Sunset Strip and Vietnamese Restaurants

I miss California. I miss the nearly naked roller skater on Venice Beach. Open air flea markets. Restaurants featuring cuisine from every corner of the world; many of which deliver. I miss Pacific Coast Highway and lifeguard tower #1 by the pier in Huntington. I miss the smell of salt air that comes in with the evening breeze around 5:00 PM. I miss the Sunset Strip and the walls, light poles, and sign posts covered with fliers for the next hot band. I miss temples next door to tattoo shops next door to holistic healing centers next door to my optometrist. I miss the hum of the highway, any highway, that cannot be escaped but always provides assurance that your next escape is one on-ramp away. I miss surfing and skiing in the same weekend. And Mexico on Monday. I miss being one of many that uses "dude" often. Very often. I miss Little Saigon and the best Vietnamese food just outside of Vietnam. I miss walking out the back door of my original AA home group, past the propped surf boards against the wall, down the alley, up the walkway, and onto the sand to sit at the ocean's edge and look out at a distant Catalina Island. I miss San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay and everything in between.

But I have to remind myself that I left for a reason. I realize that I'm beginning to forget that part of my life and that scares me.

Inspiration

In the beginning it was one woman working with the women on the streets in Nashville, Tennessee. The Reverend Becca Stevens, an Episcopal chaplain at St. Augustine's Chapel on the Vanderbilt University campus, envisioned creating a home, a safe haven for the women from the streets who had suffered greatly the effects of abuse and addiction. For many of the residents it was to be their first real home. The key requirements of the residence were simple: the women would never pay to live there, they could stay two years, and no staff would live with them.

The program of communal living and support is called Magdalene and from it's humble one home beginning it has grown into a community of several homes; all providing a safe haven for the women seeking a refuge from the abuse of the streets. The concept of Magdalene is based on the Rule of Benedict (St. Benedict of Nursia,) that has served as a model for communal living for over a thousand years:

"Rooted in fidelity, hospitality, reverence, and love for all humanity, the Benedictine Rule calls for a balanced way of life in which "the heart becomes broadened with the unutterable sweetness of love."

Thistle Farms is the non-profit business operated by the women of Magdalene. Made by hand, natural bath and body products are created by the women of Magdalene as a means of supporting their beloved community. Through Thistle Farms, the women of Magdalene gain job skills and the much needed attributes of responsibility and cooperation that will aid them in their transition to independence.

I consider it a great honor to have been asked by the community of Magdalene to assist them in their latest endeavor: a book of inspiration and basic principles that has been inspired by the basic Benedictine Rule, Find Your Way Home: Words from the Street, Wisdom from the Heart. The women of the Magdalene community have written down the 24 principles that they use to guide their lives in recovery. Each chapter represents a basic guiding principle followed by a community member's experience, strength, and hope.

While the book is small in size, the message is abundant: love heals all wounds. Written in a devotional style (AA'ers would compare it to As Bill Sees It) it provides insight into the heart and mind of the heroines of Magdalene. For the message provided in this book can only be described as raw and life changing. Within the pages of Find Your Way Home, the residents take their life of substance abuse, violence, and prostitution and give the reader a lesson in recovery of the soul.

"I remember my last days using on the streets. I walked up and down Dickerson Road until a car stopped for me. I got in the car, and the man asked me to have sex with him. I agreed because I wanted that next hit of dope so bad. After we finished, he dropped me off at the store on the corner of Dickerson Road and Hancock Avenue. I saw the guy who I always bought my drugs from, and I bought dope. I went behind the store to take a hit. I smoked it on a glass stem and I tried to forget what I had just done.

When I came into Magdalene they gave me a key to the house. I kissed the floor because I knew that someone believed in me. I felt love for the first time in my life and wondered what kind of people were in this place. It made me tingle all over, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet."

~ Chapter One: Come Together

A direct link to the book's Amazon link is posted on the sidebar to the left. Thank you to the women of Magdalene for letting me take part in your journey. May you always know peace.

I said I don't want a whale in a box or a bag

Yeah. It's that good.

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Someone I Would Like To Meet

About a year and a half ago I ran across a book review in one of my Buddhism journals. The author had also penned the odd article or two for said journal and I had been captivated by her writing. A Buddhist mother? Living in LA? She reminded me so much of my religious studies professor in college that I believed I would be losing out on some pearly wisdom if I didn't purchase her book.

So I did. And I loved it. And, of course, I immediately Googled her book title in an attempt to learn more about her. Her book's website had a link to her blog (blog? what's that?) and I clicked and yada yada yada, I was hooked.

It was the first blog I had ever read and it is, to this day, my gold standard for daily living. My Gateway Blog. My home away from home when I venture too far out into the blogosphere and fear that I might not find my way back.

She was the impetus for starting my own site. And as I approach one year of continuous blogging, I would like to say thank you to Karen for all that she has contributed to my life. This forum of communication has enriched my life in ways unimaginable.

Thank you, Karen. You are one of a kind.

Question

Does anybody else think that American Idol contestant Anoop Desai

looks like the waiter from Dirty Dancing?

New hobbies of the old addict

Take an old tapestry from a head shop in Columbus:Take one naked American Girl (perverts need not comment):Assemble a rough draft:Make it perfect for your six year old daughter and gift of sobriety:All pictures taken with my four year old's Fisher Price digital camera.

Where would you like me to start?

Oh gawd sweet mother of mercy I am back! Ms. Kristin is not a good traveller, so I will save you all from my general pissing and moaning about why this is and that isn't and all the how comes and please save me from myselves. I will just get to the heart of a few random thoughts that clouded my now coherent mind whilst I was away:

Why is it that everyone else I know has celebrity sitings in airports yet I never do? I know I have whined about this before, but dude, seriously. Could the universe not throw me a bone and put me in in the path of John Popper or Jack White?

I have solemnly vowed that in the future I will inform the sweaty guy in coach who reeks of ketones and stale cigarettes that that combination is no longer working for him. Bathing is in. Bathing never goes out of style. So does a good detox and a Nicoderm patch.

I also solemnly swear to stick my four year old up with the pilot on my next major flight because answering "No, we're not there yet, honey" every five minutes is enough to make me want to drink. And since I'm sure the pilot is already drinking, then he should be well equipped to handle her chatter.

I have no desire to live in Texas because I don't like the heat. And now that I have said that, we will probably be transferred there inside of nine months.

I was grateful for a week of being near the Latino population. That is what is familiar to me after spending most of my life in California. We don't have many Hispanics in West Virginia.

I'm quite proud of myself for going an entire week without blogging. Not bad, eh?

Two full days of dealing with airline seats has confirmed that my super model days are indeed over and that I desperately need to lose weight before I begin taking my self loathing out on those I love.

I will be forever grateful to my father for keeping my kids swimming in art projects. Seeing my little girls perched at his wood carving table in his studio was priceless.

My mother's home is a level of clean that can only be rivaled by a five star hotel. I'm beginning to think everyone else's home is this clean and that I am the only one that contends with dirty baseboards and dog fluff under couches.

Seeing photos of my extended family brought to mind the fact that I am beginning to forget them. They are no longer a part of my reality. More on that later.

I missed you all.

Farewell

My dear readers I'm afraid I must go

I am off on a plane, dontcha' know

I am going to the land of Pam, Jen, and Lottie

I hope to find great coffee & biscotti

I'll post when I return to the snow

~The End

Ms. Thang

Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the neighborhood, the universe decided to send me one more face to face with the ghetto fabulous tenant across the street. Feel free to judge me with abandon from your soapbox. You all don't have to live with my ever present urban nightmare whom I like to refer to as Ms. Thang.

The worst of my bad dream moved away several months ago and the Urban Renewal Authority had the fixture sell-off on the crack houses that are soon to be demolished in a couple months. An event that my long time readers will not only read about, but will see in all of it's glorious ghetto footage as I tape the blessed event for all of the world wide web.

But this lingering thorn in my side doesn't care for anybody living across the street from her (me or my neighbors) because we occasionally park our cars on "her side" of the street. That's right. Ms. Cha Cha Bootylicious Talk To The Hand seems to feel that the entire side of the street that runs in front of her apartment belongs to her and her gang banger boyfriends. One of whom never leaves the apartment and has some tricked out vehicle with out-of-state plates. I'm thinking of checking the most wanted lists from North Carolina, because he's probably on the run and is hiding out in her apartment. Just sayin'.

So Ms. Thang Tight Pants With The Bad Weave confronts me out in the middle of the street yesterday morning as I'm taking my kids to school and informs me with all the authority and attitude that her Beyotchness can throw down that I am to "tell my husband to not park his car on that side of the street because she lives on that side of the street." ( insert head roll and neck snap.)

Um, fuck you?

But no. I'm a sober woman of God with two little souls in the back seat of my minivan and I must be an example of righteousness and peace and always be in control of my tongue and fist. I am no longer the drunken loose canon that would fly off the handle at the first (or second or third or tenth) sign of controversy.

What I want to tell her is that the properties across the street that she lives in and around are so hated in our community that the city police would probably look the other way if a neighbor were to accidentally tip over a gas can and drop a match and incinerate the whole fucking lot of them. You know, allegedly.

But I didn't say that. And my fist didn't get caught in her face. And I didn't say a word. I let her say her piece, yet again, and walk off. And I drove away.

And now, I would like a round of applause.

No surprise here

Your rainbow is shaded black.

What is says about you: You are a powerful person. You appreciate mystery. You may meet people who are afraid of you.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

*&%$

I'm irritated today. I don't like feeling this way yet I have no intention of taking it out on my family or the blogging community. I won't spread my irritatedness around the blogosphere by describing to you in detail every aspect of my mood. This post is simply to document that in the grand arena of happiness that I normally reside in: pissiness has taken center stage.

I will be back after I pull this bug out of my butt.

Thank you, and have a great day.