So I had a crazy day, Friday.  I’ll spare the major details–other than saying that I had to face one of my demons–my time is just all jacked.  We don’t choose who we are, but we do choose our paths.  Sometimes circumstance chooses our path. And sometimes our paths are completely crazy & dramatic.  But it goes without saying that I like dramatic because it forces me to feel.  To think.  I wear my heart on my sleeve because I’m an idiot, but its just who I am.  It feels good, to deal with shit even if it is a mess sometimes.  I’m difficult to understand.  But…“Silver Springs is a great old song.” Stevie’s screaming intensity gets me through, “why was I such a fool!!!” Because John Waters had “his Divine”–we all have weird things that touch our lives, even if we can’t really explain or make complete sense of them.

“I am, at heart, a gentleman.”
–Marlene Dietrich
(but should be followed with: and nice guys always finish last…)

When I returned to the city, my city, talking and laughing retardedly on the phone to one of my favoritest people in the world–I found myself horribly late for my acupuncture appointment because The Edens was a total fucking nightmare.  I was upset because I’m so loyal to my acupuncturist. I felt terrible to be late.  I was determined to just pay her anyway and chill in the waiting area with nice dark lights and soothing music.  I ran into the bathroom and she immediately jumped up, “Farrin is that you!” I tried to just push past her and say, no, no–don’t even deal with me, I’m an asshole and was late–I don’t deserve relaxation and needles, blah blah blah… (again, the gentleman that always loses).  But maybe like a little bit of a miracle, she knew that I needed it, so she just kind of herded me into the treatment room and started needling me.

And even though she didn’t even check my pulse because I was a racing lunatic, I think she could sense my weird energy through her little magical needles, enough that she knew to give me this crazy, amazing face massage (for the first time ever).  My jaw was like a powerhouse of negative energy–I had no idea.  It was like an out of body experience!  So unreal and intense for me.  I don’t let people get close to me, not like that.  But I love that she just passes my barriers with this gentle spirit that I have never seen in my life.  Its not weird, its not hard, its not out-of-place, its not…anything I’ve ever experienced.  But it was the best treatment that I’ve ever had.  The needles just seemed to speak to my soul.  I could feel the negative energy leaving the cracks of my crazy injured beast.  I can see clearly–what I want, what I expect, and what I’ll demand of my future.  The pieces that do not fit will be shoved aside or rearranged to where they do and/or discarded entirely.  I will make my dreams a reality and accept nothing less.  It will take time, but anything worth it, always does.

So I am closing this week with a huge sigh…It was one of the longest weeks of my life.  A tremendous amount of stress and agony with work, entering a short in a film festival, & my crazy life. Unfortunately, it won’t quite be over until I either sign this lease for another year or decide to move out and on–TOMORROW.  Grrrrr.  Nothing is easy.

Side notes about Morgan:  I love that its a LEED certified green building. Even if there’s an enormous amount of student garbage. I really LOVE that there is a giant pharmacy RIGHT outside of my door, and NewLeaf Natural Grocery is only a stones throw from our building.  I also LOVE the hispanic gay doorman that makes the most amazing coffee for the building on the weekends.  I adore the crazy wanda sykesesque doorlady that cusses me (for my dog) & bitches at me to finish her painting.  I would miss the big windows so bad, especially this winter when its so dark and I want to just explode in February.  Its expensive, but since I started eating better, I don’t spend as much on food (fatty).  It’s safe & ridiculously convenient.  I’m nervous about my job always being a landmine, but such is life. If I stay another year, I can paint and fix up my little editing room and that would be soooo great. Mariela doesn’t like the idea of red, but I have to have it…its the only thing that makes me feel better. So I say, tough titty.

I absolutely loved having a quiet peaceful morning today… alone in my head, with my camera.  Bliss. I think I’m gonna go back to painting with oils about it.  I’ve dealt with acrylics for a long time.  They ain’t me.  I like the long leisure of oils.  I like to think when I paint, not rush around before the damn air dries.  That’s work.  Painting shouldn’t be work.

“…but never, ever been a blue calm sea.  I have always been a storm.” –Stevie Nicks

P.S. This taking a picture of myself everyday business is very difficult.  Even for someone with such a false sense of confidence…I love this one though because it took me literally forever before I noticed that was Mariela peering over my shoulder. Ha!  Even funnier that the other shoulder is cropped…but alas, this is my year of total change and I’m gonna show it day by day.

I think hair stylists are my most favorite group of people in the world. They’re just the most fun to talk to…maybe that’s just because I grew up with gabbin’ hairstylists around, so I’m comfortable with them.  Or maybe there really is something about them that makes them a special group of people.  I mean, they have to spend time right in people’s faces…surely that changes a person & helps them adapt to interacting with people on that level.  I always leave hair appointments feeling like the world is a little better, or at least more interesting.

And as much bitching as I do about Chicago, I thought I should say a few nice things about the purely magical weekend we experienced.  First of all, Friday afternoon I ran over to Wicker Park to get a haircut.  Its outta my way to go over there, but I’ve been chasing Vlad, the ventriloquist/stylist, around town since I moved to Chicago.  I love talking to him about his crazy “vents”, his vintage salon pieces, and books that he’s reading.  I love that I go to a warehouse arts studio, The Flat Iron Arts Building, with a crazy old gate elevator–and then leave…having bought shampoo that my stylist actually made with his own two hands, the bottles decorated with art plates from artists down the hall…I even got to pick out the art plate that I wanted on the front! Nice.  (Apparently I picked one that looks like breasts, as Mariela pointed out, but whatevs.)

I gotta say: Chicago certainly has a magic of her own, no doubt.  And surprisingly, that was just the beginning of our magic weekend…

We battled the Friday @ 5 Traffic to do some shopping and ended up having a blast.  No mall sickness, no freak outs!  A little flirting with shop girls, and lots of time in the dressing room together–at the suggestion of the shop girls! Ha! I loved it.  Bra shopping is sooooo much better when you’re just the companion/bag holder/gawker…

We spent all day Saturday hangin out and getting our crazy gettups figured out.  We absolutely looooove dressing up in costume.  I would do it every day…but I certainly had to look weird to see a midnight instant cult movie like All About Evil.  And for this Chicago premiere, we would see, and actually MEET, shake hands and be personally thanked by none other than the amazing Mink Stole!!!!  Thrilling.  Absolutely.

I have to say that I was seriously disappointed with Chicago for the lack of freaks to show up in costume though!?!?  Rather amazed honestly.  But the ones that did dress up were great.  I saw THE biggest drag queen wig of my life, seriously–so that’s certainly somethin’!  She came in, sat down two rows in front of us and cleared all THREE ROWS behind her.  So great.  Mariela ventured into uncharted territory: “Crossin’ the line of keeping things in your bra might not necessarily be a GOOD thing…”

(So Vlad’s magic shampoo made Mariela’s curls like out of this world! btw)

The gays behind us: “OMG, you have a collapsible top hat!!!??? Where did you get that??”
“–An antique shop.  Its vintage. An Italian Borsalino” –it ain’t no clown hat, I assure you. ;D  Its a masterpiece.  Its one of my only possessions that would be retrieved in a burning building…Stevie Nicks touched the hands of the person wearing that hat!

We were so busy putting on makeup and drinking that we neglected to eat before the show.  We left the Music Box at 2:30am–starving, but holding our beloved autographed photo of Mink Stole, so I couldn’t go to a diner–just couldn’t risk it.  We got home and stayed up until the sun started coming up…but didn’t eat.  Needless to say, the room started spinning, “close the blinds, we can’t have that now.” We woke up only out of hunger and drug ourselves up the road to Leona’s for brunch–still sporting remnants of red & black eye makeup.  I ONLY go to Leona’s for brunch when I’m STARVING because its so expensive, but it was so terrific this weekend that I didn’t care at all:

We had scrambled eggs, sausage, potatoes, bacon, waffles and watched ABBA videos–then we had pizza, pasta and ribs! Mwahaha!  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better and the food coma of my tiramisu was setting in, the most adorable little magician with his bag of tricks (literally) came over and sat at our table!!!!  It was like a dream come true! He gave us both heart wrapped balloons and pulled cards out of my ears and elbows for like 20 minutes.  I’m in love with him.  Brunch Magician James can sit at my table anytime…its a fucking trip to still be a little screwed up and have a magician mess with you…its really a nice touch.  I highly recommend it.

We went home and watch Pink Flamingos in a daze, dreaming of a world of Dreamlanders that make crazy movies just because & sell babies to lesbians (instead of only straight couples like Int’l Adoption Agencies).

All About Evil was absolutely a BLAST!!!  The production was astoundingly terrific and the story was VERY CREATIVE!  LOVED it!!  Peaches Christ is really terrific.  Definitely inspired greatly by John Waters, but owns a style very much her/his OWN…

I will not spend my paychecks at your establishment EVER AGAIN! Yep, that’s right. One of my favorite pastimes has always been to grab a coffee and wander over to the “Gay Target,” as I liked to call it. I called it Gay Target because its right outside of the predominantly lesbian neighborhood of Andersonville here in Chicago. And lesbian and gay couples could be seen frolicking in the aisles on any given day–debating their storage needs or cheap wine selections…

Just recently Target opened a huge multilevel store right outside of BOYSTOWN which essentially boxes all of the gays of Chicago right in a serviceable Target area…

But I’ll never step foot in that place.  Target is biting the hand that feeds it by supporting anti-gay politicians.  In case you haven’t noticed, we are in a serious time in our history.  A huge sector of the American public is STILL being denied their equal rights, inappropriately taxed, and now you want to take my money and give it to hateful groups that are out to KILL GAYS?? Not on my dollar. This time is crucial and will be looked back on by generations to come.  If gays do not take a fucking stand NOW and DEMAND EQUALITY ALL ACROSS THE US, we will never get it.  Its that simple.

MLK didn’t sit around and wait for each state to “grant” rights.  What the hell are we waiting for???  See the straight person next to you?  Start screaming in their damn face that you’re gay and that you DESERVE EQUAL RIGHTS under the CONSTITUTION.  Pick a god damned fight because…  “This is war, Peacock.”

Cardinal Drive-Thru!

Originally uploaded by CopyCatFilms

This week I noticed a giant locust on our bedroom window. As I pointed it out to Mariela, a big fancy beaked cardinal showed up to feast! –But it was scared off by my big face on the other side of the glass. So I ran for my camera and caught him just before he snatched his breakfast!

Okay, so I racked my Internets trying to find a good blank silent movie card to use for silent movie titles and came up empty handed.  So I just had to create one myself in Illustrator.  Here it is to download and use as you wish.  If you do use it, credits to me, Farrin N. Abbott,  would be very nice but I’m not gonna hire a lawyer to chase you down or nuthin.

Photoshop Versions:

Silent Movie Title HD

Silent Movie The End Title Card HD

Silent Movie The END Title Card NTSC DV Widescreen

Used Here:

Horrible Morning. Yep, I’m on one of those long bouts of weirdness again. Took my car to the service station & gladly handed it over for the day without any kind of plan to get anywhere!! What the fuck is wrong with me? Its raining buckets out here and I’ve walked ALL over lakeview already! My last great idea was to take a taxi to Andersonville to work from a Starfucks & now I see that I don’t even have a power cord…but I’m lookin at the bright side: a really cute blond barista. Stayin til the battery dies. Maybe I’ll take a taxi to Apple to charge instead of just home! Grrrr I’m stupid. And my eyes are burning from hair gel…I want to go home and start over. This is iggnunt. I’m iggnunt.

Last week was craziness too. This isn’t the beginning.
We went to Maine on a sudden trip for one of my favoritist cousin’s father’s funeral. It was a grueling trip out, but the 2 and a half days we had in South Harpswell renewed my spirit. I don’t think anything could have been better for me, right now. It was so terrific to see all my little cousins that are not my little cousins anymore. They’re all growing up and have become such interesting, likeable, hilarious, little people already! I was so pleasantly surprised. We had the best time. I’ve missed breathing and laughing…and there is no better place in the world than in Harpswell to do that.

I have a lot more philosophizing to do about that trip, but the point of this blog is that I had such weirdness happening then too. We walked to “The Point” (thankfully this time on the paved road, not hiked along the coast like Mainiacs would/do and how we did last time!)! We had made it to the tip, trying to reach the actual “POINT”, but its covered in slick moss–I realized that I had my iPhone and started to panic a little like maybe I shouldn’t go any further, but then decided against the limits & technology holding me back….made the cocky statement: “Whatever! I’m going, Steve Jobs can suck it!” Not two minutes later, I was pathetically leaned against a rock dribbling about my scratched iPhone glass! Grrrrr!!! Then I pulled my dSLR around to see that I also somehow managed to scratch the $100 polarizing filter on my lens!!!! It would have been enough to ruin my day. But the place I was in, and the people that I was with…it just didn’t phase me much. I wiped off the shards of glass and kept movin. Later, I would realize that I had also picked up Poison Sumac on that little walk…now blistered on both hands.

The Sumac has made typing a real bitch. Painful blisters act as my wrist guard, now wet, sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for my battery to die. The city is difficult. I should have been able to call SOMEONE to give me a ride!  But the city is a weird magical place all of its own.  Completely on its own, in solitude.

I promise to try to enjoy it, while I continue to search for the way out.

Mariela spends 9 months dreading her hair.
Eventually Farrin dreads it too…

Typically people shave their heads to rid themselves of dreadlocks–but not this crafty duo.

Mariela spends 9 months dreading her hair.
Eventually Farrin dreads it too…

Typically people shave their heads to rid themselves of dreadlocks–but not this crafty duo.

iPhone Podcast version:

Hey, you wanna get out of the city & have a picnic?

Ok. We’ll find a secluded spot.

How about here?

Nah.

Let’s walk out to the rocks.

We gotta find a flat one to sit on!

Ya! This is nice.

xoxo

So these guys have been drilling and clankin’ ALL damn day–right outside of my office door.  In fact, when I finally left to go heat up my food, I had to ask them permission to get OUT of my office.  It reminded me of the little ditty that I wrote a few weeks ago, for my next door neighbors, that I’d like to play for you:

Morgan Chainsaw Massacre