MARIN COUNTY, CA-

I’m going to Burning Man this year.

Ten days in the dust and the wind and the heat and the cold and the chaos. Ten days of thumping base and lunacy and love. Ten days of…. I have no idea what.

Many conflicting words and feelings spring to mind- solitude, isolation, adventure, companionship, evolution, degeneration, transcendence, freedom, inhibition, self-consciousness, self-expression… the list goes on.

I’m a Burning man virgin and (due to a recent compulsion to drive myself completely mad) over the last few weeks my excitement levels have waxed, waned, teetered, tottered, disappeared entirely into a pit of anxious fear and then returned, tentatively, dressed up as clowns and hookers.

Perhaps I need to explain…

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA-

“But I don’t even like tennis. I hate it.”

I was adamant. I was honest. Watching little green balls sail backwards and forwards has never been my idea of a jolly time. Until Venus and Serena happened upon the scene I was convinced that there was nothing whiter and more elitist than a game of tennis, and I’ve always been righteously determined to maintain my sniffy stance.

But despite my protestations the smiling face across the wide wooden table continued to expound upon the merits of tennis coaching. Within five minutes I had promised him that I would not only take lessons, but that I would purchase a racket.

Another five minutes after that and I’d been coerced into tango lessons. The strange grinning person was hella persuasive.

Shit, thought I, I’d better leave this cafe before I get roped into learning Swahili. I don’t think my poor little model brain has room for Swahili.

“Are you ready to be this validated and this happy?” asked the still-smiling face of my newest cafe acquaintance. I nodded, unsure. “Yeah? Then welcome to San Francisco!”

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I’ve just moved.

Not just houses, but cities and entire lives. It’s exciting and new, a bit like the theme song from the Love Boat, but with no Gopher, no dancing girls and no stopover in Rio.

Bummer!

For posterity’s sake I kept a bit of a journal of my first week in San Francisco and have decided to share it as a peek into the inner sanctum of my life. I’d call you all voyeurs for reading, but in actuality I’m just a hideous narcissist who wants to show you photos of my closet.

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SAN FRANCISCO-

Hello, my name is Zoë Brock and I am a hopelessly hopeful romantic.

Love and I have a long and sordid relationship. We’re stuck to each other with that cheap, tacky glue that never dries properly and gets hairs and other bits of icky dirt and effluvia stuck in it and ends up looking like a coughed up owl pellet, minus the skeletal bits. It’s horrible, trust me.

Sometimes I feel as if I live my life adhered to the cheap pulpy paper bound between the flowery covers of a Harlequin romance novel.

Sometimes I wonder if some sticky-fingered house-wife isn’t pouring over the sordid details of my love-life, swooning, moaning and gasping at the more elaborately descriptive paragraphs as she takes a break between episodes of ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ and ‘Days of Our Lives’.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

Circles make me happy.

My life is full of them.

Around and around and around I go.

Journeys in ever decreasing or widening arcs and loops and 360 degree migrations.

Some good. Some bad. Some painful.

Always educational.

In the last few months I’ve gone in so many circles that my head is spinning and I’ve taken to carrying an air-sickness bag in my pocket.

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MIAMI, FL-

I am really hungover.

I stayed up late last night, doing blow and talking shit.

“When in Rome….”

Miami makes me behave like this guy-

Of course, I’m only joking. In actuality, here in Miami, I tend to be act more like most of the other residents. The blue rinse and pinochle set. But without the blue rinse. Or the pinochle.

My time here has been lovely. Two weeks of sun and friendship, late nigh (more…)

MIAMI, FL-

Hello boys.

Does this post even need words????

Personally I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean I won’t add some. Stringing words together is a compulsion of mine, and when they occasionally make sense I go bananas with joy.

Let’s try.

Nudity- n, (noo-di-tee, nyoo-)

1. the state or fact of being nude; nakedness.

2. something nude or naked

Hold on a minute, dictionary.com!! Nudity is not just a state of undress, dudes, it’s a frame of mind.

Being naked is freedom, a release, an abandonment of insecurity and self-consciousness.

In a world gone mad with prudish behavior and political correctness, a world where bare breasts are taboo but dressing like a slut is permitted for eleven year olds, I propose a new way, a fresh perspective… a return to a more natural state.

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MIAMI, FL-

“Tis not the amount of stress one copes with, but the grace with which one handles it, that is the measure of a persons strength.”

I said that!

“Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you even know you’re falling.”

I said that too!

I’m wicked fucking smart sometimes, but it’s a crying fucking shame that I’m terrible at following my own advice.

I need a t-shirt made up with “I’m a hypocrite” on the front and “No I’m not” on the back.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA-

Dear Life,

I hope this letter finds you well, happy, and infinitely less confusing and melodramatic than you were when I was writing it. Just to be on the safe side I think I’ll wait a few hours before sending this just to give you a chance to mellow out, you highly strung weirdo.

Yours, with infinite respect,

Zoë. (more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA-

Lately I’ve been thinking about happy endings.

Saccharine, syrupy movies like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and The Wedding Planner provide us (grown-up children, tragic idealists and/or reluctant romantic addicts) with modern day fairy tales of love and fate and last minute redemptive decisions. The clever makers of these films throw happy endings in our upturned, wide-eyed, expectant faces like great handfuls of wet confetti at a rained-out wedding, confetti that hits us in the head with all it’s sad, damp, pastel glory and then slides to the floor with a resounding PLOP.

It’s inevitable.

It’s what we pay for.

It’s revolting.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

The greatest gift my mother ever gave me was the gift of knowing I was loved.
In a cruel and often scary world this one fact gives me peace.

Perhaps I am biased, but I think my mama is beautiful, even in a plastic garbage bag.

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WEST SUSSEX, UK-

This man professes to be a psychic.

His name is Ulf Buck.

At the moment this photo was taken Ulf was in the process of practicing Rumpology.

He was “reading” a butt.

In order to “read” a butt Mr Buck is forced to rely on the power of touch, being, for want of a better description, completely fucking blind.

Ulf Buck lets his fingers do the walking.

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Hollywood, CA-

Sex.

Three letters, one syllable, one tiny word, all saturated with meaning, oozing with intent, dripping with ramifications, bursting, overflowing, filled to the brim and jammed to the hilt with slippery, steaming, sodden innuendo.

Ah.

Sex.

The word starts off softly… sssssssss… and ends with a jab. Hard and pointy. Ecks.

Saying the word makes a mouth move in oddly arousing ways.

Say it. (more…)

HOLLYWOOD, CA-

There has been some confusion.

Am I awake?

The nerves in my arms tingle with a foreign feeling. I am full of electricity yet deadened with a heavy, burdensome weight. The fluff in my brain has bits of lint in it. I sift through the fluff and lint with nonchalance. Is that… is that… a pube? I’m almost grossed out but can’t be bothered. The light filtering through the curtains has a white, mid-morning beauty, a twinge of magic, of impending fun. I giggle. (more…)

HOLLYWOOD, CA-

I’m lying on my bed listening to the lilting voices of the neighbors waver with abandonment, teetering on the verge of happy hysteria. They are intoxicated, summer, weekend voices. BBQ gathering voices.

Excitable voices.

Gay.

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