yosemite.

it's taken me five years of living in san francisco, but i finally made it to yosemite; and for a pretty magical weekend. it was far more beautiful than i imagined, and in this way that makes a person feel really small and expansive at the same time. maybe you know what i mean.

these first pictures are of the tiny waterfall oasis ronny and matt found before we all arrived at the camp.

babble babble...

babble.

where's waldo. except it's matt.

ronny being cute.

back at camp, the rest of the gang started to filter in around 5 o'clock. it's a hell of a drive from the city through some very interesting little towns. for example, i passed a cactus shop in manteca that i'm sure was called "pooty's cactus". oh, little california cities. so cute. so strange. the longest part of the drive doesn't begin until until you hit yosemite national park itself. it's exciting to actually get there, but then it's miles and hours of switchbacks and altitude adjustment before you're anywhere near a stopping point. pretty treacherous, but i'm a very courageous driver. ;)

friend love.

the boys found (fake) weapons in the woods. here they are hunting (real) bears...

andrew... sort of like peter and the wolf.


taylor's an authentic idahoan.

much fun was had in the evening, and the last of our crew arrived at around 2 AM after we'd crashed. i'm sure i thought they were bears when i heard them moving around outside, but i didn't dare open my tent. the next day all of us were there and we hiked to elizabeth lake. yosemite is huge. so huge. so we had to drive a few miles to the trailhead to start the long walk up to the water. there was a grade increase of 800 feet over the course of two miles. someone did the math, but regardless of the percentage, that was a steep climb. the endup was worth it though. the lake was beautiful and the trail itself was all sun and shadow and dancing trees.

five o'clock shadow.

see? dancing trees.


i swear this chipmunk was posing for me.


sweet sugar pines.

when we arrived at the lake, i think we were all a little awestruck. the sun was still just peeking from behind the mountain that rose out of the water. everything was clear and bright and so, so quiet. so silent that when i bit into an apple at the bank, the sound of breaking skin echoed all over.

the majesty was broken when josh decided that the giant boulder off-center in the water was reachable...

the pictures get even funnier.





they made it to the rock...
but then had to somehow get back...


which was slippery...

difficult...


and pretty hilarious.

the next day was warm and golden; possibly warm and golden enough to cause heatstroke. we packed up camp and set out to find half dome. i got a good shot of it from the road, but we ended up sitting around a little brook under some other dome. or maybe it was half dome. no idea. it was all pretty beautiful though.

this is half dome from the road. take that, ansel adams.

is that you half dome?


i think so.

i'm not so sure...


is sepia more convincing?


my best look of wonder.


more sepia.


trying to take a picture of myself and the pebble rocks and failing a little.




matt can juggle! who knew?


lovecats.


this guy was hanging out with a doe and two little baby deer.


she kept moving between me and her fawns as though she knew i was trying
to get a picture of her kids. at least she didn't get all bjork on me about it.

the sun was gone shortly after that, and we started the long drive home. that was an adventure in itself, complete with highway closures and el pollo loco.

goodnight, yosemite.

incidentally, there's no such thing as bear repellent, and the "spray" the guy at sports basement talked me out of was just bear-sized mace. eh.

also, if you want to hike half dome, you've got to sign up six months in advance and obtain a waiver. in addition, you'll need to put aside two days. i'm telling you because no one told me, and i rolled into there thinking hiking that thing was an option. next summer for sure.

cheers.

ferocious.

secluded river.

this labor day weekend was a love-filled adventure, but i can't tell you where i was. after all, i didn't hike three miles barefoot, high along jagged shale cliffs in nothing but a bikini so everyone and their friends could find our secret spot. the trek along the river was beautiful but brutal. there were parts that seemed inaccessible, where i cut and burned my naked feet on the dry rocks, and slipped all over the submerged ones where we crossed the rapids. we braved water snakes and bear poop and hiked for what seemed like hours before the spot unfolded before us just as the elements had us dripping with sweat and sunbaked. it's deep into the river bends, with one bank high and bald from routine wildfires and the other lush and green with sugar pines and oaks all green in the summery california light. there are huge slate rocks paired with deep, blue water; perfect for cannonballs, and clear all the way down to the pebbled bottom. we'll go back, i'm sure. but it's never like the first time again, is it? here are some pictures i took on the way there, but shhh.

slate and shale.

footbridge...

ariana and i taking in the sun.


olive after a day of mountain-goating and swimming.

a few of my favorite people (halfway there!)

today.

the why.

I resent expanses of urban space that are useless to me; spaces beyond function; beyond people. I want beauty and purpose in walkable, workable avenues. I see commerce dovetailed with architecture old and new, and skylines that expand our sense of nature. I want stuff for the senses in the places we use; a city unafraid of unfolding to meet its working and living people with forethought and a desire to be what it should.

And when I’ve begun, I’ll walk though my city, warmed by the details and mobilized by the design. I’ll declare that planning spaces requires aesthetic right where it functions. I will explore those sad, unknown pockets and give them reasons to live, inviting the pulse of people who will both use and enjoy them. I will make use of sonorous things, with wide angles where echoes ping and where people stand inside, in sunlight, bathed and sheltered as they move. I’ll demand green places in the coldest concrete avenues, and open dead houses the way a new baby opens her eyes, letting light in and bringing life to whole communities.

reykjavik, anyone?

i've just returned from a trip to reykjavik, iceland with pictures that i hope will do the place justice. two important points, though: it was my first trip and i didn't stay nearly as long as i wanted to (a little over a week in june). that said, our trip begins in san francisco, a mere four days after completing my second aids ride and amid a very real feeling of postpartum ride depression. it's typical to feel intense nostalgia for lifecycle after it's over, and my thought was that traveling to a place i've never been would be just the ticket. so off i flew to the northernmost part of europe with my incredibly fun friend, julie, in tow. we stopped off in boston for a short layover, a drink, the sketchiest lunch ever, and a bit of immature running around the airport, and then we were up in the air again. i felt exhausted in this really confused way by the time we were over greenland, and looking out the window into the clear, crisp daylight one only experiences in the stratosphere, it occurred to me it was 12:00 AM. the "midnight in the sun" thing, while scientifically fascinating, proved to be a theme i'd have trouble getting used to while in iceland.

nightime over reykjavik.

julie'd arranged for a "cab" to pick us up from the airport. in reality, it was a bright blue mercedes bus of some kind driven by an equally as colorful local guy who told us lots of stories about iceland, his daughter in school in the states, the weather and the economy. and all in the 45 minutes it took us to get to our hotel, a room with a view, which turned out to be bonkers for the price. fancy, sweet, and right in the heart of the city, too. the furniture, like the architecture, we'd find, is quite modern, and quite... unique to iceland. i mean, what the hell IS this?

there was a lot of walking around and quite a lot more eating. i quickly decided prikið was my favorite place, both for coffee and breakfast. the bar itself has multiple personalities. it's cozy inside, with two booths and one (maybe two) tables. each time i was there they were playing american soul music. and the good stuff, too: tina turner's i can't stand the rain, al green's love and happiness, etc. all of which julie and i sang aloud with (and possibly chair danced to). the breakfast menu ranges from cereal, or a delicious bagel with skyr (icelandic strained cheese) to the "hangover killer," which consists of a "hangover sandwich" a "bruce willis" milkshake with jack daniel's and a painkiller tablet. and at night the whole thing morphs into the place to be for hip-hop. awesome.

prikið

americano (what else)?

reykjavik is known for its architecture and art, and as i took it all in, it was pretty obvious why that is. there are many features and landmarks worth visiting, such as the hallgrimskirkja, a lutheran cathedral designed by state architect guðjón samúelsson, which i thought was super-impressive and very nordic looking.

so nordic.

i have a lot of other shots from just walking around. the city of reykjavik itself is very charming and cute, and the museums were all beautiful. and free! there's a lot of street art, art-art, performance art, and otherwise. the locals were out in their shops and everywhere, and i became more inspired everytime i saw something or met someone. highlight: i met gaga skorrdal in her store and she tried to convince me that not only did the multi-textured pulled-wool "whale" cap she placed on my head look beautiful, but that i should buy it immediately. i have no idea why we didn't take a picture of that interaction, because the hat was very, very cool. just not my scene. gaga is charming in person, and i'll be sure to visit her when i go back to iceland.

inside the photography museum.

tryggvagata.


gaga's shop and gallery.

in the middle of the week we took a rented car through the haukadalur valley to geysir and gullfoss. the valley is some of the most beautiful and geologically active land i've ever seen.

golden.


"capri-sonne": driving to geysir.


geysir.

we took a puffin watching boat tour as well, during which the captain of the sightseeing vessel convinced me it'd be a bad idea to actually eat a puffin, despite my insistence that it was featured on menus all over the city. apparently only tourists do that, and i think julie was relieved to hear i'd given up on the idea. a lot of the restaurants in the central part of reykjavik were selling whale, as well. i'm not convinced the locals eat whale either, but i'd have abstained anyway. i'm pretty sure eating a whale is like eating a person.

too cute to eat. seriously.


puffins aren't so graceful in the air, but the landscape makes up for them.

bláa lónið, or "blue lagoon" in grindavik was easily the highlight of the trip. if you haven't been to iceland before and you do nothing else, do this. blue lagoon consists of the super-clean silica and sulfur rich runoff from a geothermal power plant called svartsengi. it's a supernaturally blue pool of water the color of hpnotiq, with a giant natural steam vent right in the middle of it that boils over frequently and adds more warmth to the already naturally 104 degree water. it's like nothing you've ever seen before, and your skin will feel amazing when you're out. also, they serve beer at the edge of the water, so if you can drag yourself along the lava rock to the bar, i recommend a nice, cold viking.

this. was awesome.

steamed europeans.

every harbor city has a harbor "walk" of some sort, and reykjavik is no exception. there's a lot of construction going on at the moment as they complete the concert hall there, but we were still able to see "solfar", the semi-abstract viking ship sculpture by jón gunnar arnason, which is really pretty much magical on a clear day.

solfar.

we stopped in toronto on the way back to san francisco and holy-crap-it-was-pride! so, grumpy but somehow still motivated, we rented the tiniest kia ever and proceeded to cram a weekend of drinking and dancing into a short, thirteen hour layover. highlights: a drag show featuring all concepts of gender, the pet shop boys, julie being attacked by a gigantic makeout bandit, and me getting "married" to a drunken gayboy who wouldn't tell me his name (so i called him "amir"). we were surrounded by beautiful people, but managed to attract the trashiest girls ever. the bonus was that their idea of buying us drinks was to bring over whole pitchers of beer. each. i actually, really, honest-to-goodnessly made a new pen-pal friend from norway, too. at some point we ate the worst thai food ever thrown together. dear french-canadian boys: you're gorgeous, but no one is allowed to put peanut butter in pineapple fried rice. thanks. after the bars closed, we drove to the hilton "because it's fancy" singing mister mister's book of love with interpretive spirit fingers and everything, and promptly fell asleep in the parking lot (but not before turning on the seat warmers). all true. so fun.

i have tons of other pictures at the link below,
so if you enjoyed the highlights, check them out:


click me! click me! click me!

iceland2010

aids/lifecycle nine.

me and awesome annette on red dress day.

slideshow.

yet another amazing experience over and done, but a thing i still struggle to describe. it's so hard to translate all of the feelings we walk away with to our friends and families who weren't there. i can say that we all jump in for different reasons, and those reasons may bend and change from year to year. the ride itself becomes a whole community of people doing this good thing, and for seven days of pain, triumph, and mind-blowing hard work, all we know is each other. we eat together, sleep together, and encourage each other through the most beautiful landscapes one minute and the most difficult challenges the next. i've made great friends and i feel like i change a little more each time for the better from that part alone. we get to do this wonderful thing together and experience all of that enrichment, and then we get to be real heroes too; to each other, and to anyone touched by the AIDS epidemic. it's awesome.

i'm already signed up for next year's ride. bring it on, year three!

word.

oakland on a thursday.

(photo by beki mcelvain.)

butterflies in your beard.

Federico García Lorca
1898 - 1936

Ode to Walt Whitman

"By the East River and the Bronx
boys sang, stripped to the waist,
along with the wheels, oil, leather and hammers.
Ninety thousand miners working silver from rock
and the children drawing stairways and perspectives.

But none of them slumbered,
none of them wished to be river,
none loved the vast leaves,
none the blue tongue of the shore.

By East River and the Queensboro
boys battled with Industry,
and Jews sold the river faun
the rose of circumcision
and the sky poured, through bridges and rooftops,
herds of bison driven by the wind.

But none would stop,
none of them longed to be cloud,
none searched for ferns
or the tambourine’s yellow circuit.

When the moon sails out
pulleys will turn to trouble the sky;
a boundary of needles will fence in memory
and coffins will carry off those who don’t work.

New York of mud,
New York of wire and death.
What angel lies hidden in your cheek?
What perfect voice will speak the truth of wheat?
Who the terrible dream of your stained anemones?

Not for a single moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
have I ceased to see your beard filled with butterflies,
nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,
nor your thighs of virgin Apollo,
nor your voice like a column of ash;
ancient beautiful as the mist,
who moaned as a bird does
its sex pierced by a needle.
Enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine
and lover of the body under rough cloth.

Not for a single moment, virile beauty
who in mountains of coal, billboards, railroads,
dreamed of being a river and slumbering like a river
with that comrade who would set in your breast
the small grief of an ignorant leopard.

Not for a single moment, Adam of blood, Male,
man alone on the sea, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
because on penthouse roofs,
and gathered together in bars,
emerging in squads from the sewers,
trembling between the legs of chauffeurs
or spinning on dance-floors of absinthe,
the maricas, Walt Whitman, point to you.

Him too! He’s one! And they hurl themselves
at your beard luminous and chaste,
blonds from the north, blacks from the sands,
multitudes with howls and gestures,
like cats and like snakes,
the maricas, Walt Whitman, maricas,
disordered with tears, flesh for the whip,
for the boot, or the tamer’s bite.

Him too! He’s one! Stained fingers
point to the shore of your dream,
when a friend eats your apple,
with its slight tang of petrol,
and the sun sings in the navels
of the boys at play beneath bridges.

But you never sought scratched eyes,
nor the darkest swamp where they drown the children,
nor the frozen saliva,
nor the curved wounds like a toad’s belly
that maricas bear, in cars and on terraces,
while the moon whips them on terror’s street-corners.

You sought a nakedness like a river.
Bull and dream that would join the wheel to the seaweed,
father of your agony, camellia of your death,
and moan in the flames of your hidden equator.

For it’s right that a man not seek his delight
in the bloody jungle of approaching morning.
The sky has shores where life is avoided
and bodies that should not be echoed by dawn.

Agony, agony, dream, ferment and dream.
This is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
Bodies dissolve beneath city clocks,
war passes weeping with a million grey rats,
the rich give their darlings
little bright dying things,
and life is not noble, or sacred, or good.

Man can, if he wishes, lead his desire
through a vein of coral or a heavenly nude.
Tomorrow loves will be stones and Time
a breeze that comes slumbering through the branches.

That’s why I don’t raise my voice, old Walt Whitman,
against the boy who inscribes
the name of a girl on his pillow,
nor the lad who dresses as a bride
in the shadow of the wardrobe,
nor the solitary men in clubs
who drink with disgust prostitution’s waters,
nor against the men with the green glance
who love men and burn their lips in silence.
But yes, against you, city maricas,
of tumescent flesh and unclean thought.
Mothers of mud. Harpies. Unsleeping enemies
of Love that bestows garlands of joy.

Against you forever, you who give boys
drops of foul death with bitter poison.
Against you forever,
Fairies of North America,
Pájaros of Havana,
Jotos of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cádiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Floras of Alicante,
Adelaidas of Portugal.

Maricas of all the world, murderers of doves!
Slaves to women. Their boudoir bitches.
Spread in public squares like fevered fans
or ambushed in stiff landscapes of hemlock.

No quarter! Death
flows from your eyes
and heaps grey flowers at the swamp’s edge.
No quarter! Look out!!
Let the perplexed, the pure,
the classical, noted, the supplicants
close the gates of the bacchanal to you.

And you, lovely Walt Whitman, sleep on the banks of the Hudson
with your beard towards the pole and your hands open.
Bland clay or snow, your tongue is calling
for comrades to guard your disembodied gazelle.

Sleep: nothing remains.
A dance of walls stirs the prairies
and America drown itself in machines and lament.
I long for a fierce wind that from deepest night
shall blow the flowers and letters from the vault where you sleep
and a negro boy to tell the whites and their gold
that the kingdom of wheat has arrived."

that's dandy.

hamburger haven.

(photo by beki mcelvain.)

yeah, that's definitely rusty orange mirco-tile climbing the wall in the picture. less than five cash dollars equals pancakes, eggs and bacon in this most 1970's of diners. i tend to take myself on dates here sunday mornings, with oscar wilde or the new york times for company. the servers tease me about my capacity for coffee (i really can't stop once i start) and i secretly love that they know me in this crappy little gem. i typically sit in a window at one of the two-seater booths, but if i happen to be at the bar for breakfast, i get a direct view of the most meticulous cook on clement street fast at work. he's rumored to be on an outrageous 11 year contract, this henry ford of hashbrowns. and his perfectly portioned and positioned multi-tasking mastery of that flatgrill is an obvious testament to his worth. another reason to love the richmond district, i suppose.

who wants to go to breakfast with me?