a man.  Unfortunately, I am not a lesbian and sometimes I wish I was... if only because the alternative to loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by men is loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by women.  I think women--especially beautiful women--are HOT and even though I've gone there it's never dawned on me to get involved with a woman or to be in a relationship with one like a man.  It's simply not appealing to me.  The roles and gender things are just too confusing.  I want to be involved with a man--my best friend, my alter ego, my lover, that person who has different parts than me and is just the one who I find gorgeous, wonderful and endearing... and also the one who will travel the ends of the earth to be with me no matter how difficult the circumstances or obstacles.  He will climb through the tundra or battle windstorms, hijack a 747 or become a stowaway in cargo on a ship, fight a duel to the death, scale tall buildings with a single bound.  But, hell, I know Superman doesn't exist.  Maybe the problem is that there are too many women out there trying to be Superwomen and there just aren't enough Supermen.

PJ Harvey's "A Place Called Home" is ringing in my ears.  She has always been my bitch, my kick-ass chick who fuckin calls it as it is and still makes beautiful, intelligent music.  I always have to have a muse, especially when I write, and Ms. Harvey is my muse right now.  The music lingers in my ears from way back when and then I remember a random title here or there: A Place Called Home.  It is what I am seeking.  I want a place called home.  I want to find my home within myself, maybe with a good man, definitely somewhere--whether it be within myself or with another loved one--that is beautiful and functional and secure.  A place full of romance and love and continuity and belonging.  A place that I, myself, can call Home.  I will be there.  I will get there.  I will find my home soon.  I know it.  It's just around the corner.  I just have to keep having faith, keep loving and keep walking on these broken shells and uneven bricks...

The Mountain

Since I've been here on the Mountain, in the country, in the backwoods of Tennessee, it's been an experiment and "test" for me to go with the flow, to allow things to unfurl and happen as they may.  In the city or even in small towns, life is contrived: planned, anticipated, already pre-determined by schedules and agendas.  And then there is just the general discontent for the want of more--material goods, acknowledgment, status, peace of mind, direction, discussion, connection.

I'm not saying that those things don't occur in the country.  People can certainly be unsettled here, too.  Drugs--mostly meth production and consumption--are a rampant problem for some.  I've seen the made-up ladies with their aerosalled hair driving BMWs down country highways or the dulled, pot-bellied men buying cigarettes and beer at the local gas station or a fat man and woman traipsing around their garbage-strewn front yard and plopping down on a dirty couch as though that might be the only thing to do in their world.

Maybe it's the particular place I am in the country--the Mountain: a covenant of hills blanketed by thickets of trees; winding roads that all look the same, especially after dark when even your brights can't help to discern a bend in the road or one God-fearing sign from the next; a pasture of grazing animals--goats on one farm, horses on the next, a couple of ostriches, or maybe it was ostriches there and horses next, and goats somewhere else; a well-kempt cottage, a trailer, an impressive log cabin, a dump, or random trails that actually lead to another part of the Mountain that you might pass by if you didn't know that they led to where you wanted to go.

Most people just live here, some have lived here for generations, inheriting land from their parents and grandparents and trying to carve out a life for themselves from the generous land that requires so much tending and work.  Others have moved here because they remember passing through the lushushness of Tennessee: resplendent with the green of the foliage and the woods and the tumultuous pink-clouded, electric blue, gray firmament of revelation and glory; the clap of thunder that echoes through the canyons of trees and the lightning that darts through slate skies; creatures that scamper and sprint across the road, insects--microscopic or as big as your hand--that bite, sting, sing, and just fly and buzz around constantly; the quiet, the dark, the humidity, and the absolute grace and beauty of Mother Nature all convene here in mid-Tennessee.

It is also the place where I find myself here on the Mountain, though, just miles from The Retreat--this place that so many of the friends I've come to know in the last two months have all gathered around.

I've heard many stories now about The Retreat and how it came to be.  It was a hippie commune, it was a communist sanctuary, it was a place where people could come to escape the confines of the city or capitalist society and live with Mother Nature, give and take with the land and learn how to live with each other.  Then, it became a haven for gay men to come away from the city and appropriated roles and live life freely, leanly, fully together without harm, without judgment to nurture each other and Mother Nature as one.  A beautiful life.

People came.  Since the 70s.  People came and lived here at The Retreat--a pocket in the hills of The Mountain--and settled there.  I don't know what it was like in the 70s, 80s or 90s, but now, as an outsider, as a straight Japanese American woman from Los Angeles in 2010, I have come to know The Retreat as this: a true haven.  It is a slice of Heaven, a slice of Life, a sliver of what could be in this World, a redemption for all the evils and misconstrued expectations and acceptances of what a Good Life is all about.  This is the Good Life: living freely, without expectation or want, having a community of people to find the balm for your insecurities or uncertainties, experiencing your sexuality openly without fear, coming to an understanding about true reciprocity, taking from the land and giving back equally, finding peace even in your own disquiet, staying still and just listening to the world around you, which, in this world, is all bugs and darkness.

I say this from afar, still, because I have not or am not, maybe, of this world that I have landed in.  I have not experienced my sexuality freely (though I have certainly toyed with the idea), I have not lived truly freely without expectation or want, but I am learning about reciprocity, taking from the land and giving back equally, finding peace in my own disquiet, staying still and listening to the world around me, in the bugs and darkness or light of day, and finding a community of people who have given me the balm for my insecurities and uncertainties.  Since I have been here, whether its the woods or the people who have lived here longer than me and have a deeper understanding of what Life and reciprocity is all about, I have said to others around me that these woods, this land, the people who inhabit this place, have given me exactly what I needed, whether good or bad.  Maybe it's the quiet that's allowed me to receive it--good or bad--but, regardless, there is something about This Place that has given me exactly what I need.

And I am forever grateful....

Entomophile

I am the kind of City Girl who will call a friend on the phone or the guy from across the hall to come and deal with anything creepy crawly.  Or I'll let my mom do it.  Her OCD is allayed for just a few moments as she scrambles across tabletops or counters on the kitchen to swat a pesky fly.  I can't kill flies and I definitely will not kill spiders.  I will find a Tupperware and piece of paper and scoot the insect into the trap and let it go outside.  My inner Zen monk comes out around insects.

It's not that I am horrified at the idea of killing living things.  I will step on ants.  I used to get great joy out of it as a child, stomping on lines creeping around the sidewalk and watching them scatter in confused loops.  I also enjoy killing fleas.  I remember a particularly bad summer as a child when my cat was host to their party and I would walk around with knee-length white socks waiting for them to jump on me.  Then, I would get great satisfaction out of picking them off my socks and filling the toilet with their scrambling bodies.

Ants and fleas are the general exception to my killing of insects, but I don't kill insects, mostly, because I've been terrified of them.  I spaz out when a bee flies within a foot of me.  I'll marvel at a grasshopper or cricket, but jump faster than they do if they move.

Needless to say, my first few weeks in the country were a challenge.  No, actually,  I was entomo-challenged for at least the first month: constantly swatting, flicking, scooting and scratching.  I was a goddam buffet for the mosquitoes, the chiggers, noseeums and any of the other many, many biting insects.  After complaining to Judd's boyfriend, Argent--a quiet-spoken, observant gentleman who's lived in the country most of his life, he commented to me that tolerating insects is simply a way of learning how to deal with the irritations of life.  I am easily annoyed and irritated.  I thought about our conversation for some time and realized that maybe that's one of my lessons right now: to learn how to deal with the irritations of life, and not be bothered by them--not to scratch or pick at them, to not get flustered and reactive when they occur.

I am also learning how to appreciate all of them for their inherent, individual beauty and function.  I've seen some of the most incredible insects since I've been here: an array of butterflies, dragonflies the size of my hand, fireflies that put on a nightly show in the trees, the most curious creature with a burgundy body, short black wings and a beak-like tendril that dipped into the stigma of the flowers it fed off of one-by-one like a hummingbird.  The most amazing insect I've seen is the lunar moth.  It's as large as my hand and looks like a creature from faery tales.  It looks like it could glow-in-the-dark.

The longer I stay here, the more I like bugs and think they're pretty cool.

Gothic Appalachia

I arrived at Sassafras, the artist's collective located about twenty minutes from Ragmar, several days ago after trying to pack up the last of my stuff.  As I trekked to and from from my car, it began to thunder and rain, and out-of-nowhere I received this barrage of text messages from the Scottish Whore.  I last texted her two weeks ago.  She proceeded to "show me" how she and Indigo Boy had "something" as I carted stuff back and forth from my car in the rain.  I thought I was done hearing from her or about the whole mess.  She's just a dumb-ass bitch in my book.  Stupid whore making my blood boil again.  I told her to fuck him or someone else and just to fuck off.  Things aren't working out between them and now she's getting psycho on me.  Just stirring up shit because she can't leave well enough alone.  Doing everything now to screw the both of us.  And still I try to find peace in the woods of Tennessee 2000 miles away from L.A.  I'm glad I'm not there because she's the type of woman who would go to extreme measures to get back at us because she finally got dissed by him.  And I am glad to be here because I have peace; they don't.

I have found my peace here at Sassafras.  My cellphone has no reception, so phone calls and text messages are few and far between.  What relief.  What silence.  What a breath of fresh air.  I have Internet connection, my computer, great company, a gorgeous structure of windows and carefully-hewn wood to call home and 300 acres of verdant woods to roam and find reason.

I also have the company of two gorgeous L.A. artists: Judd is all tatts and overalls, Appalachian beard and an easy, lovely laugh; Anouk is all limbs and a cascade of red hair--the Lady Godiva of Hippie Hill.  They've brought a little rock'n'roll and a fine eye to the mountains of Tennessee.  They are sophisticated modern Gothic aesthetes.  A mid-century modern Danish couch and table line one side of the Great Room--an awesome 60 foot high room that's all windows.  A hand-crafted wooden trapeze swing dangles from the ceiling above a massive Chinese carpet.  A taxidermied deer head, a Victrola with a disco ball plugging its mouth, an impressive book and record collection, happy plants and an electric piano line the walls.  I've found my little niche in the Great Room and write there as the sun pours through the windows, the ceiling fans overhead creating a rhythmic lull, or as the rain drums on the deck wrapping around the house or as night falls and I switch on the Noguchi-esque lamp.

Anouk and I have become fast friends.  She reminds me of my friend, Remy--this stunning model-sized woman who is all heart and fierce style.  We've taken refuge in one another, I think, because we are cut from the same cloth: both L.A. girls, both grappling with how to make money as artists, both loving and disappointed by men, both fun, flirty women who can talk for hours over wine and cigarettes.  Judd is impressive for his kind personality and strong work ethic.  He can build or fix anything.  Recently, he began a construction project in the woods: a sturdy structure with a metal roof that will be encased completely by walls of antique windows.  He wants to put a pot belly stove in there for the winter when the people who live here or a visiting artist can go and make art as the snow falls around them.

Over the weekend Judd had help from two friends visiting from Los Angeles as they made their way to New York.  The four guys--"two drunk retards and two queer mountain men," à la Judd--raised the roof on the structure.  Naturally, I thought the two drunk retards, Xavier and Paul, were also queer as everyone else is around these parts or who visit.  I've been the lone straggling straight person.  Despite the fact that they--absolutely charming, lovely men--dressed up in drag, all chains and pink dress and tacky red Liza Minnelli 80s Dynasty dress and polka dot bow, to go to this queer music festival with Anouk, I learned later that, no, in fact they weren't gay at all.  Just really fucking fun straight guys with a firm grasp on good cheer!

I had a rockstar weekend with the lot of them, drinking whiskey on the porch and nursing bad hangovers the next morning.  The day before Xavier and Paul left, the three of us hiked for two hours up the dense wooded mountainside, through a depressing decimated clearcut where we got lost, and back down through the trees and foliage to the Refuge.  We hiked and walked for hours in our tall rainboots that we wore to protect us from chiggers and ticks.  Eventually, we made it to Ragmar's (after walking another 45 minutes or so from the Refuge to his property) and collapsed onto the hammock.  Anouk had to come pick us pathetic city slickers up, but we showered, had a lovely dinner of shrimp scampi and salad and slept like babies.