Cobblestone district Criterium (bikes... and not in the hipster way)

Early rising to watch my brother in the Buffalo Cobblestone district Criterium. It was a fun race and he placed in fifth. My brother is a sponsored racer, Cat 4 (Cat one being oh my god you're incredible and Cat five being.... me.) Today he won a preem (prime? I wrote it phonetically).

It was fun. I dog sat and watched the race, talking to a man from Boston about how cold Vermont was, how strategy plays in racing (serious stuff, kids), and ultimately the conversation devolved into "Lets talk about our respective cities". Either way, Sabres will win.

Anyway... the bike racing was really fun and I was happy to support my brother. We then broke for lunch at Doug's Dive and watched the storm come in.

As of right now, it is my responsibility to make dinner for the masses. Come on over tonight, seven oclock potluck.

Kayaking in the Buffalo Harbor

Today I grabbed my new housemate Marta, and met up with two friends (Ben and Grace) and we went to the Waterfront and kayaked. It was a bit steep for an hour (20 bucks), but well worth it. It's tough, but good for beginners.





I biked down and we kayaked together with our super nice instructor. He took us past the grain elevators and towards the wind mills. We turned around and kayaked back. The view of the city is fantastic. I snapped a few photos with my camera phone (as usual).




My muscles ache, but i'm in heaven. This was so nice to relax and spend the day in my incredible city, talking about everything from Kayaking and outdoor activities to improving the waterfront. We then left and had mimosas at Merge (A GREAT restaurant).

This photo is of a grain elevator. It was creepy and kinda cool looking, so i uploaded it. It's day light outside, so i don't know why it looks so eerie. oooooh....

If anyone is interested, let me know. I'll set something up. I forgot the contact info for the place, so give me a few days.

The day isn't over. I've a potluck, a fire performance and two friends from out of town are coming into town.

J'aime ma vie!

Infringement festival

Hello all you wonderful people.

Anthony just sent me links to video he did of my fire performance last night. I preform with the fire staff and fire eating. These performances are a part of the Buffalo Infringement Festival. Crystal and I are "Cody and Kindle" of "Pyromance".

Here are the videos. I'm getting better. Thank goodness.

Cody and her fire staff:



Kindle and her Fire Fans:



Kindle and her fire Dart:




Kindle and her fire poi:







Tonight is our final performance. Wooo i'm exhausted.

I am deep in the midst of the buffalo infringement festival.



I'm exhausted.
I'm getting sick again.
I can't think straight.
My muscles ache.
I'm snapping at friends.
I haven't done my chores all week.
I haven't seen my family in two weeks. And it's not even over.

Totally fuckin' worth it.

Canal Fest

Canal Fest. I've never been before, and I found it a lot of fun and wished I had stuck around. It was, clearly, night time and the lights were beautiful. Fire dancing was interesting here, and its what we call a learning experience. Or, Mr. President, a "teachable moment". It's painfully obvious that Crystal and our act is not seamless. Perhaps the audience had no idea, but it is something I consistently feel after every performance.

We raked in a whopping eight dollars. Embarrassing yes, but that was more our fault than anything else. The situation did not call for a lengthy performance, but a spontaneous, short one, where we could hold the attention of others. The fine folks at Canal fest did pay us, and for that, it was worth it. Oh, and the people were nice too.

Despite some snotty nose kids ( "That's like... fake fire..."), i consider it a success. So thank you Canal fest! You are beautiful and I'd love to see you again.

Next year, i'll try the fried dough.

stumble

A little whiny, i apologize, but last night was the beginning of an illness... on the eve of buffinfringement. I'm a little upset. I also have a performance at Canal fest today, which means my debt is slowly lowering.

Positive news? Anthony is going to film my infringement stuff and Linus is going to play drums. I love my housemates, and not just for them helping me out, but because they are beautiful people who genuinely care about their lives.

This might be an "i love co-op" day.


Off to make pancakes for the house.


PS: the image of people is a group of us (Ben, Turley, Potter, Moose, Crystal, Amanda) playing croquet in Delaware Park... memorial day weekend, i believe?

quick fire eating

Anthony, a housemate, filmed me eating fire (technically, giving a tutorial). This is outside of my house. The symbol on my shirt is a transgender symbol. More on that later.

the first is a clip of me playing around in front of my church youth group, and the youth group from Maine. I use the fire staff too.

The second is me fire eating last night.

first dinner

FOOD!


It's my first dinner cooking for the house. Which is very exciting. I listened to leonard cohen and imogene heap repeatedly during prep and cook. I started cooking too soon, and I attempted a banana soup (but the bananas weren't ripe). Instead, I have this menu:

multi grain bean salad (cold) - lentils, quinoa, couscous, chickpeas

Fruit soup (hopefully chilled) - grapefruit, banana, orange and peel, ginger, sugar, cinnamon and strawberries.

Salad greens with an avocado bean dressing - which i'm so excited over. there is ginger in this as well.

Pasta with a mint tomato sauce - this one is pretty much self explanatory.


I'll let you all know how it "pans" over.

go infringe yourself

IT'S HERE!! IT'S HERE!!! IT'S HERE!!! My favorite time of year... you guess it...is here!

http://www.infringebuffalo.org

Crystal and I are part of a festival called "Pyromance". Our performances are as such:

July 31- 10:30 Day's part
August 1- 11:30 Day's Park
August 2 - 10:30 Day's park

more unofficial dates to be added. We've also a festival coming up that i know nothing about.

This festival means the world to me. It serves as a recharging station for the year, a way to prepare myself for the winter and maintaining myself. I love the people, and the connections, the art, the desires to create. It's my christmas season. I want to deck the halls with infringement.

I wish my blog update was more in depth but I'm literally hopping on my seat. Support your buffalo arts, people.

Sunday night potluck

Every sunday night, at seven o'clock, Plankton has a potluck. Everyone is welcomed, bring a food to pass. (or drink.)


I wanted to share this photo. Alex, a good friend of mine and my brother (not literally), made a quiche. In the shape of a rabbit. That's also his sake in the photo. I wish i had gotten it before hand, but it was very cheesy and was eaten quite quickly.

A different type of intentional community is a house called Bird House. A bunch of members from Bird stopped on by. We played with Annara's guitar (she's 7). Ate cherries on the porch. We sang a bunch, and I ended the night by fire eating. Which is ALWAYS a positive.

Lydia, a beautiful goddess friend, is doing an exchange with me, Fire in exchange for yoga lessons. I would LOVE to learn yoga. I'm a little giddy inside.

It's night's like these that make me happy to be living where I am. It was a perfect combination of old friends and new soon-to-be-friends. Sharing food, in my life and religious traditions, is an honor. It is a sign of respect and equality. It is a covenant of a community. These potlucks define that perfectly. We all sat together and enjoyed each others company. By the end of it, I even managed to have a skill share (Lydia the goddess from earlier).

I am satiated and ready for bed. Living here sometimes is a rewarding embrace.

Definitions by book and thought.

co⋅op⋅er⋅a⋅tive

–adjective

1.	working or acting together willingly for a common purpose or benefit.

2.	demonstrating a willingness to cooperate: The librarian was cooperative in helping us find the book.

3.	pertaining to economic cooperation: a cooperative business.

4.	involving or denoting an educational program comprising both classroom study and on-the-job or technical training, esp. in colleges and universities.

–noun

5.	a jointly owned enterprise engaging in the production or distribution of goods or the supplying of services, operated by its members for their mutual benefit, typically organized by consumers or farmers.

6.	Also called co-op, cooperative apartment. a. a building owned and managed by a corporation in which shares are sold, entitling the shareholders to occupy individual units in the building. b. an apartment in such a building. .

Also, co-op⋅er⋅a⋅tive.

---

Origin:
1595–1605;

Related forms:

co⋅op⋅er⋅a⋅tive⋅ly, co-op⋅er⋅a⋅tive⋅ly

co⋅op⋅er⋅a⋅tive⋅ness, co-op⋅er⋅a⋅tive⋅ness, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged





Co-op-er-a-tive
noun
lifestyle

def: continue to read "Deep in Pursuit"

Initial weeks

Over joyed. Excited. Enthusiastic. Grinning after a hard climb, relishing that there's another peak. There are always other mountains.

I've recently moved into a Co-op house here in Buffalo, NY, nestled in the west side. Laughter and music, cooking and cleaning sounds are filling my room as I write this. I moved in after a few years of being a guest, a community member, at the sister house to this one. (I live in a house called Plankton, the other house "Ol' Wonder Moth").

Last night, a few other community (but non co-op) driven houses, myself and my housemates spent all night together. It was an impromptu soiree, and still has me grinning. I live in a home. A well constructed, well intentioned and warm, loving, receptive home.

This is my intention with this blog: to create a space where I can speak about my living situation, and not just the house and it's members (i'll totally gossip). This is a space to discuss my fire staff art performances. A place to discuss my thoughts on going down to the Arena to see my favorite hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres, play. A place to say that I found another community garden on a bike ride, or that I've decided to ride my bike to Niagara Falls, just because. I want to discuss the farmer's markets, and the art gallery showing. I want to discuss the frustrations from work, and the interactions with strangers.

metaphorically, I am dipping my paint brush into my life and splattering it across this blog.


I hope you'll enjoy it. I hope sharing begats sharing. Thank you for stopping by.