It's Bow's 8th Birthday!

They Say It's Her Birthday....

I Need a Muse and a Few Drugs

Despite a super nasty cold hitting, I'm trying my best to be upbeat for Miss Bow's birthday. We may have to reconsider my initial plan of springing free all the dogs at the city shelter and taking them with Bow and me to the Chuck E Cheeze Pizza in Redwood City.

Giving me inspiration to accomplish a little today instead of just holing up in bed is the Cindy Sherman exhibit at the Whitney. Another reason to make me want to go back east before the end of the year. Cindy has long been a muse for me and shares my love of "getting into character". Too bad she does actually perform these characters as well a la Tracy Ullman.

Shhhh...Someone Turns Six Tomorrow

Once I Was

One of the oddities of being the family guardian of photos and other memorabilia is that I keep coming across little surprises from the past. Fortunately most of them are pleasant. Tonight while going through some old cards and letters, I saw something slip out that I thought was a random scrap that should be tossed. Only after picking it up to realize that it was a piece of paper in plastic did I realize that these barely two inches of paper slipped across my arm more than half a century ago.

Can You Keep a Secret?

Someone turns six on December 6.

Enjoy Gift Bearing Strangeness

Even more than gifts that come on time or early, I love those that come late. Above is a photo I received yesterday honoring my 20th year at work commemorated on September 15 and below a creation made by my sister who is becoming gloriously more eccentric with age. It is made with fabric from drapes in the house we grew up in. I've asked her if it has a name.

UPDATE: An explanation from my sister. The "north 40" is the name for the family land and house we recently sold.

Her name is Norty II. You will find a little ID card in the back of her coat. Of course everything is symbolic. Her "heart" is my key to the North 40, a fan from one of Mama and Camille's Christmas angel projects that I found on my last walk thru of the house and the blue bead was by the side of the porch when I left the last time.

Her hair is from the roll of baling twine in the barn. Her coat is made of various fabrics from the archives. The majority of the pieces are from the living room drapes at the farm and the original drapes at the North 40.

To me the most symbolic pieces are the two urns, the three "webs" representing the three homes that now hold Mama and Daddy's treasures and on the back notice the two birds from the farm house drapes. You only see the wing of one as it flies off into the unknown and you see the other complete bird as it follows.

The day before she was completed the little butterfly appeared from somewhere and I thought it was Mama's, but later Camille said that it was hers.

This was my first opportunity to use my Dremel to drill the holes for the eye hooks in the arms and legs. Its smallest drill bit is the size of a needle.

Taking Manhattan

If you were to ask me, I am not a birthday person. The last time I celebrated a birthday in any big way was in September 2002 when I hosted a fundraiser for three of my favorite non-profits by inviting 200 people to my San Francisco flat. Anal, over programmed person that I am, people were invited in shifts, but there was a point when a likely 90 people were in various parts of the flat and garden at one point It was a great event, but within weeks, many aspects of my life cam unraveling, with both of my parents, a difficult aunt that I was nonetheless very close two, both of my cats, and my significant other disappearing from my life.

Two years ago, when I refused to mark my 50th birthday, I was certain that my life was the embodiment of the Cavafy poem "Candles" in which there are many extinguished candles behind me and few leading me forward. In fact, it was hard to see any light.

This year I decided to visit Manhattan to celebrate year 52 and my 20th year of working for World Neighbors. Neatly, a blogger meet up emerged organically, and it was an amazing, touching four day weekend.

Nasty weather, humidity and an hour delay did not manage to dampen my spirits when I arrived Friday night and headed up to the East side Friday night Joy's place (she embodies the lyric from 42nd Street of "sexy ladies, from the 80s...) where she, Mark and Gary buzzed me in and were serenading me with a birthday greeting at the top of the stairs with handsome four-legged Basil peeking through their legs to smile at me and flash his potato chip loving tongue.

Afterwards, Joy took me to see a friend of hers named Robert at the Rodeo Bar and I videotaped it and you can see on my previous post. Late as the night may have gone on, I kept reminding myself that it was not even midnight yet in San Francisco.

After a breakfast with Nicole in Little Italy, I went to the Tenement Museum in the morning and then saw Boeing, Boeing that Gary and Mark treated me to see. It was a wonderful show, hilarious and perfectly staged.

That evening our blogger group had the meet up at the Soho Grand. Steve, Jill, Husein, Ched, Kim, Brice, and Ed were all there. After a few drinks, we had greasy food in Chinatown.

Sunday I saw the Van Gogh exhibit at the MOMA and then saw the amazing production of August, Osage County. Spoiler alert: In the third act, when one character said "He's not your cousin, he's your brother!" a man behind me, in a thick Okie accent, belted out "Yep, that's Osage County." Seated in the third row, I was oblivious to the fact that the show went on for more than three and a half hours. I could have watched another five. And what a thrill to see Estelle Parson on stage for the first, and likely last, time in my life. At 80, she was a ball of energy, charging up and down the stairs, struggling with a daughter trying to strangle her, and nearly chewing up scenery in this amazing play.

That night I headed over the bridge to Park Slope to have dinner with W______ and had a few moments of icky nostalgia in what used to be the flat we shared on Garfield. .

Monday, I took a quick stroll through Central Park and then visited Gary’s school on 23^rd Street. His kids were very sweet and smart and had many questions. I spoke a bit about my work with World Neighbors, and I was amazed that I was able to hold the attention of five-year-olds with some heavy global issues. Gary is an amazing teacher in action, and his co-teacher Lauren is just as gorgeous and graceful in action as she is in their videos. I spoke a bit about the issues of inequity between boys and girls in the Global South, and I was greatly impressed by the questions of the girls in the class. I hope it doesn't take that long, but when there is a woman in the White House, I wouldn't be surprised if it's one of Gary's former students.

Finally, I strolled through Wall Street which has an odd pall on the day the market took its biggest drop ever. Ironically, I was on CNN for an 18th of a second while strolling before the cameras.

The whole trip was way, way to short. The high point was truly the blogger meet up. We're not sure how we all came together, but we think it was likley the handsome and charming WAT in southern Cal.

JTTV - Season 3, Episode 2 - Junk Thief Takes Manhattan

Save That Date

It's official. Junk Thief will be in Manhattan September 26 to 29, 2008. If you're going to be in town or would like to meet up there, start the comments and emails now.

Not to blow it out of proportion, but what do the following celebrities, listed in chronological order, all share in common with the date of September 26? Saint Francis of Assisi, King Christian X of Denmark, T.S. Elliott, Pope Paul VI, George Gershwin, Jack, LaLanne, Marty Robbins, Julie London, Gal Costa, Bryan Ferry, Olivia Newton John, Jane Smiley, Linda Hamilton, Junk Thief, Jake Paltrow, Serena Williams and Princess Salma of Jordan. It is also the day of Bureflux on the Discoridan Calendar.

Year Three Begins

Today marks the beginning of year three of Junk Thief as we mark our second birthday when our first post was launched on July 4, 2006. And to think it all started with the photo below. Cake and ponies for everyone!

They Say It's My Birthday...

Thanks to everyone for the early and on time birthday messages. If I'm lucky my flight home will be delayed the currently reported 17 minutes and not more than that. Woo hoo, what a way to celebrate the big day.

Happy Birthday, George

Happy 84th birthday to George Birimisa whose celebration I attended today in the Castro. Since 1999, I have attended his Intergenerational Writing Workshop which got me back to writing something other than press releases, promotional magazine articles and grant proposals.

Though the main focus of the class is prose, there probably would not have been this JunkThief spot or JunkThief TV. I've wandered away from the group fromtime to time but appreciate knowing that it's always a home to come back to.

George is an inspiring and incredible spirit that has taken many roads to where he is today. Recently, he co-edited the book Return to Caffe Cino that chronicles early avant garde and queer theater that he was a part of in 1960s. In addition to one of his plays, it includes the works of several other trailblazing writers of the era