the thing is that i find myself totally in love... with my roommates, with my home, with my current situation, with the direction i am moving in life.

as of today i officially reside in a large white house somewhere in between sanur and denpasar bali. my room is long and small, off the main house, reminding me for no particular reason of a room on a ship. two small windows and pale blue white washed walls make me imagine ill peek out onto the sea. instead i view the main house and some sky mixed with green.

our backyard, sprawling and attractively overgrown, is filled with mango trees, frangipani, orchids of all shapes and sizes (the former owner was a collector), bamboo which the cook adds to our lunch, a hindu temple, staff housing hidden at one end, and a long covered porch with a wide wooden table, carved wood lounge couch, paintbrushes, guitars, overhead fans and a perfect morning view of my favorite: the lotus pond. ooooweeeeee it is lovely. when i first arrived (today is official as i moved into my room but ive been here for at least a week), pink lotus flowers hovered above the water. somehow yesterday new blossoms of a literal glowing orange emerged. insane. totally beautiful and somehow the garden of my dreams where i take my morning kopi black out into the grass, and gaze.

in fact i do a lot of gazing here in bali. at night the stars are incredible. a recent holiday nyepi required no electricity to be used on the entire island for a 24 hour period. after a night of candlelight indoor picnic, guitar playing and cards we went outside only for my eyes to zoom into and back out of a sky that seemed so close i could punch my fist through it.

on more logistical topics, our location leaves me 5 minutes from a surfing beach and 15 from so many others. close to the club scene, local distros, music venues and warungs, we are surrounded by rice fields leaving freedom for silence or loud music at our will. mostly we go for music.

on to the roommates... they include thor, my dear friend who just moved down from ubud to attend music school (his blues guitar is banging) and work for his sister lakota’s record label. lakota is of course my favorite roommate if that’s appropriate to say. wise beyond her or anyone’s years she inspires me at every turn. literally i turn into the kitchen and she’s giving me ideas for my non-profit, i sit at the outdoor table to draw in my book and she’s telling me her merchandising plan, i gaze at the garden and she fills me on the local permaculture developments, i mention my side job of booking artists at the local clubs and she’s connected me to contacts in the scene. she manages the band navicula, just started zygote records, all while taking on a management position of the graphics team for a popular national surfing company. i am more than impressed. her boyfriend robi is a rock star here in bali - the singer and guitar player of a grunge band Navicula. Robi is total sunshine who’s stage presence is intimidating... he plays guitar, sets up studio’s, was signed to sony, went back to being independent, receives fan mail, writes children’s songs, makes me smoothies, and tells stories with the most incredible gesticulation.
Ian, the owner of the house, is quiet on the front side with a face that every girlfriend of mine falls in love with when they come over. he is the front man of the band kaim which some of you may have read my article on last year. he just got an mbox and spends most of his time writing beats creating for me the familiar situation of background noise of pro tools playing loops over and over creating a lull until it turns into a song. which he then sells. and then picks up the guitar which is great but nothing compared to when he sings. his voice is addictive, his personality mellow and he speaks english but doesnt seem to like to so hopefully my indonesian will improve from his company. ian is the person in bali that most reminds me of my boys from home.

i find myself here, more productive than ever... the resource of an open office in our home - a large room hosting musicians, graphic designers, the label’s street team, my volunteers all wandering in and out - lends me to find no excuses for not working on my mobile education project touring the most impoverished areas of bali, putting together an environmental curriculum for a local youth center, scanning local artists and musicians for a collaborative book project, learning about permaculture, drawing daily, and picking up a guitar in the morning. im turning brown playing in the waves, and constantly surrounding myself with music, a new love for a new metal band, booking house and techno dj’s on the side, and zipping up to ubud often on my motorbike - ipod on, warm breeze moving fast to sit in coffee shops with free internet, visiting sara, and playing with babies.

at this moment... i couldnt be happier.

Bali

So I'm starting a new blog. I guess to document less the rambles of my mind and more the wandering i do in life. My most recent move has been back to Bali.

My dear darling whom I met last year while working for Yayasan Bumi Sehat in Ubud, Bali, Kayla Barnes and I started a small non-profit: International Community Project.

Our Mission:

"to support sustainable community projects in developing countries. We accomplish this by implementing projects for: educational opportunities, creative endeavors, public health initiatives, community sustainability and cultural preservation. Our goal is to nurture positive environments and encourage the creative potential of all communities."

International Community Project provides support in the areas of infrastructure building, awareness and public relations, volunteer opportunities and direct funding. We help small community projects and NGOs become functioning, sustainable and successful.


So to kick off and get work started I find myself back in Bali, working in the field on quite a few projects.

Currently however, Im sitting in an over air conditioned bar that doubles as a restaurant/internet hot spot during the day. The music is quite bad and thus while working on a proposal for ICP's board I'm also browsing the web for music. What I've found to keep me on the up and up includes:

White Shoes and the Couples Company -
one of my favorite Indonesian bands that I'm sadly missing in San Francisco on the 20th. If you're around, check them out at the Make-Out Room in the Mission.

love psychedelico -
darling japanese band. japanese and english intertwined. sortof my new morning music.


and to add a little variety... the new fecal face podcast.

Last year I was living in Ubud, Bali. This time I'm calling a white house in between Sanur and Denpasar home. In my house lives Lakota, Robi, Ian, Thor and a dog named Bule. Aptly named as its a white dog and Bule is the slang term for westerner. hmmm.

the walls are all white, the backyard is filled with orchids and a lotus pond, and the stars are incredible. another thing that makes me happy is the home's proximity to the beach, which means that if im not surfing a lot then something is wrong with me.

The location allows me mobility as I am traveling around the island for a mobile education project (more info to come), going to Ubud to work with a youth center there, and starting projects in denpasar as well as sanur.

things are on the up up up and up.