I'm a Lady Rocker Now

This post is a wee bit personal in nature in so far as it involves my hair, and the cutting of. Don't worry, no long diatribes about my commitment phobic nature, struggle to be loved, and constant duality....yet.

So I got my hair cut!!! I got it cut at a place within ten blocks from where I live, named Hair Today. The external cutting of the hair is in my mind a very shallow event, but as any self reflective girl or a Sikh can tell you there is deep psychological significance to the act.

The Sikh's believe as part of their 5 main tenets of faith that one should never cut any hair on ones body, ever. Hair is considered "God given", therefore should be accepted and honored as a creation of the Divine. The personal implication is to avoid vanity, any kind of tampering with yourself that leads to a greater ego.

I can understand where they are coming from. This haircut has not necessarily sent me on a megalomaniac rampage for compliments, but it has helped me lay the groundwork for a newer identity to grow (and it needs coaxing along with compliments!!). It's the sense of Self and the ever hurtling quest for identity that drives me. Will I be more emotionally independent now? Stronger as a person? More magnetic? Able to handle myself better now that my external matches what I see internally? I don't know. I don't believe a haircut can really change us all that much, but it can give us an illusion of difference, quite possibly enough to start us down that road.


P.S. The very fact that I just used photo booth to snap some pics shows that I'm on the road to becoming to the newer, better, more vain Kyla.

Grit, Carnies and the Like

There is nothing more nostalgic or reminiscent for me than a summer evening at the Lane County Fair. I remember the growing excitement in my gut that first week in August, knowing that it was right around the corner. This year's fair was every bit expensive, tempting, and delightfully ridiculous as years past. Sarah, Sean, and I spent an afternoon at the fairgrounds wandering aimlessly, stopping when something entertained us, taking in everything our eyes magnetized to: observing a horrifying near fatal motor cross crash, downing a deep fried twinky, 'Ridin' the Dragon', watching pigs race, hanging with a Roo at the Aussie Outback tent.

Here is a link to the the entire fair pics gallery.



Now I'll share a video for you of the All Alaskan Pig Racers

On Travel

My favorite blog has taken up the side topic of traveling, in a philosophical and international sense, here are a few quotes that really caught my eye. It fits in with the mission of this blog, which is the striving to truly know your immediate surroundings.

The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home.-Emerson

The human bond that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather an inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man may be inside any men. But to travel is to leave the inside and draw dangerously near the outside.- Chesterson

At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.- Emerson

The proper conservative resistance to travel is not, therefore, a blinkered resistance to the new; it is an understanding that we have never fully absorbed or understood what we already know; that the places we love are still mysterious, and understanding of them should never be mistaken for simple familiarity. Seeking new superficialities at the expense of familiar depths is a neurosis, not an adventure.-Andrew Sullivan, on tourism.

A Brief Overview

The picture above is of Roger and Woz, the newly married couple that Sean and I became very close with in a short period of time. Sigh. They are are Ithaca, NY bound as I write this.
A cool piece of art work at the new waffle place in town, Off the Waffle. These guys are amazing. Took Sean on his word that he would pay them, gave us two Banana infused waffles with chocolate chips. Yyyyuuummm!
You can tell by the look on Sean's face that he is tired, way too optimistic, and weary of my constant photo snapping. We were lost on Mt. Pisgah for 5 hours, luckily we found our way back to our car right before dark.
Two Fridays ago Sean's friends were in town for the Eugene Marathon. We were all walking home from The Vintage and around 7:45pm we looked to our right and saw a big gathering of drunken carolers around a bonfire in an apartment complex on 10th and Lincoln. It was like a tractor beam, I was pulled towards the chaos. In this picture, "Hash Mother" and the ringleader of all events with the bedpan.

Sean laying out in front of the new Cornucopia.

View from a log looking down river near McCredie Hot Springs.

An awesome log tee-pee built by the Willamette on the West Bank Tral.

Mountains.

Shortly after Sean and I found out that he had not been accepted to University of Indiana, we took a walk on Mt. Pisgah. Our inevitable separation seemed cemented with his little letter from Indiana. As we walked, and meandered through Mt. Pisgah's open meadows, dark forests, and labored it's steep inclines I realized we were working through our internal struggle with every step.

Sean was divided and spent on what to do with his life. I was as well, but feeling an ego boost from my recent acceptance letter. We made it up to the top that day. We took a skinny side trail down, leaving us wandering for hours---working through our immediate frustration as well. The importance of Mountains.

Chickens

"Hi neighbors,

Missin some chickens? I have three visitors I think, as I write this. You can come over any time to round them up. They're no problem, Bill (The Cat) is a little confuse. Being a city boy.
I take it that's not your van bench seat out front. Not ours either. Oh well.

Take care

-Pat"

"Damn this Valley, and Damn this Cold"

Despite teeth chattering temperatures, it was a bright day that illuminated the sky into a fluorescent blue. My mom and I took a quick hike on Mt. Pisgah in the afternoon and Sean and I went to the Interfaith service, followed by a dark beer at the Monroe St. Cafe. Pictures and video to follow.

The interfaith service is a collaborative effort amongst all of the faith communities in town to share their beliefs and practices in order to promote tolerance. It was borne out of 9/11 in an act to further dialogue between faiths. While this message is left firmly intact, given the time and place (Eugene, OR. @ 7pm) of this event it can degenerate into a rather strange circus. I am not meaning to be disrespectful to those religions that are represented at the service, but instead to the new agey movements/cults bordering on self devotion. Hence, "The Ascended Masters"... a group that took the stage tonight, that thoroughly freaked me out. Below is what they are chanting, and also a video (coming soon!)

"Om Mani Padme Hum, AUM
In the name I AM THAT I AM, I pray for the
washing, cleansing, spinning, raising, and
sealing of the earth and its evolutions with
the violet fire, for the transmutation of all
karma, burden, suffering and substance
that opposes the dawning of the great golden age
of Aquarius and all light-bearers this day.

Wash the earth in violet fire! (4x)
Cleanse the earth in violet fire!(4x)
Spin the earth in violet fire! (4x)
Raise the earth in violet fire!(4x)
Seal the earth in violet fire! (4x)

In the fullness of your cosmic joy, we accept
this prayer manifest here and now with full
love, wisdom and power, anchored in the
earth, air, fire, water and ether and tangibly
manifest our lives and in the lives of all evolutions
of light throughout the cosmos!

My favorite is when they chant "Spin EUGENE IN VIOLET FIRE!" It's around the 1 minute mark.

The Monroe St. Cafe is a little hole in the wall that is comprised of a cafe, convenience store, and bar. It's the kind of place you would find me on a rainy night playing a game of scrabble, reading, or writing. I've heard tell of their wondrous open mic nights, but have never attended one. I wasn't ready to settle down after the Interfaith madness, so we dashed on over to Monroe St. to check out the fireworks. It was definitely more than we bargained for, it was the most impressive open mic night I have ever been to. Granted, when we first walked in there was a drag queen reading erotic poetry in a whisper of a voice being drown out by raging customers acquiring beer and wine. Sean was turned off by this, I was turned on. The rest of the night ranged from Jr. Soapbox, a dude from Missouri who wore overalls and had a slight lisp, to a rather impressive young woman singer songwriter.

I am not sure what it is, but whenever I am in completely authentic settings of local culture and creativity I feel walled in. I feel as if my soul is not as free as those around me; they actively create in the world and I generally sit on the sidelines and watch these people. My new goal is to live more freely, unrestrained by insecurity and apprehension.

Great night.