Hello again
It's me. It's been awhile.... How are you celebrating this fine Saturday? I'm a little bit toasty in the California desert but all's well otherwise. Cheers!
occasionally subtle

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@southquest2
Hello again
It's me. It's been awhile.... How are you celebrating this fine Saturday? I'm a little bit toasty in the California desert but all's well otherwise. Cheers!

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Far from the maddening crowd in Santa Monica, California - 'round sundown.
Haha, don't worry! My next poem will be about love, just to please you... Thank you for caring though: <3 Best wishes to you & your amazing Bear!
I'm glad to hear you've made it through the winter :) Bleak poems in the dead of winter have their purpose but love poems are inspirational!
California Wild on National Parks' Day
“My heart is a traveller: play on your flute for me, I will stay the whole night through, listening to your tunes under the moon. My heart is a falling leaf: let me stay in your garden awhile — and when the wind rises again I will leave you like a lonely wanderer…” I believe that you are an incredibly strong and brave woman, with the sensitive, empathic heart of a gigantic gentle Bear, let me just wish you much kindness in your life! Yours sincerely: <33 (to be shared with your golden friend…)
I'm overwhelmed by your kind words. They mean a lot. Thank you.

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On a friend's recommendation- I turned on the movie "Wild"
I like the movie Wild but I had to break the movie in half. This author's story is a little hard for me to watch. Some parts I relate to. Some I do not. Either way, I empathically feel her struggle. Reece Witherspoon is convincing and her portrayal of this character reminds me of feelings I had while setting out and camping across the country. Frankly, I must take a break before watching the second half. This character is a littler - no - a lot wilder than me in several key ways. She took many more risks without preparing herself. I'm obsessive about some details- mostly gear, safety and navigation. I knew my gear before I left. I had experience hiking, camping and walking in the dark. I generally knew where I was going and i had multiple real time guides and maps. I was never too far from civilization and I had a car. Also- I camped across the U.S.- by car not across the desert on foot. I'm not a drug person and I've never had problems with alcohol- this woman had a heroin addiction prior to setting out and she wasn't healthy physically before she left. I was not at my physical best. I was weak (for me) and confused. My physical stamina was important because I had my gear to unload and load every day. I was not hiking in the middle of a deserted dessert and a snow covered mountain. I hiked when I wanted to - though sometimes all day. I set up camp every night and I cooked for myself but not like she did. I always had access to supplies. This woman was also more reckless about her social interactions. I always had a large, protective, though friendly dog with me. The right people kept their distance. Some would argue that I was too trusting in the woods of gun heavy states where I might be seen as an "other" ....and an oddity - as a woman. This was the chance I was willing to take. I've spoken with, engaged and literally psychologically evaluated more folks than this woman ever did before she set out. I've been all over the world and Ive taken risks, to be sure, but they were calculated risks...with a lot of emergency backup...but, that said, I do realize you can never be too sure. The world is a dangerous place. But there's more to our similarities than these practical details. These similarities are harder to describe quickly here- but I'll say this- we were both disoriented, bereft and traumatized by unexpected circumstances, familiar but confusing people and a virtual loss of everything important except ourselves. The trip was a monumental choice to make ourselves stronger - in every way. I am exhausted watching Reece Witherspoon- the actress- because she's got it right. She gives her moments alone her "all" and when she says she felt more alone in the company of the wrong people than she does with herself in the middle of nowhere familiar- I understand her completely. She's haunted by images of a past she can't understand but the reality of her current surroundings pulls her back. That's why she did what she did. She needed the call of the wild. I'll think more about the comparison between her experience (as portrayed in the movie) but it's more personal, subtle and psychological than the specifics of her situation. I do relate to her in some critical ways....
Yesterday was International Women's Day
Today is Monday and I am still a woman. Can we please extend the timeline?
Today's about wildlife
I will go look for some.
Food with Benefits: don’t get too attached.
As Californians, our car culture puts everything at our fingertips in record time. We’ve thought of everything -except how to just slow down and share a good meal.
When I was searching for a housemate, sublet or rental share, many of the ads specifically stated that people were looking for tenants who either “don’t cook” or “cook lightly/infrequently”. This respected expectation became so normal that it’s included in small, Craig’s List ads - without irony, an explanation or an apology.
We’re not progressing as a species - though we’ve got the hurry-up-and-wait part down pat. Traffic is slow, food is fast and people are defiantly devoted to their comically beautiful but “look, don’t touch” kitchens.
Of course we’re supposed to live for work and eat to live. Sometimes we just eat to drive or drive to eat…We want our friends, wives, husbands and housemates to do the same…perhaps we do these things so we don’t notice how hungry we really are?
It’s Sushi a-go-go: Japanese food without all that zen culture to slow us down…
Time flies
So much has happened and I’m closer, further, closer, further and further from where I thought we’d be now.
You think you know what you can and can’t control and then you remember the old adage- control is but an illusion. What I wouldn’t give for an inch of illusion!
We moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with high hopes, plans and expectations. But I quickly found out that nothing can be rented without parlour games, mirrors and sleights of hand. I wasn’t getting anything without a fight. The only good news here is that fighting makes you stronger. It really does.
I thought I’d researched and sorted through the muck and finally found a room rental in a shared house that not only accepted bears but had a golden one of its own to offer as a companion for Baxter. I marveled at my private bedroom and den with an office. The enclosed backyard in a forest seemed like the perfect location for a bear to rest and play with no extra cost to me. The house, location and amenities seemed too perfect to be true. I controlled costs by agreeing to a commuter week. I figured I could get to know the area by staying at AirBNBs on weekends.
My landlord, a renter too, was an entrepreneur and she seemed gentle and peaceful. She liked yoga, healthy food and ballet. She smiled a lot at our first meeting and she had a gentle golden retriever who could’ve been Baxter’s friend, in theory. The two gentle souls got along well - when they first met. They didn’t know that one woman’s complex way of distorting reality could make both of them go from comfortable and friendly to awkward and suspicious in a nanosecond.
My bedroom was furnished - as was the rest of the house. That alone was a big deal because my furniture and belongings are still mostly in storage back in Maryland. I was drawn to this naturally well-lit, contemporary home in the woods on a hill - with high ceilings, wood floors and beautiful decor. The location was in the tawny bedroom community called Lafayette, next to Oakland, Berkeley and Orinda - just on the other side of the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. The price, location and amenities exceeded my best expectations. I competed to live there and won. And lost.
I wanted and found a house next to the BART station which would’ve allowed me to cost effectively get anywhere I needed to go without parking problems.
It all seemed too good to be true. And it was. But I never could have guessed how badly things were going to get in such a short period of time. My landlord, a female renter in her 30s who seemed content and good mannered on first glance, was actually quite fragile on the outside and barren to the core of her soul….the next day.
Natalie was a vegetarian anorexic who spent a lot of time in the kitchen making things but not eating. She mixed teas and made kombucha. She boiled things and left traces of her activities everywhere - but, in the end, I never saw her actually eat anything. She cleaned nothing - unless she needed the dish because she relied entirely on her cleaning lady - a helper, who really needed to wait on her hand and foot but only came every other week.
Natalie was sliver thin and wore contemporary clothes with artfully wrapped scarves and draped tops. “Euro Trash” is a good style description- it’s an old term- used to describe people who emulate an arty European dress code. It’s not the clothes that are bothersome- they’re usually casual and elegant. It’s the attitude- the wearer wants to be known as “well-travelled”, a “poetry officionado” who looks down on everyone else - usually while nursing an espresso at a cafe in San Franciso. A starving artist - with no art skills - but with a peculiar penchant for deriding passers by.
She learned, spoke and taught Spanish after leaving college but she’d never been to Spain. She said she loved dancing ballet and doing yoga. Once I got to know her, I was certain she’d break in two if she bent in too many directions. I pictured her suffering from consumption if she dared leave the house.
Initially, I thought she’d started her own coaching business and provided unique services - but that was when she first explained her business to me. I later learned that her sister bought the business, hired her, then sold it. She was handling the books one day a week for the new owners from her posh rental home that she had to sublet to make ends meet. The truth wasn’t bad per se- just oddly different. Her last tenant (someone who ominously tried to warn me in advance of my moving in) later told me that Natalie borrowed lots of money from her for food. Well, that explained why she thought the groceries I picked up for her at the grocery store- were a gift. I never asked her for the money- I was too incredulous. I had to laugh a little really when she sneered about my shopping at COSTCO….but it’s not worth going on about, now that I’m out….
She had pale skin and a shock of black, short, slightly wavy hair that she tied and wrapped in elegant ways. I noticed that she admired / perhaps emulated Audrey Hepburn, whose biography lay open in the living room- read - but unfinished. I also thought she reminded me of Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind or a tragic woman in a Charles Dickens’ novel that Oliver Twist or Nicholas Nickleby had to live with before growing up.
I saw many pills in the kitchen cupboard and I’d venture to say they calmed her fragile nerves - a bit, but not enough. She was cold and vulnerable / weak and proud. She literally dressed like she couldn’t keep her core warm- perhaps because she was starving. She travelled ghostlike around the house looking for a purpose. I thought she worked from home but I later found out she only worked one day a week in her home office with the standing desk chair.
After happily unpacking, I noticed that my private bathroom was unclean. It was across from my bedroom and her office on the second floor. The garbage was overflowing. My tub and drawers had hair in them. I texted her that this may have been an oversight but could she help soon - I asked. No response. I couldn’t shower. I didn’t want to use the bathroom until she could take care of it. I’d been a landlord myself and had taken great pride in making things nice for my tenants.
The second day, I knocked on her home office door and she lowered her square black glasses on her nose and looked imploringly at me. “What did [I]want?”, she said. When I mentioned the bathroom again- she answered quite resolutely- I could clean it myself and when I left- I could leave it dirty. I was incredulous but eager to get going so I scrubbed the bathroom to my liking and took a shower. At least I knew how clean it was- I thought as I searched for a upside to it all.
"Could you please keep your dog in your room and on a leash in the house for at least the first couple of weeks?", she asked. This was a new concept. Her dog sat outside our bedroom door all night and stayed there when I tried to walk out. He followed us everywhere. Baxter Bear isn’t normally skittish but her plan to slowly integrate the two was backfiring and making Baxter Bear fearful and unable to feel at home. He wouldn’t be the only one.
Our meeting on the second night established her preference that I never be home during the day. But she “knew I’d come to interview and network?”, I asked. “I don’t care where you go during the day- but I can’t have you here”, she said blithely. Sorry? “This won’t work”, I said to myself- she was proving to be the housemate from hell.
In truth, I really couldn’t talk with her after she laid out her instructions for me. I had to cooly establish my thoughts and feelings in a letter to her. I pointed out that her expectations were not specified in advance.in fact, for several days, I didn’t want to see her face at all. I didn’t think I should cry or yell to her face. Her boyfriend explained her many idiosyncrasies. He shared some of his as well. For one- they weren’t in a hurry to make me a key and told me where I could find the emergency one- under a rock- outside the door.
I found out later that she really didn’t want me in the kitchen or living room while she was using them. She and her boyfriend had a cold stare that ate right through me when I saw them….she wanted money but not a tenant. Eventually- she appeared with a new lease. She’d charge $300 more per month if I’d have to be at home during the day. I reluctantly signed the document because I was exhausted from the move and her many surprises -but mostly because I wanted to start my new life. My lease was for a trial 6 months anyway. I thought I could survive. I was wrong. No one could’ve withstood her ire.
I lasted three weeks. I had to get out without feeling defeated or risking my not getting my money back. So for three weeks I was pleasant, followed her rules and kept to myself. Why did I leave so fast? Perhaps because I was made to feel like a rent-paying intruder? Or was it because Natalie’s boyfriend kicked Baxter Bear for barking to come in from outside….? Or was it because I was paying rent in one place so I could find another place to live ASAP? Honestly- I couldn’t afford to not be advancing my life in other areas. I didn’t have any reason to stay longer than I must. Baxter and I were miserable in this contemporary castle made of thin glass. We needed a home.
My head was reeling from the painful knowledge that I was leaving but had no home to go to. But I resolved in my mind that I had to get my money back and escape that house as quickly as I could pack us up again.
(To be continued…)

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A path towards the stars. Cantabria, Spain. Facebook
I wasn't here but I'd like to go...
No seals at Seal Point
Happy Hali
Baxter Bear has it all.
Fish are getting harder to find these days on the San Joaquin River but I know there’s salmon here somewhere!

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Lafayette Reservoir in California
Bear last seen on the San Joaquin