Whole Housetifarian(ism) and 3rd Millennium Beguine†

Outside ...  

About four years ago I gave up my apartment in Albuquerque and wandered off to Cyprus (the island, not the tree) for a writing residency at the Cyprus College of Art. Although my legal digs  are in Texas - it seems I have become a semi-professional houseguest or -sitter . . . (and, while abroad, an AirBnB inmate).

Homeless? "Not hardly," as my ancestors would say. But in the last few years something of a house-dancer... 

2019 was embroiled in a family health situation that finally rolled to a halt in September.  After taking a break in Greece, I will be returning to the States and the *formal* world of housesitting. I am signed up with Housesitters America, so you can take a look at that site for more my experience there, and this post will establish some of my other bona fides.

Inside... 

Rates:
$50 a week for basic housesitting (organic plant care, mail and bill management, light yard and housework);
$75 includes first critter care e.g. cat, dog, snakes/lizard, hedgehog, foxes, birds (including parrots). 
Add $25 per week for second critter-care. And $25 for each additional pet.  Flocks or bird pairs are considered 'first critter.'

The Breakdown:
House = $50 week. House+cat= $75/week. House+cat+parrot= $100/week.  House + cat + parrot + geese = $125 week.

Gifts for the Air hosts...
Chocolate! shopping bags!
Incense! Rubbergloves? 

Oh, while I am 420-friendly, I do not partake.  Nor do I  smoke tobacco. Nor do I have rowdy
Tupperware parties. I do meditate, so I'm not that boring.  And yes, all of this is negotiable. HMU.

Need more?  There's always my public profile on Air... Or write to me for references and I'll shoot them out to you.

Thanks for riding along with me on this, and feel free to distribute to your networks!

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†First published on May 8, 2018. Republished on Nov. 19, 2019.  

Summer <--> Fall <--> 2019?

In May I flew up to Indiana to pick up a car -- one that belonged to my sortasister Lisa (only sorta-sorta... it was a relationship close enough to piss off both of our sistersisters).  She passed away in the summer of 2016 and her car had meandered up to her parents' house in Bloomington. Her daughter, husband, son ("sortafamily") and I thought it would help get the 33 Names workshop encircuited, so I took it for what was to be a 6-month lease.

Driving South --through Cherokee territory in Oklahoma-- there was absolutely NO data available; data, phone, hotspot were all dead.  I was avoiding toll roads (which had me driving through a reservation) and the electronic quiet was both eerie and reassuring.   Suddenly Lisa's presence filled car.  She rode along with me, our communication not really sayable here in fingertip-language-land, but clear enough. 

When I got back to Texas, I took a call from her husband who asked me to go to Alabama and retrieve Lisa's art.  It was, I was told, in an indoor storage unit, and a 10-foot truck would be adequate to bring it to California.  As I love this woman like my eyes, I was honored by the request, and agreed handily to the task.  "This should take about two weeks," we all agreed.

Now, four months later, I am in California -- unpacking the art, the books, the offices and household effects, and trying to snag enough furniture from Craigslist to fill in the blanks.   My goddessdaughter and her dad are on their way to London today.  He has never seen the British Museum and it may help jumpstart his writing again - which has been stalled since Lisa's death and his own unhappy health challenge.  So EE is now Easterwood EveryHERE . . . in SoCal.

A/k/a:  One of my least favorite places on the planet.  LA county is patchwork urbanity, thrown together in a louche, erzatz manner.  It's not that there isn't beauty to be found, but it seems hyperlocated, bound to a particular block or part of a block, then freeways come and cut through everything.  Extend your attention in any direction and it'll be filleted into seventeen layers...none of them speaking to any of the others.  Damnit.

My own work (Eleusian Epiphanies) could find some footing here, so I'll have to ponder that ...

Truth:  I'd rather (re)start in Greece.
Sigh.
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