+ Couch Surfin': Stop One aka Magical Life

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Coolin' Out on Goofball Status

Its 10:27am San Fran time and I'm lounging on Ella's couch: my new home for the next two weeks. It always take a day or two for my body to adjust and after a fitful sleep I'm all yawns. Jet lag. Perfect time to update. (Yawn)

The flight out went without a hitch. Aside for paying $50 to get my suitcase onto the plane due to copious product weighing down my baggage and almost missing the flight because of bad airport communication (changed gate), I am here intact. Ella, my closest friend during our three-summer stint as camp counselors at Camp Unirondack back-in-tha-day, picked me up at the terminal and we fell right back into our friendship as if a day hadn't passed between us. A mark of a good friendship. Ell is a labor union organizer and lives in San Fran with her wonderful girlfriend Shoshana and roomie Shruti. Their apartment is spacious and full of feng shui, light and meditation. I am happy to call their futon home for my first two weeks here.

After a short driving tour of the small city, we load up with organic groceries at the co-op (thank good, says my wallet- can I tell you Kombucha is only $2.99?!) and head to her home where we laugh and joke and catch up before sharing a meal at the super-hippy, super-Caits friendly Cafe Gratitude. This Cafe is the perfect landing for the trip. The food is seriously delicious and makes all the raw food spots in New York look amateur in comparison. The menu items are labeled "I am sassy," "I am beautiful," "I am gracious," (etc etc) and, yes, you must order them with conviction! We laugh at the new-agey-ness of it all, but secretly I love the affirmations and we fill out cards that belong to a game that is impossible to figure out. The cards have two lists from which you chose your name (see photo below.) I am now resurrected as "Buddha Gigantic Caits." Yes!

Today brings a hike and my first show. Off to prepare and shower. Excited to fill you in on new adventures to come...

For now, photos!

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PS. I received the most hilarious voicemail ever after exiting the plane, pondering my message that says, "have a magical day." Courtesy of the silly Mr. Maximus:

Have a magical day? That's what you tell all your voice mailers? That's how you greet them, have a magical day, as if to say, like what, like, like I'm going to the store and I reach for my wallet and a rabbit comes out. Like that kind of thing? Like if that doesn't happen its not a magical day?

Or like um like if I meet, you know, my mom or something or go on a date or something and I'm supposed to pull flowers out of my sleeve thats a magical day right there, boom, right?

Or maybe I could make somebody disappear or make myself disappear and then I'm having a magical day

Hmmmm, I wonder if that's what you mean by have a magical day. I'm not sure. I'll find out. If that doesn't happen, if any of that stuff doesn't happen, then it's like, I didn't have a magical day and then if I didn't have a magical day, then my day probably sucks. Fuck, I hope I have a magical day.

Ok. Bye.

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Dear readers, what do you think a magical day is?

I think it's all this & more:

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Exhausted Caits & her Long-Lost Ella
















Home for the next 2 weeks
















Ella's Street- Lookit that purple house!






















I'm obsessed with Cafe Gratitude

































































The game we couldn't figure out... hmph, hippies.
















Peep my new moniker: BUDDHA GIGANTIC CAITS!
(Click to see larger)
















I knew bringing a camera into the bathroom would pay off...
















Ella loves Shoshana!

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+ Goodbye New York!

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Oh New York!,

With your garbage-laden sidewalks, magic re-connections, crazy "heard it on the J train" stories and endless pushiness, I am saying goodbye. Don't worry, it's only temporary. I'll be back on these mean streets come October for more abuse and usage. Us New Yorkers, we have a way of thinking the world revolves around your pulse. Even after traveling the world, there is something at your core that is inimitable, irreplaceable, inspirational. Keep a seat warm for me. I'll bring back some sun and vibes.

Love,
Caits

PS. Enjoy the mini tribute by way of random cell phone flicks snapped this August. Some fond memories created during cross-borough adventuring.

PEACE!

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Chris Rob ain't afraid of The Hulk!

Gracie will be the best mom ever!

Canarsie is Serious.












Ouch, bro.













Malaika....

feels the power!

Tina Gaudy & some gaudy shoes

Jeanann & Rico prepare for fi-yah

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+ What is the MVMT?

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Peace & shout outs to the kind folks who've scooped me as part of their temporary team. Big hugs go to Rolando for his openness, kindness, brilliant-ness and all other 'nesses that describe good thangs. Sharpening my design skills to flex and deliver for September. Coming from a couch/cafe near you! In the meantime, check out what my new bosses do. I'm not bragging when I say my boss is cooler than your boss. It's just the truth:

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>> Parallel MVMT






Parallel MVMT is a creative consultancy specializing in business development, branding, technOrganizing™ and non-profit services. Utilizing unique partnerships with premium brands, we work to Combat the Mundane™ through progressive networks.

http://www.parallelmvmt.com/

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And under the auspices of P-MVMT is

>> Mad Hella







a slightly too-perfect-to-be-true website for my upcoming September migration & the purpose of this blog:

MAD HELLA/HELLA MAD is a monthly party and online resource that pays tribute to the daily, monthly and yearly commuters on the Bay Area-Brooklyn shuttle. Come enjoy the hardest hitting dj's from coast to coast and build on creating a conscious community of artists, educators, and everyday change agents.

http://www.madhella.com/

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Get hip to the MVMT.

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+ Because I Can & Mean It

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STEAL THIS FLIER
& send it to your friends
in the Bay Area!
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(Click image for larger version)

Lots of time on my hands in September to/for:

linkage / building / collabing / workshoping / spiting / performing / loitering / aestheticisms / getting up / (with the) git down / tea drink / scheme / sing / dance / crate dig / laugh / talk sh!t / write / exquisite corpse play / hide n' seek / zone / ease / be / ADVENTURE.

They can hit me here: caitlin.meissner@gmail.com

Open & ready for all and any forms of dopeness & downness.

Begin.

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+ Pre-travel Jitters & the Brilliance of Rilke

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"I foresaw your lament and knew that it would come. Now that it has come, there is nothing I can say to reassure you, I can only suggest that perhaps all professions are like that, filled with demands, filled with hostility toward the individual, saturated as it were with the hatred of those who find themselves mute and sullen in insipid duty. The situation you must live in now is not more heavily burdened with conventions, prejudices, and false ideas than all the other situations, and if there are some that pretend to offer a greater freedom, there is nevertheless none that is, in itself, vast and spacious and connected to the important Things that the truest kind of life consists of. Only the individual who is solitary is placed under the deepest laws like a Thing, and when he walks out into the rising dawn or looks out into the event-filled evening and when he feels what is happening there, all situations drop from him as if from a dead man, though he stands in the midst of pure life."

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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Now, I know... I am two weeks away from my departure, but all folks who really know, know I am a writer and, true to form, I like to write away my anxieties! So here I am, well in advance, giving the background story and blogging about the part of the trip no one really cares about anyway: the prep.

*Deep breath*

After returning just under a month ago from a life changing 2.5 weeks in Ghana, I am at once ready for another trip and feeling a bit of the "uh oh" kicking in. Have I been back in NY long enough to plunge into a new adventure? The unknown is looming, but brings a certain joy in that anything and everything can happen: the good, the bad, the ugly, the (please, universe, if you're reading) magical. Before I left for Africa, travel was heavy on the brain.

(To read more about why I was in Ghana and what I did there, visit http://caitsinghana.blogspot.com)

Feeling stagnant in Brooklyn, I decided 2.5 weeks away was simply not going to be enough. Couple that with a temporary job coming to close in August and a new job prospect not beginning until October, it left September a blank canvas for the creating. I'm telling you, people, dreams really do come true. I emailed a friend with a recurring dream that kept pushing onto my heart: I want to spend a month in San Francisco. Had you asked me to explain why, I'd stare back at you, mouth half open and a dumb look on what is otherwise a smart face. "Errrr... I dunno."

For years people have mistaken me for West Coast vibe. I can't count the amount of times I've had to correct inquirers that, in fact, I am from a small boring town in upstate New York and just happened to be blessed with really cool parents. With tons of, "you'd love the Bay area!"'s under my belt, a handful of friends who've relocated to Cali's artsy village and an inexplicable yearning to witness whether Oakland really IS Brooklyn's little sister, I sent the email out. "So here is my unshakable vision, I'm a lowly broke artist with a few different skills sets. Um, got any connections?"

Always ask.

Said friend comes back with a too-good-to-be-true offer to hire me in all my graphic design glory (no, thank you, Pratt Institute!), sacrificing a rather minuscule amount of time working in the grand scheme of the month, under his brilliant direction. Provided I can sublet my apartment (universe, if you're reading, I'm still waiting for this one) and spend the month couch-surfing, I'm in! Three emails to three lovely ladies later and my housing is secure. A few weeks pass and my tickets appear in my inbox. I'm really going!

So now, what is on the plate? 10 hours/week given to design projects, 4 poetry gigs (make note, it just takes a few good emails selling yourself with youtube links) and ample time left over to reconnect with old friends, make new ones, explore the city and surrounding nature, work on residency/fellowship proposals and get into any trouble I can sink my good teeth into.

As if this weren't enough, I have had the fortune of connecting with long lost family who live in Fairfax, just a 30 minute commute over the Golden Gate. After re-linking at a family wedding last weekend and subsequently having a rendezvous in Brooklyn days later, let's talk about my 2nd cousins whom I haven't seen since they were babies. Maya and Ivy are the two cutest teenagers to exist, quite possibly, in the history of the entire world. Fifteen and seventeen, they are the sweetest little 'imps you've ever witnessed, and they have their own band, titled (can't you guess?), The Meissner Sisters. Of course, the New York Meissner sisters got on with our California counterpart famously, and I am excited to tell you that when I'm in San Fran next month, I'll be joining the fam for dinners, sleep overs and catching a Meissner Sisters show live and in person. Their Dad, his wife and her cutie-pie five year old darling are quite special, themselves. I don't have to explain that there couldn't be a better time to re-meet family and how wonderful it is to instantly feel at home in their presence. The universe strikes again.

Lins (my sis), Ivy, Maya & Caits (that's me!) Meissner

So the moral of the story is listen to your dreams, act on your dreams, be your dreams. Do I sound like a life coach yet? Good! Poems are prayers. Write your own damn "letter to God" (ala The Color Purple) and manifest. I'll be updating this blog with my own stories of manifesting through out the month of September, cozy on someone-or-other's couch or cafe seat. And friends, please know this: I will have consistent phone and email access so unlike Ghana, where I dropped from the face of the earth, I am reachable and I DO want to know how you are.

Oh, and if anyone has an extra digital camera they can spare, I'd like to be able to take photos but don't have the dough to splurge. Hmm. Maybe I'll write a poem about it. (Hey, universe?)

Here is where I'll be, if you happen to be in the Bay. Come join me!

Monday 01 Sep 2008, 7:00pm
Gallery Cafe Poetry Feature
1200 Mason @ Washington
San Francisco, California

Wednesday 03 Sep 2008, 7:00pm
N. Point Coffee Co. Poetry Feature
1250 Bridgeway
Sausalito, California

Wednesday 09 Sep 2008, 7pm
San Jose Poetry Slam Feature
510 South 1st Street
San Jose, California

Thursday 25 Sep 2008, 8:00pm
Chico Poetry Slam Feature
Moxie’s Cafe
128 Broadway
Chico, California

Ain't nothing to be scared of in this life, only adventures to be had! (I'm telling myself as much as I'm telling you.)

See you soon!

Love,
Caitlin
caitlin.meissner@gmail.com