Hippie Canyon Vintage Voicings: Full Moon/Dark Star

A full moon in Topanga is exquisite. I can't imagine the moon being more beautiful anywhere else.

Last night it was round, and full, and yellow; a midnight sun, bobbing in the air like a pat of butter.

April. The air is still crisp at night. The sky is midnight blue, full of stars. The ocean breeze carries a slight fog in. The frogs croak everywhere, and crickets chirp. The bushes rustle...the hills are alive.

I drink tequila with Melinda at the Mexican restaurant. The place is packed on a Monday night, which is kind of weird. Loud men at the bar. They appear to be lumberjacks. There's a lot of flannel and mustaches, and not in an ironic kind of way; they mean it. They smell like cigarettes and gasoline, and swig beers like men; proudly. They cluster, man-like, around the bar as a brigade.

Melinda and I make little small talk. We drink tequila, and cut to the chase. We tell it like it is. We see the big picture, or at least, we try to.

Melinda tells me about the Dark Stars, which apparently can swallow you whole, or your entire planet or galaxy. It could have already happened. I could be sitting here, but not really.

I scrape my leftovers (and Melinda's) into a to-go container, and use my straw to suck the last remnants from my salty-sweet glass.

We walk outside into the night. Bright, bright moon, jasmine-scented air, the night abuzz and fertile, swathing us in moon-glow, wrapping us in a protective white blanket of light.

The beautiful moon is here right now, in this moment, as I am here perceiving it.

Unless it and I have been destroyed by a Dark Star, and we just don't know it yet.

Hippie Canyon Vintage Voicings: En Francais

I was straightening the dress rack; what a mess! People can be sloppy. They 'ooh' and 'ahh' over the amazing, magical store filled with beauty and wonder, and the next minute they pull clothes out of the racks and leave them half-cocked on their hangers, or sling the clothes over the racks while leaving their respective hangers swinging in mid-air, supporting nothing. People rave about the vintage pieces from the Victorian era, or dresses from the 1930's, and then try them on and leave them discarded, lying on the dressing room floor. People can be very sloppy. Grown, adult people.

Part of my job is to clean up other people's messes, while maintaining a positive attitude. We want customers in the store, so a positive attitude is a necessary part of the job.

People say some interesting things, also, sometimes simultaneously as they are creating messes, sometimes just in passing.

While I was straightening the dress rack, a man approached me intently. The front door was open, and I was standing behind it, in the corner of the front room. The man came over and leaned on the edge of the door, blocking me between the back of the door and the rack of messy dresses. He was wearing a track suit (seriously) and aviator sunglasses (indoors). He was eating what looked like a coconut Popsicle. He spoke with a French accent.

"Do you have an Indian costume? I need to be an Indian."

"No," I replied. "We only have them at Halloween."

"I need to impress a woman by being an Indian; she sent me on the mission, which I must fulfill in order to..." he trailed off.

"I might be able to refer you somewhere...I've got a business card at the front counter; I'll grab it for you." He stepped aside and let me pass.

I went behind the front counter and squatted on the floor, looking on the shelf underneath for the costume shop business card. The French man came to the side of the counter and waited, leaning on the counter and staring down at me.

"Is it inappropriate to tell a woman she has nice cleavage?" he asked me, while staring at my cleavage from above. I looked down at my own cleavage, and noticed he was getting a pretty good view. I looked back up at him, as I stood up.

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On who the person is, and how well you know them."

"You mean, that it would be appropriate if I knew a woman, and inappropriate if I didn't know her," he said with a thick French twang.

"It might be considered a little 'forward' if you didn't know her." Was he feigning cultural ignorance? I thought about trying to explain that it was a little different to tell a woman she looked good, or pretty, or that vintage 1950's sundress fit her form really well, than to isolate her cleavage specifically, or the space between her breasts, while staring down at her and sucking on a coconut Popsicle, while wearing a track suit and too much cologne.

"You women are so complicated," he snorted.

"Not really, " I responded. "Here's the card for the costume shop. Good luck being an Indian!"

He sauntered out the door, dripping Popsicle juice and cologne behind him.

A few minutes later, a woman came up to the front counter and asked me, "Have you seen a French man in here? I came with him, and I'm not sure where he went."

"Does he want to be an Indian?" I ashed her.

"Yes!"

"I think he's outside, eating a Popsicle,"

She looked relieved, and scurried off to find her suave companion.

Hippie Canyon Vintage Voicings: I Have a Job...But Do I Have a Future?

My friend Chris dropped by the store in the later afternoon, yesterday. He sailed through the doorway, with sunlight and dappled leaf shadows streaming in behind him and all around him. "Linda!" he called out. I walked towards the warmth of his voice, not knowing for sure who he was at first because he was submerged in golden afternoon light pools and reflections. I approached him cautiously, as I approach everyone, and when I saw his face clearly, ran into his arms. Sweet man.

He arrived with a message (after brief small talk): "Follow your passion, and everything else will fall into place." I believe him. It seems like the wisest, soundest advice.

A salty old woman came in the store yesterday, too. She told me she was studying Excel, because "everyone wants it". Yuck. Why does everyone want it? I don't. I told her that I was taking a class in Excel, also, but I'm bored out of my mind. My ass starts to get numb in my chair just thinking about it.

My friend Chris stood in the afternoon light, and held my hands inside his hands. "Linda," he said to me, "If you got a job in a small, or large office somewhere, with no windows and no doors and did Excel all day every day inside a tiny cubicle you would end up putting a bullet through your head." I'm afraid he's right. What a relief. Absolution from an angel.

Is Excel the key to my future? But my future as what? A drone-y clone? I'm sure there are lots of exciting things to be done with it, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. I will contemplate it further, to see if I come up with any.

Chris floated out the door on a wafting afternoon cloud with his friend. "Goodbye, my love...I'm off to take a nap!"

The day, and my future, blossomed around me in the hazy, dancing light, with no computers, and especially no Excel in sight.