star date aug 26-27, 2005

did part 2 ever show up?

anyway, ok, its my last night in Albuquerque and I had to write this
before I went to bed even though I won’t be able to post it till tomorrow. this
day was just spectacular.

I got to spend a bit of the day with each of my four
favorite people in the 505.

1. it was myra’s
birthday today – 19 years! she’s a fireball and a feisty rugby player, covered
in bruises and proud of it. so on point, myra makes it happen. happy birthday myra!
her sister turned on birthday music at 7am and we went to breakfast to celebrate before myra hopped on a bus to
Colorado for a
game. lovely-eyed myra was my host this
week, and I have total faith that she will take the Albuquerque league to the next level over the coming months.

2. then cyrus and I went to the public hearing to save all
ages shows at venues like the launchpad. the night before we were at a concert
at civic plaza to raise awareness for the hearing. basically everyone from the
concert plus some more came out to testify and save the scene here. Stunning mohawks
and intricate tattoos and powerful thoughtful testimony from youth and their
parents. it was so beautiful and powerful to see all these young people awake and on fire at 9am in the basement of city hall. eric griego
came to testify on behalf of youth and ‘mayor griego’ was murmured throughout
the crowd.

I dipped out to get a cheap and amazing massage at mar y sol
on Harvard st near UNM –  I got cupped
and I have to say, I loved it! they light a match in a cup and that makes takes
the air out and then they attach it to your oiled back and rub it around and
its like a reverse massage, like having your skin pulled off your body. now I
knew I was on the busted side of broke but it was also my last day and I hoped
that my reimbursement money or paycheck would hit at midnight. doh! pero, no regrets!

scooped cyrus at 12:30 – the testimony had been going for over three hours and 99% of it was young
people! we’ll know the results later this year – their election is October 4^th
so if you have any way of voting in new mexico,
represent!!

then we went to have shawarma cooked, according to cyrus, by
Palestinians in a restaurant covered in paraphernalia from Jordan (so folks wouldn’t hassle the owners). cyrus says everything with the same
truthful wide-eyed look but sometimes he’s just shittin you and the result is hilarious…yesterday, cyrus showed me the spread of Albuquerque including a hood called the war zone. he said you can order green chile
sauce from frontier through ups but I dunno if that’s true…but today I noticed
that high or not cyrus is the most perfectly pleasant company anyone can hope
for. he’s also a quirky b-boy and an amazing event promoter.

3. so at one point cyrus walked out the door and walked back
in with alex! alex and I started talking life stories
yesterday and decided to make a date to finish it today. now in case you didn’t
know, alex is the dearest 20-year-old man in the world, and was the
hero-spectacular of smackdown 2005 planning. he worked in the office all
summer, but all we’d done is laughed and made fun of each other. this time, we
drove all of Albuquerque. we
dropped off cyrus and went to the petroglyph national monument, because I
wanted to see what we had advocated to save in HTGSWMOOO, what folks like eli
lee and alma rosa b. sharpened their campaign teeth for…we drove out,
unstoppable, through serious construction and detours and climbed over volcanic
rock to reach the top.

on the way, my sister april called and says she’s seeing a
massive hottie who happens to play college football. let’s check him out this
thursday in the USC game on ESPN – he’s number 55…his name is Stanley and when he hit on my sister she had no idea who he was, although he’s
apparently a campus celeb in Columbia, SC. 

so the petroglyphs are deep. they look like high art of cats
and birds and figures – one looks exactly like a court jester image I saw on myra’s
door this morning. some look like children’s communications, others have multiple story lines built out of the center. they
all make me think of how today’s graffiti and murals will be found in the
future and I wonderful if our current hood bombers could learn this permanent marking
technique…these images are between 400-3000
years old.

from the top you can look in each direction and see the development
closing in around it, an endless march of shoddy faux-dobe walls. we drove up
to where they are working to extend a rode called paseo del norte through the
middle of the petroglyphs, and climbed up an oddly wet green hill amidst this
gorgeous desert, and when we reached the top
there was a sign:

“future site of a wal-mart” 

alex and I both suffered from depressed shoulder shock for a
minute, then slipped back into the car and decided it was time to go higher. we
turned due east towards the mountains and rolled the windows down. alex is a
constant smoker and filled the afternoon with amazing, intricate, difficult
life and love stories. by the time we reached
the crest 2 miles up I was blown away that this was the story behind the
somewhat sheepish adorable alex I’d known all summer; by the time we looked in
all four directions, at the nuclear hump, the defiant casino, the gated private
school, the stream of a rio grande and were coming back down the mountain, that
was my soul brother!

it is not the first time this trip that I have spent hours
on the topic of the trials and tribulations of love, just listening
for once in my life. or – listening in my way
which includes amens and random observations. but what amazes me as I prepare
to head home is how the most common experience I hear from anyone is this
complex and seemingly completely unique thing called love. it gives me a deep
peace, honestly. we all in it. 

by the way – great song – “gotta make it” by trey songs. old
skool.

so – then alex showed me a beautiful park and his home, his
backyard of art made of cacti – cactuses? big sticky pretty things…which I promptly
had to touch and believe you me, that isht hurts! and then his cave full of bed
and books that tells the story of how alex became a savvy think tanker.  he’s ella baker style though – check for alex
where you don’t see him. he’s kind of my hero now. thanks for the afternoon mr adams…

…

 

4. and THEN I found marisol enyart waiting for me. marisol
and I go back to the book and that is my road dawg home girl for real. every
other person in Albuquerque who I asked about how they got political traced
their story back to marisol. she’s hilarious and gorgeous and on point at all
times. she’s also maternal and a delight. she made this dope steak with green chile
and pasta and mint sun tea.

now I could stop here and write a whole sub-blog about how
I’ve been carbing my way across

America.
I was gonna do one earlier called puffing across the prairies. and before that
I was thinking it was hot-tubbing against imperialism. but we ain’t got time
for nun-a-dat…

so marisol makes the bangin dinner and the evening begins:
run to this place with mad rotten apples strewn all about and roughly 5 kittens
to get the other green chile, run to pick up
mari’s friends from outta town at a hotel, run to ‘the spot’ to see alex for
one more minute and catch the end of a DUMB GORGEOUS sunset, run to pick up
this b-boy who knows where the b-boy battle is going down and has a pipe for
the chile, then run to the b-boy battle.

marisol’s boyfriend albert is a tall dark and slender b-boy
artist and so sweet – as soon as he had me alone after we met he wanted to tell
me how amazing marisol is and how hard he is working to keep her. my homey
cyrus is in the same crew as albert.

basically:

– marisol had scissors in the car and I cut my hair in
the passenger seat mirror, tossing it out the window.
– I was wearing a horribly unhip outfit that said: “Out
of Clothes”
– our boys had already battled when we arrived
– my favorite for the night was a b-girl in an arm cast
– b-boy battles are super inspirational in terms of what
the body can do. my goal is to be able to uprock in a year. what!
– I noticed that the majority of participants are these compact people who have galaxy sized energy and spirit and are also flexible. I
am not going to let that deter my uprock dreams.

but how come:

– we had one too many people in the car on the way home
– did someone say “hot box”?
– we got pulled over by the Albuquerque police department who did NOT make us spend an evening in jail! not only that, they
were nice and said get home safely!
– in order for them to send us off on our way, marisol had
to pull off an act of sheer bravery and explained our situation clearly {“we
just young students trynna get home sir!”} and directed them towards albert’s brilliant
art…the rest of us helped by hiding the green chile
and thinking diminuitive thoughts.
– is BET late night basically the missing link between
soft and hard porn? sorry I am flippin channels while I write and am shocked!
there’s a massive ugly monster man telling these big booty mamas in a shower to shake it.
– we went to frontier for some late night food and I
decided to risk total credit card rejection for the chance at one last meal of
huevos rancheros with green chile sauce. I
heart green chile!!! it worked!

so finally at, as my dad says, 0-dark:30, I get dropped off
at marisol’s house and have to figure out how to get the entire trunk of the
car to decompress into two bags. it was a daunting challenge – the two pairs of
$6 cowboy boots, the $5 bomber jacket, the movement t-shirts, the j-lo shoes,
the nice smelling lotion adriana gave me for singing at her wedding…packing
this little journey into a duffel bag and a suitcase.

this trip has been a total adventure, a whirlwind,
emotionally exhausting and uplifting. I feel strong and tired, unique and remarkably
common. I am more dedicated to my work than I have been in months. I miss my
friends and family, in japan and ny and south carolina and cape verde.
I miss my friend in ohio. I miss
my fela/heartbreaker wherever he is, though i am starting to really realize he is not a good person and definitely not good enough for me. still. I have spent the past month thinking a
lot about forgiving myself and coming to terms with folks orbiting out into the
dark and trusting that my work is to make my light strong, strong enough to
merge seamlessly into the world, but distinct enough to guide love back to my
heart someday. anyways, other people are just intimate strangers.

– – 

I fell asleep last night writing this in front of dirty ass BET…this
morning can best be described in excerpts from a play called ‘Getting Home’:

 

Act 1:

 

7am in a super
comfy bed in a trailer park in albuquerque

marisol: its 7am

adrienne: its 7am?

marisol: yeah

dramatic pause 

7:30 am in a
trailer park in albuquerque

marisol: its 7:30am

adrienne: its 7:30?

marisol: yes

adrienne: shee-it!

sound of furious dressing while simultaneously calling bank
to see if reimbursement check or paycheck hit.

bank: your current balance is $6!

adrienne: shee-it!

7:45

adrienne: marisol, you got any $ and I can pay you back?

marisol: I have $6 but its yours…

adrienne: (inside head) one more 6 and I will think a capitalist devil is conspiring against me! thank god I got my boots and massage.
priorities are a girl’s best friend. and –

marisol: let me pack you some food…granola bar? cookies?
yogurt? beef jerky?

adrienne: yes, thanks honey

8:10

adrienne is in the car, her belongings are in the car, and
the car is on its way to the airport!

john legend: live it up, you and me baby!

flashback: last night on BET, a video of john legend singing
about walking on the sky showed him gratuitously kissing a woman and it grossed
me out. I really thought the song deserved a
deeper interpretation. oh well.

8:15

adrienne arrives at airport rental car return, the lady who
checks her car out says:

“there’s a credit card error – please go check in with the
desk inside!”

adrienne: yes of course, I’ll go right now.

cut to – adrienne running through the rental car center
right past Alamo with two overstuffed bags wearing
cowboy boots and a bomber jacket that wouldn’t fit into the freaking
overstuffed bags. she dashes in a shuffling way to the front door and onto the
shuttle to the main terminal. says a quick prayer/promise to resolve the Alamo
issue once there’s some money in the bank!

8:25

drags overstuffed bags into main terminal. the line at
southwest is roughly 40 minutes long. adrienne’s flight leaves at 8:55. clearly a strategy is needed.

8:30

adrienne to occupied southwest desk clerk: excuse me – I
just used the rapid check in and it didn’t give me a way to check my bags in!

OSWDC: well no honey, that’s the rapid check in, for when ya
have no baggage.

adrienne (literally batting eyes): oh my – that’s a
conundrum! my flight leaves at 8:55…can
you please help me?

8:37

adrienne runs around the corner thanking god for OSWDC and
sees the army of potential terrorists waiting in the security line. she has 3
minutes to make the gate. clearly a strategy is needed.

8:38

adrienne to the security ticket checker in the line for
pilots and flight attendants: hi! she told me to come to this line and see if
you could expedite me through as my flight leaves at 8:55! (breathless Mariah
smile with a hint of flight attendant eyes) please help me!

STCITLFPAFA (looking at ticket with a sort of dazed smile):
Um.

adrienne: thank you SO much!

STCITLFPAFA: yeah, ok? 

8:41

adrienne attempts to run. in her mind she is gonna oj
through the airport like oj runs from a white lady’s Hollywood home. her body attempts to realize this concept…instead of running it looks
like she might be trying to find a bathroom cause she has the runs. adrienne
has to literally stop and laugh at the chasm between her idea and the reality. she
recommits to a carb-free fitness plan starting as soon as she has funds with
which to purchase carb-free food. she speed walks! she also resolves to demand
that the league send a car for her since she has no money to get home with all
her luggage from the airport. {later, in Chicago,
adrienne will call billy with this demand and he valiantly offers to come pick
her up himself}.

finally, adrienne reaches the gate where they are about four
minutes behind schedule boarding, and she’s on her way home! to shane, to sofia,
to jen, to dani, to autumn, to ft. green, to her own bed, to the harlem office,
to the perfect post-hell period of a late ny summer, to home. this is the
longest blog ever – I’ll take a couple days off 😛

oh but quickly – coming into new york, my most beloved candy
city, through the thick lush northeast, and all that water under the purple sky
and the buildings all gold and green – oh god I love this city. so deeply. I’m
home.