Could you sleep more quietly please?

Oh, is there anything more peevesome than trying to sleep through the riotous cachophony of someone else’s peaceful slumber? I think all of the snorers should go and live on an island with all of the people who sleep with the television on all night, then the rest of us can get some sleep.

Just to digress for one minute--I don't know why, but I seriously have a weird phobia kind of thing about sleeping with the TV on. Not only can't I fall asleep very easily with a TV on in the room, but I truly get this ooky feeling whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and find a television has been left on somewhere in the house. *SHUDDER* I can't explain it. It's like the television unleases something evil into our homes if left on while we're sleeping. Not to mention the weird sensation of having strangers in your home doing stuff--talking or singing or driving or whatever they're doing right there in your house with you while you're sleeping. I don't know why no one else but me feels anxiety about that. Y'll folks who sleep with the TV on, do you invite your neighbors over to hang out in your house during the night--"Just make yourselves at home, we'll be right here sleeping away. Feel free to hang out in the bedroom right here with us, we'll just be using the bed, you're welcome to use the rest of the room for, you know, solving a crime or performing surgery, maybe eat some dinner. You could even have sex if you want, right here next to us."

Back to the snoring, though. I keep a voice-activated recorder by my bed (to record my dreams) so I can say without a doubt, I do not snore.

I come from a family of snorers who could shake the very rafters and foundations of the house. For me, visiting relatives means I’ll be getting little sleep. And oh, the irony, when I’m tip-toeing around so as not to wake any of the sleeping thunder--because their sleeping makes it impossible for me to sleep myself!

How does one sleep when one is making such a horrible racket at such close proximity to one’s own ears? If I can’t sleep through it, three rooms away, how does he sleep with himself?

My sister is the worst I’ve ever heard. Oh sweet Lord and Lady, she makes the loudest, most unfeminine sound imaginable. ’Twould peel the paint off the walls.

Snoring is not just unattractive, it’s unsafe. As a child, I believe I knew this instinctively. I remember shivering in my bed at night, listening to my parents snore, my little heart knocking around in my chest, because I just KNEW something was very wrong with Mommy and Daddy to cause them to make such horrible noises. And if I tried to match my breathing to theirs, I would pass out from lack of oxygen, so I knew they were fixing to keel over dead any second: SHNAAAWWWWWAAAAAWWWWWW--SHNAAAWWWWWWAAAAAWWWWWWWW!!!!

How could they live through it? Better I stay awake and make sure they don’t stop breathing altogether. And this is probably why I can’t sleep with a snorer today.

So if you snore...fix that!! For yourself, for your loved ones, for your poor scared children in their beds, do it for the paint on your walls! You’ll be 100% sexier while you’re sleeping, and will probably live longer when you take that strain off of your heart.

Urban Pagan

Most pagans live in the city. You can think of us as urban tribes, whether we practice as solitares or in groups. The city pagan comes in many shapes and sizes. She may be a warrior in a leather jacket, with tattoos and piercings, or a soccer mom with three kids who shields her home with scattered Fruit Loops. He might be a long-haired tree-hugger, an ancient old shaman or an angry young man, searching for magic and determined to be the magic as well. For us, Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer just aren’t enough.

Most pagan rituals, symbols and deities came from an older, agricultural era. They revolve around fertility, growing things, planting, harvest, livestock and the changing seasons of the year. For a modern pagan, these things are harder to stay in tune with. When we throw down on a tasty cheeseburger, we have no idea when or where the animal was slaughtered or who did it. We can assume it was not done in reverence or respect. With a few hundred cows in line waiting for their turn to give their lives for our sustenance and growth, there just isn’t time for ritual or prayer.

So perhaps we lump our respect into one or two generic rituals designed to thank Gaea for everything she provides for us, including our cheeseburgers.

As every city dweller knows, the city has it’s own intense wild energy, unique to itself, from which we feed or with which we struggle each day. I have lived in several cities and visited several more and never felt such a hateful vibe as I do in Dallas. This city hates me, there’s no question, and the feeling is mutual. We simply tolerate each other until I am granted the freedom to get out. Minneapolis was like a friendly puppy; not harsh or demanding but not particularly mature either. Albuquerque was like a beautiful old grandmother with wrinkled leathery skin and eyes sparkling with warmth and wisdom.

Rural energy is that of growing things, birth and rebirth. It is tame, agricultural. City energy is more like that of a wild, untamed jungle. Just as the gods of the woods and swamps are wilder than the gods of the fields, city gods are wild creatures collected in the whirlpool of urban energy. Take the time to get to know some of the city gods and goddesses around you. Learn creative ways to worship them and invoke their power for your rituals and your daily life.

Wilma - goddess of Wal-Mart and other discount shopping centers. She can even be invoked to provide guidance for a successful garage sailing expedition. If you find exactly what you needed at half the price you expected to pay, give thanks to Wilma. (You can call her what you like; I have chosen to give her my mother’s name.) She’s partial to sweets, so as an offering, leave a piece of candy on the shelf in place of the merchandise as you put it in your shopping cart.

Excursion - god of commuting and traffic. His energy comes from the ever-moving arteries of highways and city streets. He can help with clearing gridlock, navigating to parts unknown and avoiding traffic tickets. When you reach your destination without a single red light, tip your hat to Excursion and leave a few coins on the curb.

Techno - nocturnal god of night clubs and partying. His energy flows when you feel the driving beat of the music on the dance floor. Pick-up lines, dancing and laser light shows are of his domain. He’s more concerned with having fun and getting you laid than with protection and safety, so be sure to shield yourself and invoke the protection of a powerful guardian spirit before going out with Techno.

Please Help Me, I Don't Know Right From Wrong!

I'm currently editing a (really excellent) book that pushes the line for what is "legal" erotica in the US. This story involves consentual sex with girls. Not 8-year-olds, but teen-age girls, you know, girls with healthy sexual appetites like we all had when we were teen-agers (and some of us fortunate enough still to possess). I notice the author has taken care to address the age issue, and it amuses me on one hand and irritates me on the other.

For instance, just prior to the sexual incident, the man asks the girl "When do you turn 18?" and she replies "September 28." He then says "Happy Birthday" and they carry on. Well, since we don't know the exact date the story takes place on, we don't know if the girl's 18th birthday was yesterday, today, tomorrow, next week, last week? And it strikes me that this detail is what makes the story legal in the US or not. It's legal for the story to be taking place on the day of her 18th birthday but illegal if it's the day before. It just strikes me as ludicrous, that's all. Makes as bout as much (little) sense as any other attempt to legislate morality.

Last Sunday morning about 10 am I was at the neighborhood Kroger store buying some food and stuff. As I passed down the booze aisle, I decided to stock up. After all, my divorce is final this week and I have something to celebrate. So I grabbed about six different bottles of champagne and a six-pack of beer for the Relentless Tease (he likes Bud Light) and some other boozy stuff and headed for the check-out. The lady frowned at me as she began separating my booze from the groceries and set them on the counter behind her. "Can't buy alcohol before noon on Sunday," she informed me.

Again, that curious sensation of being amused and irritated at the same time. Did someone think that I might rush home and guzzle six bottles of champagne in two hours instead of going to church? Or that I might actually decide, oh what the heck, might as well go to church since I can't buy booze this morning? Or what? Seriously, what is the reasoning behind this silly law? What is the morality that is being legislated here? That I shouldn't drink on Sunday morning? Well why not make it illegal to DRINK on Sunday morning? Obviously if I want to get hammered on a Sunday morning, this ridiculous law is not going to slow me down one bit. If I were a lush, I'd certainly know to buy me booze on Saturday night so I'll be all set to hit the sauce the next morning while all the good people are in church. Instead, all this did was inconvenience me a bit. And I don't even drink that much! Is that the purpose of the law, to inconvenience those who don't indulge in the evil behavior very often while not hindering those who abuse the substance in the least bit?

We also have what's called "dry districts" here in Dallas, which means you might have to drive several miles to find a liquor store. Or you might have to fill out some silly membership card before you can order a drink in a restaurant. You see, private clubs can serve alcohol to their members in a dry district, but not public establishments. So, basically, every public establishment that wants to serve alcohol (which is most of 'em), calls itself a private club. You want to order a glass of wine with dinner, just write your name on this card and viola! you're a club member! (Don't you just love exclaiming "viola!" instead of "voila! "The problem with doing it in writing is that most people just think you don't know how to spell it.)

Am I the only one who finds it fascinating, this idea of legislating a moral code that seems to serve no common code of morality I've ever been aware of here (those who have a moral issue with boozing on Sunday morning or even boozing in general have kept themselves hidden well, if they exist) but merely creates an irritating inconvenience to every average person of drinking age sooner or later while everyone who wants to drink, on whatever day they want to drink, in whatever district they want to drink in manages to do so without being slowed down in the least by the wet laws? And whomever it is these laws are supported by or enacted by or created for don't really seem to mind all that much, since I've never heard anyone complain about the shameless way people get around the wet laws to commit their sinful act of drinking in spite of them. So why do folks grumble about the wet laws when it inconveniences them but nobody ever seems to notice the hypocrisy as I do and wonder who benefits from things the way they are?

Anyway, back to the teen-aged girls in the sex stories. I admit to not being real informed about the exact semantics of the law. For instance, I know it's against the law to publish an erotic tale on the internet involving an under-aged person. But I don't know how "involved" the under-aged person is allowed to be. Is it legal for an adult character in a story to get a hard-on at the sight of a 15-year-old's belly button? Is it legal for the 15-year-old to masturbate or fantasize about having sex as long as no actual adult person touches her in the course of the story? Is it legal for an adult person to french kiss a 16-year-old, and if not, is it the tongue that makes it a description of a sexual act? If you were to describe such a kiss, making it clear exactly the sort of kiss you mean but not explicitly mentioning the tongue or that it's a French kiss, is it still immoral, or is it possible to accuse someone of having a perverted mind if they insist on reading tongues in where some other, wholly innocent, kind of kiss was intended?

And who exactly gets to decide where these lines are drawn? Why do we allow other people to tell us whether our sexual fantasies, behaviors and desires are acceptable? Do we not feel qualified to judge our own?

I know, it's not "our" standards that we worry about, it's "theirs." We have to make sure "they" are not crossing any lines, because even though we know we know what's right, other people always seem to disregard the standards of decency and do dirty things. Gotta keep "those people" in line or this world is headed for hell in a hand-basket! Thank God we have the community to keep us moral and remind us of our good solid family values.

I know I personally would probably be up a creek named S-H-I-T with nary a paddle if I didn't have laws reminding me that I shouldn't drink on Sunday or that I shouldn't write stories about children having sex.

Crotchedy Old Men

I adore them.

Along with crones, they are the most concentrated source of wisdom we have available.

Perhaps grumpy old men are appealing because of the contrast between their frail, fading bodies and their sharp, aggressive minds. Old men know a lot more about women than younger men--and I’m not talking about sex, I just mean they seem to understand women at last after sixty years of cluelessness. Maybe it’s because after spending most of their lives enjoying relative power and privilege, they’ve had to give up most of it and become like a woman themselves.

Oh my gosh, don’t let an old man hear me say that though. I’m sure they don’t like being compared to women any more than younger men do.

I have read that senility is a myth. When we are younger and forget some important matter we say it was because we were too busy and had too much on our minds. When an old person forgets something we are sure that he must be getting senile. The truth is that, for most of us, mental ability remains pretty much the same all of our lives. This is not just my observation but it is proven by research. At Wayne State and Duke Universities studies showed that, contrary to popular notion, intelligence does not decline in old age. I recall an earlier study in which teen agers and elderly people were tested and compared and the adolescents showed more traits of senility than the old folks!

Consider the contributions of people in their eighties and nineties:

~Michelangelo designed St. Peter’s Cupola when he was 83 and remained active until he was 89.

~Benjamin Franklin was past 80 when he helped draft the constitution.

~Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was in his 80’s when he wrote some of his classic legal opinions and he served well into his 90’s.

~Artist Pablo Picasso as well as cellist Pablo Casals were active into their 90’s.

If you are fortunate enough to know a crotchety old man, treat him to lunch this Father’s Day and let him be as crabby as he wants to be. Listen when he talks--he might know a bit more than you do about most things.

She Would Have Dined Here After

On a night quite unenchanting, when the rain was downward slanting,
And my husband's gentle ranting became too loud to be ignored,
Tipsy and a bit unshaven, in a tone I found quite craven,
He was talking to a Raven perched above the bedroom door.
Pangs of hunger did entreat me to leave my bed and search the floor
Found my socks, nothing more


Clumsy on the rug I treaded, cursing softly as I headed
Into the rainy night I dreaded, to a place I've been before.
While hubby and the Raven chattered, I was searching through the skattered
Lights to find the one that mattered, my beloved late-night store.
“Wendy's” with its menu full of tasty treats galore.
Burgers, fries and so much more


Through the drive-thru in a flash, a little time and not much cash;
Finished up my midnight dash, in time to hear the Raven speaking:
“Nevermore”


My husband, with a drunken snicker, charming when he's had his liquor,
Leaped into bed just one step quicker, hoping to get some sweet amour.
But barely had we begun to play when, slumped and limp, he began to snore.
Only that and nothing more.


Tummy full of “Wendy's” treasure, wide awake and craving pleasure
Bored, frustrated beyond measure, I saw the Raven on the floor.
Ugly bird, but I took pity, warned him “Watch out for the kitty.”
And together we watched “Spin City”, (Michael J. I do adore)
Until our cat, Dandelion, awoke and chased him through the door.
We found his feathers, nothing more.

Click it or Ticket

Amazing how fast this year went by, huh? Another turn of the wheel, doubly significant because the anniversary of my birth happens this month as well.

It tickles me that I got certain Fundie members of my family referring to the Holiday as Yule instead of Christmas this year. But only out of ignorance, unfortunately. They think it's just an old-fashioned word for Christmas, just as they truly seem to believe that Jesus is the “Reason for the Season” and would caution everyone to remember that.

This season, I have been blessed with a number of things to rejoice in as well as a thing or two to grumble about. And since it's more fun to grumble than to rejoice, I'll do my grumbling here, and remember to rejoice with my kids later.

First of all, um, I won't say why exactly, but I found it necessary to do some research this week on what to do when you have a RAGING YEAST INFECTION of monumental proportions. One good thing about a forced lifestyle of abstinence is that you can diagnose your own yeast infections and not worry that it's a STD instead.

But the thing I most want to grumble about today is that bit of disguised fascism known as the Seatbelt Law. Yes, I got a ticket. Actually, I got two this year, and I am really ticked off.

In Texas, they repealed the helmet law because the Bikers got together and collectively raised Holy Hell about it. I guess that particular collective is one whose wrath even the most arrogant politicians are prudent enough to steer clear of. Bikers are not known for tolerating restrictions on their personal freedoms.

The rest of us, however—our willingness to be led like sheep, our tendency to impose our own moral standards onto others, our self-righteous contentment any time we can force other people to behave in ways that we agree with, all are legendary. So it's no surprise that “mainstream” people have failed to join forces and oppose this law.

Most people probably think the seatbelt law was passed to save lives. The truth is, seatbelt laws were put in place as a result of lobby pressure by auto manufacturers who did not want the expense of federally mandated airbag requirements in their vehicles. The federal government said “Okay, you don't want the airbag requirements? Then get to work pressuring the state governments to pass seatbelt laws. If all 50 states pass such a law, we won't enact the airbag legislation.” So the auto makers did a wonderful job of stirring up lots of seatbelt propaganda, which is why we're all so familiar with the crash test dummies, and they succeeded in getting the states to pass these laws. Then the federal government reneged and passed the airbag legislation anyway. Politics is a lovely business in our country, isn't it?

Is it safer to wear a seatbelt? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I've seen some contradictory research on that matter. As you know, statistics can be made to tell whatever tale the teller wants told. But if you believe wearing a seatbelt is safer, by all means do so! And if you believe eating a low fat diet is healthier, then go right ahead! But don't pass a law that says the government can write me a ticket if I choose to accept the risk of a heart attack and eat Big Macs. It's probably safer not to jump out of airplanes, but I don't see the government making it illegal to go skydiving!

Everyone has heard the statistics about how much safer it is to wear a seatbelt and we've all seen the poor crash test dummies getting whacked around in those crash simulations. But we've never seen a simulation in which the car catches on fire and the crash test dummy is forced to burn to death because he is unable to escape the seatbelt. We've never seen a crash test dummy forced to watch her child burn, crying and screaming in terror, because she can't get to him to get the seatbelt off. We've never seen a crash test dummy seatbelted in, when the car is flipped over and submerged in water, disorienting the dummy and preventing him from releasing the seatbelt before he loses consciousness and drowns.

I believe each individual should have the right to choose which risk is acceptable. For me, having a wreck and depending on the airbag for protection is an acceptable risk, but being strapped to a burning or sinking car is not an acceptable risk. I don't understand why we have given the government the right to force me to take one risk in order to protect me from the other.

Did you know that drivers and passengers in emergency vehicles are exempt from the seatbelt law and for this reason, police officers are exempt? Did you know that 95% of police officers choose not to wear a seatbelt? (I'm quoting that statistic from memory, and I can't find the reference now. Please, if you have it, feel free to correct me.) The most common reasons given are 1) fear of being trapped in the vehicle, as described above; and 2) need for quick escape and ease of maneuverability. Interesting that these police officers can make those kinds of choices for themselves while giving the rest of us tickets when we try to make those same choices.

Primary enforcement means that police officers can pull you over and write you a ticket for no other reason than your failure to wear the Belt of Death and Terror. To me, at best, this hypocrisy is bad karma and at worst, harassment. It doesn't take a genius to figure out these seatbelt tickets are paying their salaries.

What if, all of a sudden, every driver on the road decided to start obeying all the traffic laws and there were no offenses for which the police could write tickets? Why, that would be a happy day for law enforcement, wouldn't it? After all, that is their goal, to get everyone to obey the laws, isn't it? It would mean a reduction in the police force by at least a third, and I'm sure those police officers would understand and consider it a worthwhile sacrifice, giving up their jobs, having safer roads and so many lives saved.

Right….what would happen is, among other things, the speed limits would then be reduced to artificially low numbers, as I'm sure you have found to be the case in neighborhoods you are familiar with, am I right? They will get citation revenue from us one way or another and it has nothing to do with safer roads or saving lives.

Let’s learn a lesson from the Bikers and repeal those seatbelt laws, folks! They are an outrageous infringement on our personal freedom and an insult to our intelligence. After all, if we all have good enough sense to make choices each day for our own health and safety, do we need the law to do it for us?

Smells Like Fish

..

"This is why many Japanese people's feet smell of vinegar."

I found the path of Enlightenment years ago, when first my friend Sissy and then my buddy Guy began hounding me to try sushi. Raw fish. Sliced up and balanced on a sticky wad of rice, and wrapped up with a strip of seaweed. Oh my, yum. Sounds delicious, doesn’t it? How did I resist for so long?

It is, in fact, a gradual addiction. The first time I tried it, with that adventurous spirit of “oh heck, how bad can it be?” I came away with a distinct “yeah, whatever” impression. I was not yet hooked. Even after subsequent sushi experiences, I still maintained a take-or-leave-it attitude toward the Sushi. It was not yet my Ultimate Satisfaction and Reason for Living on This Earth.

But gradually, the Sushi did take hold of me.

For some reason, sushi lovers do enjoy spreading their addiction around to all their friends. Sissy and Guy did it with me, and soon I had my frequent lunch companion Mr. Steve suggesting sushi for our lunch dates after I turned him onto the treat. I am in the process of introducing sweet Rosanna to the joys of raw fish as well, and she's a bit more of a challenge.

When Rosanna and I worked together, we would often go out for lunch so that I could grumble and groan with her about the Relentless Tease and she could mumble and moan about her own Lord Byron. No matter how much I wheedled and begged, she would not set foot in a sushi place. Finally my opportunity came when she took me to lunch on my birthday, giving me the right, of course, to choose where we’d go, and it should be no surprise that I chose Nagoya, a popular sushi/hibachi joint near our office. She was so freaked out at even being IN the place that she immediately called Lord Byron and told him, “You’ll never guess where I am right now…” She ate a delicious combination hibachi lunch while I gorged myself shamelessly on eel, white tuna, salmon and Philadelphia rolls. I could not get her to try even a nibble.

But I did get her to go back there with me again, and she did try one small crab roll at the end of our lunch. She pronounced it, “not that bad.” The next time, I got her to eat a small piece of eel. She picked up her phone and immediately shared the news with her husband: “Oh my god, baby, I just ate EEL!!!”

Just wait. She’s coming over to the sushi side, I can feel it. Soon she will be as addicted as I, then we shall spend many happy hours rolling around in raw fish, ginger, rice and wasabi, pouring soy sauce decadently upon our naked flesh with wild abandon.

My sister is coming next week to stay with me while I go through all my household possessions and decide what to let her keep for me. It’s funny, I immediately wondered if I’d have the opportunity to drag her out to eat sushi with me, see if I can get the beginnings of her addiction well underway too.

I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke

Advertising provides the colorful strands of yarn that hold the fabric of our economy together. It is essential, it is a necessary evil. And in the case of the Budweiser frogs, advertising may not necessarily be evil.

When we think of advertising, most of us think of television commercials. Entertaining little pockets of manipulation that bring us the shows we like to watch on TV. Some would argue that television advertising is insidious and evil in the way that it attempts to control the minds of the public, particularly the weak and the ignorant (like children).

I think it’s interesting that the only persons who can afford to buy television advertising are those who are already rich. Their goal in doing so is to become even richer, why else would they bother?

Surprisingly, I have little problem with rich people paying for my television shows so they can slip me a message designed to get me to give my money to them. I find them pretty easy to ignore, especially since I rarely watch TV. Television advertising aimed at my children is a little more sensitive because it preys on our weaknesses: my children’s weakness in not having a mature BS filter with which to ignore advertising and not having learned the value of delayed gratification; and my own weakness in feeling guilty if I don’t give my children every blessed thing they see on TV.

Even so, I can live with commercials. I can take comfort in the fact that each ad has cost some rich person more money than I make in six months and that it will fail in its goal to convince me to buy what that rich person is selling. And that they will have to pay another seventy-five grand to run another ad next month to try again. Sometimes I even like commercials, they’re funny or nostalgic or creative. When I don’t like them, I can turn my attention to something else or change the channel.

The same is true for radio ads, although they are a lot less likely to have any redeeming entertainment value. But if hearing an obnoxious radio ad is the price I pay for listening to music I like or my favorite morning DJ while I work or drive, it’s a small sacrifice. Once again, quite easy to tune it out or turn it off.

Print ads, they’re okay too. They often provide useful consumer information, or they present interesting images for my eye to appreciate. They can certainly be ignored or avoided by a simple turning of the page.

But the rules are different for the most insidious and intrusive kinds of marketing. These are the ads that cost the advertiser next to nothing to circulate--telemarketing, email spam and fax marketing. Because it’s cheap, there’s no incentive to make the ad entertaining nor even any reason to believe the product or service is worth any more than the cost to market it in this way. This kind of marketing is nearly impossible to fight from a consumer point of view because even if only ONE person responds to it (out of a billion or so potential customers reached), it’s a pay-off.

Last year my home telephone number somehow found its way onto a fax marketing list. For months I dealt with beeep-beeeep-beeep calls at all hours of the day, and usually in the middle of the night. I spoke to the phone company and learned the only thing they could do about it was to change my number. I should change my home phone number so that I can avoid being blasted with beep-beep-beep electronic advertising in a language I can’t even understand.

I thought perhaps it was just one misguided person or company who had my number. I pictured some poor secretary growing more and more frantic as the days go by, wondering why she can’t get the darn fax to go through, even when she’s tried it at all hours of the day!

So I picked up a cheap fax machine at a pawn shop and plugged it in, anxious to see who had been trying so urgently to fax me. Must be a very important message.

Affordable interest rates, get a second mortgage on your house! Get Cheap Prescription Drugs! Enlarge your penis! (okay, not really that one, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that one come rolling off the ol’ fax machine any day.)

I politely called each company and informed them that they were faxing to a residential number and asked them to help me fix it by tracking down the source of the marketing list. I was assured by one and all, my number would be removed. I would never receive another fax from them.

Sometimes the ads come with an automatic "remove me" line, an 800 number you call and put in your fax number and it’s automatically removed. I called about a dozen of those--and the frequency of the faxes doubled, then tripled.

You see, when you call that number that appears on the fax you just received, and you enter in your fax number, you’ve just informed them that it’s a working fax and that a real live person is on the other end receiving the messages. Bonanza! That’s a good fax number to keep selling on that marketing list!

Unlike paid ads in other media, fax ads and telemarketing can not be ignored. Nor do you "get" anything back from your participation--no music, no tv show, no entertainment. It’s like a date with a man who takes you directly to his house and points to the bed and says "I’d like some sex now, please. How bout a blowjob?" without even bothering to offer dinner or conversation as an incentive.

It’s insulting and it’s rude. I hope to see some laws put in place to curb this terrible trend. Maybe now that the election’s over, our glorious president can make this his top priority, right after he finishes taking care of those filthy terrorists.

On Spam

"The problem’s all inside your head," she said to me.
It’s not the flavor so much as the consistency.
She turned her back and then I dropped it in my tea;
There must be fifty ways to hide your Spam.

You see, it’s really not my habit to be rude.
I hope my purpose won’t be lost or misconstrued,
But this meat tastes like it has been already chewed.
There must be fifty ways to hide your Spam.

Just open up your pants, Lance
Drop it down the back, Jack
Or put it in your shirt, Burt
Just listen to me

Don’t make a big fuss, Russ
You don’t have to discuss much
Pretend you have to go pee, Lee
And flush it hastily

She said, "It grieves me so to see you looking thin."
My stomach lurched, oh god she’s serving Spam again.
I tried to smile, but then my head began to spin
Thinkin’ about the fifty ways…

Feed it to the cat, Matt
Hide it in the plant, Grant
Stick it in your shoe, Lou
And set yourself free

Put it under the pan, Stan
Slip it in the crease, Reese
I don’t eat Spiced Ham, Sam
Don’t take it personally

This is lovingly dedicated to my mother, whose affection for "Spiced Ham" in the 1970’s caused me to develop these and other Spam-avoidance techniques. Of course it was always better if I could hide the cans whenever I found them in the pantry and pray that she would forget that she had bought any Spam at all. I was creative and resourceful, and I found excellent Spam-hiding-places all over the house. My brother, less creative and more courageous, preferred to just chunk it in the trash.

I have enjoyed now a blessedly Spam-free existence for more than twenty years.

San Antonio

San Antonio is an amazing city. It has a flavor, a texture, that resonates with my soul. I think my experiences and impressions of Texas might have been more positive if we'd come to San Antonio or Austin or Corpus Christi instead of Dallas.

I tend to find deep meaning in the mundane serendipities of daily life. For instance, I left my Cavalli sunglasses in a Texaco restroom somewhere outside of Waco. By the time I realized it, we'd gone too far down the road to turn back for them. I was certain they were gone, and I mentally blessed whoever found them, a gift from me to her--very expensive Italian shades. Enjoy.

But then we stopped at that Texaco on the way back the next day--and they were there! This had meaning for me. There is magick around me now.

When we stopped again for another potty break, all but one bathroom was out of order. There were three carloads of people ahead of me, and I resigned myself to standing in line doing the pee-pee dance in front of a dozen strangers. I really really needed to go. If a woman could gracefully go pee outside like a man without looking and feeling trashy, I'd have gone out behind the gas station and given my bladder sweet release. Instead, someone was kind enough to let me cut in line, and I was able to avoid an embarrassing accident.

I tried to sketch the riverwalk, but I wasn't pleased with the result. There was just so much detail, so much depth. I tried to let it talk to me, but people kept interrupting and talking to me as I drew, making it hard to concentrate on what the place was telling me. They were all so nice though; I showed everyone my sketches. A young couple sat across from me and I took their picture. They're in love, it's very sweet. I said, give me your email address and I'll send it to you.

Tomorrow I'm going home for a few days to see what kind of trouble my sisters can get me into. I stand firm in my conviction--no more tattoos! But who knows, maybe we'll all dye our hair black or shave our heads or something.

There is magick around me now, I can feel it, and I dreamed it last night. All is beautiful, and all manner of things will be beautiful. Just watch, you'll see.

Just a couple of random memories...

My parents were into rodeo in a big way when my brothers and sisters were young. My brother Bobby was a bull rider and his girlfriend was a barrel racer. She made a dress for me once, out of the same material that she wore when she rode. I wanted to be like her, so my first ambition was to ride horses in the rodeo.

We had to move to town when I was about six so my folks could take care of my grandmother, but we kept my horse (Peppy) and I continued to ride sometimes whenever I could talk someone into taking me out there and waiting around for me. It wasn't very often, especially after my dad died.

I was about 14 when my mom and my sister Alice and her kids all went out to the farm together. My boyfriend lived out there too, his name was Mike. He was nowhere around so I just saddled up Peppy and rode around the pasture for a while. At dusk we headed back up the gravel road toward the stables. My favorite thing to do at that time of evening was to gallop along the road in the quiet of the country, so I worked her up into a trot. That's the last thing I remember clearly. I don't know what happened, I don't remember getting thrown off, but the next thing I remember (vaguely) is walking along that country road in pain and seeing Peppy running far and fast up ahead away from me.

I was scraped bloody from chin to eyebrow on one side with bits of gravel embedded in my skin, so I know my face must have interacted quite harshly with the road. By the time our neighbor Mr. B drove by in his pick-up truck, I was starting to be hysterical. I kept saying "I don't know! I don't know where I'm going! I don't know what happened!"

He took me back down to our farmhouse where Mom and Alice were waiting for me. I don't remember much of that. Next thing, I remember being in the car and still freaking out. I kept saying, "Mom, I don't know! I don't know what happened! What happened?" I kept asking her what happened over and over again, until it started to freak her out too, and she said "I guess you got thrown off the horse! Shut up!"

I don't remember much about the hospital. Next thing I remember is being at home later talking to Mike on the phone. He must have been there at the house when Mr. B brought me back because he said, "You seemed alright. You were calm, just standing there." I kept asking him, "Is today Tuesday?" Funny, that's a very clear memory, asking over and over, "Is today Tuesday?" I don't recall now whether it was actually Tuesday or not.

The doctors at the hospital must have advised my mom to wake me up several times in the night to make sure I wasn't dead or in a coma or something because she came in more than once with a flashlight and shined it in my face. She asked me goofy questions like, "What school do you go to?" and "What's your middle name?"

And that's my traumatic horseback/amnesia story. I did try to ride a couple times after that, but I'll admit I was freaked out. Plus, I was way more into boys than horses at that point.

Speaking of boys, one of them took me to the county fair the next year, when I was 15. He was a goober and I didn't want to go but my mom made me. She liked him a lot. Since my friends were going to be there, I let him take me.

You know that ride with the big wheel that spins round and round, and hanging down from it are these long chains with seats attached? You sit in the seat and it spins you round and round up in the air. Really fast and really high.

Well usually, there's a little chain that you fasten up between your legs but this ride had only the chain that fastened across in front.

My friend Anita and I were messing around, leaning over to try and push against each other while the ride was in full swing. I was leaning waaay over, trying to grab her hand...when I came forward out of the chair. The "cross the front" chain caught me up under my tits and held me for a second as the chair slid up my back behind me. Anita started screaming at the ride operator dude to stop the ride, but he was chatting up some women and paying no attention. She yelled at me, "Hold on!" Instinctively, I tried to find something to grab with my hands but the only place to reach was up above my head. I grabbed the chains above me and tried to pull myself up, but you can imagine the G-force opposing me as I'm swinging around in a full horizontal arc. In fact, when I reached up to grab the chain, I slenderized myself to the point that I slipped right past the "cross the front" chain and flew through the air with the greatest of ease.

Yes, reader, I was a projectile. I clearly remember that moment--the adrenalin, the noises, the sight of the carnival lights against the black sky, and I clearly saw the grill of the carnival truck as I fast approached it, feet first.

I made contact in the fender area, right around the front tire.

Again, acting purely on instinct, I jumped up and took several steps before I realized my leg was broken. I stood there trying to decide whether to sit back down in the dirt or continue trying to walk over toward something I could sit down on. In a minute or two, Anita and my goober boy hero came running up and helped me over to the side. The ride operator came up and said, "You kids can't play around on these rides like that!"

In those days, the trend was tight tight jeans. I usually had to lie down to get mine zipped up. Yuck, I know, but we thought we were the shit back then. I had on my favorite pair of painted-on Sergio Valente jeans. When I stood up to head back to Goober's car, Anita said, "Oh my god, your jeans are ripped."

I felt my backside and discovered what an understatement she'd just uttered. My jeans were more than ripped, the whole ass was shredded right out of them and I was offering my sweet cheeks up for the whole world to see. Apparently, though they may look very hot, tight Valente jeans are not terribly durable when you smash them up against heavy machinery at high speeds.

Well Goober drove me home and carried me from the car into the house. It was the first time I was ever carried by a man. I discovered I kind of liked it. It's a shame I'm not petite, then I might have been carried more often since then.

And then I got to wear a cast for a while, and that was pretty cool. Especially since it got me out of 7am marching band practice.

So that's my traumatic carnival ride story. To this day, I'm not a fan of roller coasters or other whippity fast, fling-my-body-around-through-the-air kind of rides.

Cupid's Trick

Really love this song.

The vid made me curious about him. Guess what happened to him. He committed suicide in 2003--stabbed himself in the chest. Can you imagine? Reminds me of that scene in "Elizabethtown" when Orlando Bloom tries to rig the exercise bike to stab himself. Seems to me, if you wanna die, and death by stabbing is an acceptable way to go, it would be easy enough to get someone else to do it--you shouldn't have to do it yourself.

Once, when I was in college, I picked up a book from a table in the library and started to read it. It was a forensics book, specifically about how to examine wounds to determine if they're self-inflicted. Did you know that the way to tell if hatchet wounds to the head are self-inflicted is to measure the depth of the wounds. The first whack that you give yourself in the head with a hatchet will go pretty deep, but subsequent wounds will be more shallow--no doubt because that first one hurt a little bit!

Just baffles me that this happens often enough to lend itself to study. Who is out there whacking themselves in the head with hatchets? Is it the same tortured geniuses who are out there stabbing themselves in the chest like Elliott Smith, or overdosing on heroin like Bradley Nowell,

or shooting themselves with shotguns like Kurt Cobain?

Why do female geniuses not do this kind of shit? And then I recalled...Sylvia Plath with her head in the oven...Virginia Woolf walking into the swelling sea with rocks in her pockets...Sarah Kane hanging on the end of a rope.

I think the burden of artistic genius is its intensity. One can endure it only so long before finding some way to end it.

Hmm...deep thoughts today. I'm not really as morbid as I sound--I'm actually quite cheerful at the moment. Hope you are as well.

Our Father who art in heaven
Stay there
And we'll stay here on earth
Which is sometimes so pretty
With its mysteries of New York
And its mysteries of Paris
At least as good as that of the Trinity
With its little canal at Ourcq
Its great wall of China
Its river at Morlaix
Its candy canes
With its Pacific Ocean
And its two basins in the Tuileries
With its good children and bad people
With all the wonders of the world
Which are here
Simply on the earth
Offered to everyone
Strewn about
Wondering at the wonder of themselves
And daring not avow it
As a naked pretty girl dares not show herself
With the world's outrageous misfortunes
Which are legion
With legionaries
With torturers
With the masters of this world
The masters with their priests their traitors and their troops
With the seasons
With the years
With the pretty girls and with the old bastards
With the straw of misery rotting in the steel
of cannons.

--Jacques Prévert, tr. Lawrence Ferlinghetti

For ChaBongo

Sometime ago, I visited your blog and found you (understandably) freaking out about the difficulty you'd had in finding another job after getting laid off. I've been there, I know that panic feeling. Responsible folks like you and me, we hate being faced with the idea of becoming one of "those people"--you know, one of those people who are behind on all their bills, owe everybody money, scrambling to keep the utilities turned on while putting food on the table, robbing Peter to pay Paul (creative credit card management--until the credit runs out). Without a paycheck, it seems that becoming one of "those people" is inevitable--yikes!

I left you what I hope were encouraging words, and I hope that you weren't offended by my comments because I'm going to basically give the same advice here again now, only in a lot more detail. (If I recall, the theme was "Think Outside the Box.")

First of all, "those people" are born that way, they are not created from simple financial misfortunes like getting laid off. Even if you fall behind on your bills--even if your electric gets shut off, your creditors have developed the persistent desire to speak with you on the phone, and you have to visit a food bank for groceries--you're not one of those people. You're just broke, that's all. A temporary condition and not one to be ashamed of. I've been broke. It sucks, but it does make you appreciate not being broke when you finally unbreak yourself.

I hope I don't sound insincere or condescending to give advice in this regard, since I do have a job. Easy for me to say your glass is half full when my glass is running over. But, as I see it, your glass is no where near empty, and I believe in your ability to fill it up again.

You're not the only friend of mine struggling to find a job, I have a few. And I always have the strangest feeling of envy when I think of your circumstances. Envy, yeah. Weird, huh? Remember, I said I've been there--earlier this year, in fact, I was laid off right after buying a new house for which I had spent all my savings on the down payment. So not only did I have a house payment to make now (a rather big one--twice as much as my rent had been), I had no cushion to fall back on to tide me over to another job.

Yeah, okay, envy wasn't what I was feeling then--I was freaking out!

For a week or two. Then I caught my breath and started to put together an emergency plan. I came up with several ideas to bring in some cash and/or reduce expenses, and I implemented those. I began the job hunt.

Fortunately, my job field has an excellent market in this city, so I was unemployed only a month, then it was back to work, vacation over.

Or unfortunately.

See, I'm not kidding when I say I envy you the position you're in--unable to access the easy road back to the land of the regular paycheck. Being forced to turn to other roads you otherwise would not take. I believe if you're not getting job offers in your field after, I don't know, some reasonable length of time, some number of interviews, then you probably don't have the right combination of things that you bring to the table to successfully compete with whomever else is out there getting those jobs. Continued effort and failure will only frustrate you more. Take a break. Change direction.

Scary part is over--lost the job, can't get another one, oh hell, I'm broke, oh shit!

Now comes the exciting part! You have nothing to lose! You get to start over and point yourself in any direction that makes your willy wiggle. You are not limited to opportunities listed in certain search keywords on Monster.com. You're not married to your resume.

If I had been unable to get my job back this spring after maybe two months (maybe three) of interviewing, I would have flushed my technical resume and pointed myself at editing/writing full time. I would have reduced my standard of living down to dirt-poor college student levels--no spending, no cable TV, no luxuries, no free time, no travel, etc. and altered my budget in various ways, such as renting out my spare bedrooms, selling my sports car and getting a clunker, canceling my cell phone, taking a low-pay PT job, etc. Maybe I would have even defaulted on some credit card debt or filed bankruptcy.

You're wondering why it was "unfortunate" that this didn't happen? Because I would have been a full time editor and writer. I would have found new, exciting literary opportunities and projects that I can't pursue now because of my regular job. I would have made new contacts in the literary and publishing world. I would have finished my novel--and being broke would have been a hell of an incentive to get that sucker sold! By this time next year, I bet you I'd be a little less broke. And even less the year after that.

As much as I want those things, would it be worth consciously sacrificing what I have now to be broke? Well...no....I'm so fond of spoiling myself and having money is much more fun than not having money...I would only have the opportunity to do this with my life if I had no choice, nothing to lose, nothing to give up in order to get it.

Or--you know, another thing I've always wanted to do is open a bookstore. Maybe that's what I would have done. Throw my every resource into opening a store, and then work my ass off to sell books!

But, you see, I'm tied to the safety net of a chubby paycheck. I will never get to try something new. I'll never find out whether the heart of a natural born bookseller/shopkeeper beats in my chest...gods help me, I'll probably never even finish the damn novel because my financial survival doesn't depend on it.

So ask yourself--what would you do if you could? And then figure out a way to do it because--you could!

I leave you with a true story:

There was a young man who learned to juggle in high school because he correctly saw this as a way to impress chicks. Soon all the girlies wanted him to teach them how to juggle, and lots of fellows did too. Juggling became such a habit for him that he carried juggling items around with him (bean bags, balls, whatever) and juggled just about any time his hands were idle. In college, he'd pass the time waiting for the professor to arrive in class by juggling.

Well, it would tend to draw attention, wouldn't it? So quite often the professor would find his students all clustered around the juggler in the back of the room as he showed the basic moves--this is how you do it, it's real easy once you get the rhythm.

Not wanting his informal juggling lessons to disrupt his classes, he typed up the basic juggling lesson, drew some crude illustrations, made copies, and began handing them to those who approached him about learning his clever skill.

The rest of the story should seem obvious by now. Soon, demand for his little instruction manual made him pause to consider...is there a basic "how to juggle" manual out there in print? Because he was finding that just about everybody "always wanted to learn to do that!"

So, yeah, he polished up his little booklet, researched the market enough to realize that he'd have to add something more to it in order to charge an amount that would be profitable, and he packaged the book, Juggling for the Complete Klutz, together with a set of three beanbags so that people would have everything they'd need to get started (assuming they had two hands).

The company became Klutz, and they offer hundreds of clever books, activities, and crafts, sold in stores but especially marketed through schools in book fairs and catalogs.

In our home, we have at least ten Klutz products, including Juggling for the Complete Klutz, which I bought for myself. (No, damn it, I have not mastered the skill yet--that's probably something else I'd have had time to do if I'd stayed unemployed!)

So what have you got? If the corporate world keeps saying "no thank you" to what you bring, what else you got, and who can you offer it to? You have something someone wants. You're funny? Hmm, I wonder how hard it would be to break into stand-up comedy...might not be as hard as you think, and wouldn't it be exciting to try? Got a sexy voice? I bet you'd get a kick out of doing voice overs and radio spots. Are you really good at teaching aerobics class or yoga? What if you could turn that into--opening your own gym and tanning salon? Put a spin on it, make it clever, unique. What have you got?

Made in America

This is a fascinating book I'm reading now: Made in America by Bill Bryson. I find it so compelling, I had to share some of it with you. You'll probably be bored with it, but if you're odd like me, enjoy.

First, this interesting lexical fact: Have you ever noticed the strange way we conjugate the verb "to be" in English? Specifically, the singular conjugation (past and present tense) of the verb is "is" and "was." That means, a pronoun that is singular will use the form "is" or "was" for this verb. "He is." "She was." "It is." The plural conjugation is "are" and "were." A subject that is plural uses these forms. "Y'all are." "They were." "She and I are." So you would expect that the conjugation of "to be" for the subject "you" (singular) would be "is/was." "You is." "You was." As you know, we use the plural conjugation for the "you" form, even when the subject is singular. "You are." "You were." Why do we do that?

Turns out, we once had another word for "you" which was singular, while "you" was itself strictly the plural form of the pronoun. The singular form was "ye." So the proper way to say "You are a goddess," was "Ye is a goddess." To pay the same compliment to a group of women, you'd say "You are goddesses." At some point, the word "ye" dropped out of usage and "you" became both singular and plural, but the habit of tying the plural form of the verb "to be" to the pronoun "you" stayed with us.

See what I mean? Is it quirky that I'm so turned on by information like this that I feel compelled to tell you about it? I know, I know, but maybe the rest of this will be of interest.

How America was born.

Between December 1606 and February 1625, Virginia received 7289 immigrants and buried 6040 of them. Of the 3500 immigrants who arrived during 1619-21, 3000 were dead at the end of that time period. To become a colonist in the New World was effectively to commit suicide.

For those who survived, starvation and terror was the lifestyle faced here on American soil. When the Indians discovered that the European colonists tended to repay the Indians' kindness with enslavement and hostile attacks on peaceful Indian villages, they grew rather surly. Being tomahawked in one's bed was a real fear the early Americans lived with. On Good Friday, 1622, an Indian chief sent delegates to some newly planted Virginia settlements, presented as a goodwill visit. Some of the Indians even sat down to breakfast with the colonists. Upon a given signal, the Indians seized whatever implements happened to come to hand and murdered every man, woman and child they could catch--350 in all, or about a third of Virginia's total population.

Twenty-two years later, in 1644, the same chief did the same thing, killing about the same number of people. By this time, the 350 deaths represented more a brutal annoyance than a bloody catastrophe, putting a mere dent in the colonists' population. What had changed in that twenty year span of time to assure our survival on this continent?

Tobacco.

It was a Spanish word, taken from the Arabic tabaq, signifying any euphoria-inducing herb. After a visit in 1565 to a French outpost in Florida, John Hawkins brought some tobacco back to England with him, where it caught on in a big way. Wonderful powers were ascribed to it. Smoking was believed to be both a potent aphrodisiac and a marvellously versatile medicine. Soon it was all the rage and people couldn't get enough. The barely surviving Virginia colonists began planting tobacco in the second decade of the seventeenth century, discovering to their joy that it grew abundantly. Suddenly, fortunes were being made in Virginia. That, combined with the persecution of the Puritans in England which drove them to settle in New England, secured the success and future of our nation.

Another lexical fact: the distinctive New England twang we hear in the accents of those from the northeast is said to be a descendant of the "Norfolk whine" of England, while the Southern drawl is attributed to the Sussex accent at its root.

And did you know there was a British war called the War of Jenkin's Ear which started when Spain cut off the ear of an English smuggler named Edward Jenkins?

Oh there's lots more cool stuff about the Revolutionary War, but I'll save it for another blog.

Throat Yogurt?!

Sometimes it becomes difficult to just "let go" of old relationships. As an example, read on about this guy who writes to his old beloved. It will bring tears to your eyes.

Dear Mandy:

I know the counselor said we shouldn't contact each other during our "cooling off" period, but I couldn't wait anymore. The day you left, I swore I'd never talk to you again. But that was just the wounded little boy in me talking. Still, I never wanted to be the first one to make contact. In my fantasies, it was always you who would come crawling back to me. I guess my pride needed that.

But now I see that my pride's cost me a lot of things. I'm tired of pretending I don't miss you. I don't care about looking bad anymore. I don't care who makes the first move as long as one of us does. Maybe it's time we let our hearts speak as loudly as our hurt. And this is what my heart says... "There's no one like you, Mandy."

I look for you in the eyes and breasts of every woman I see, but they're not you. They're not even close. Two weeks ago, I met this girl at the Rainbow Room and brought her home with me. I don't say this to hurt you, but just to illustrate the depth of my desperation. She was young, Mandy, maybe 19, with one of those perfect bodies that only youth and maybe a childhood spent ice skating can give you. I mean, just a perfect body. Tits you wouldn't believe and an ass like a tortoise shell. Every man's dream, right? But as I sat on the couch being blown by this coed, I thought, look at the stuff we've made important in our lives. It's all so surface. What does a perfect body mean? Does it make her better in bed? Well, in this case, yes. But you see what I'm getting at. Does it make her a better person? Does she have a better heart than my moderately attractive Mandy? I doubt it.

And I'd never really thought of that before. I don't know, maybe I'm just growing up a little.

Later, after I'd tossed her about a quart of throat yogurt, I found myself thinking, "Why do I feel so drained and empty?" It wasn't just her flawless technique or her slutty, shameless hunger, but something else. Some niggling feeling of loss. Why did it feel so incomplete? And then it hit me. It didn't feel the same because you weren't there, Mandy, to watch. Do you know what I mean? Nothing feels the same without you, baby.
Mandy, I'm just going crazy without you. And everything I do just reminds me of you. Do you remember Carol, that single mum we met at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church? Well, she drops by last week with a pan of lasagne. She said she figured I wasn't eating right without a woman around. I didn't know what she meant till later, but that's not the real story.

Anyway, we have a few glasses of wine and the next thing you know we're shagging in our old bedroom. And this broad's a total monster in the sack. She's giving me everything, you know like a real woman does when she's not hung up about God and her career and whether the kids can hear us. And all of a sudden she spots that tilting mirror on your grandmother's old vanity. So she puts it on the floor and we straddle it, right, so we can watch ourselves. And it's totally hot, but it makes me sad too. 'Cause I can't help thinking, "Why didn't Mandy ever put the mirror on the floor? We've had this old vanity for what, 14 years, and we never used it as a sex aid." (Some of this I thought about later.)

You know what I mean? What happened to our spontaneity? You get so caught up in the routine of a marriage and you just lose sight of each other. And then you lose yourself. That's the saddest part of all for me.
But I keep thinking we can get it back. I know we can, because I only want this stuff with you. Saturday, your sister drops by with my copy of the restraining order. I mean, Shannon's just a kid and all, but she's got a pretty good head on her shoulders. She's been a real friend to me during this painful time. She's given me lots of good counsel about you and about women in general. (She's pulling for us to get back together, Mandy. She really is.)

So we're drinking in the hot tub and talking about happier times. Here's this hot girl with the same DNA as you (although, let's face it, she got an extra helping of the sexy gene) and all I can do is think of how much she looks like you when you were 18. And that just about makes me cry.
And then it turns out Shannon's really into the whole anal thing and that gets me to thinking about how many times I pressured you about trying it and how that probably fuelled some of the bitterness between us. But do you see how even then, when I'm thrusting inside the steaming hot Dutch oven of your sister's cinnamon ring, all I can do is think of you? It's true, baby. In your heart you know it.

Don't you think we could start over? Just wipe out all the grievances and start fresh? I think we can. I keep thinking that I think if you'd just try it, I wouldn't have to pressure you so much. Because who needs all that bitterness, Mandy? It just tears us apart. And I can't be apart from you.
Because I love you, God help me but I do.

Seven Souls

The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.

Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren, the Secret Name. This corresponds to my Director; He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.

Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons. Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is third man out . . . depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense-but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go beck to Heaven for another vessel.

The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the Land of the Dead. Number four is Ba, the heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.

Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the western Lands.

Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.

Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains. I first encountered this concept in Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings and saw that it corresponded precisely with my own mythology, developed over a period of many years, since birth in fact.

Ren, the Director, the Secret Name, is your life story, your destiny-in one word or one sentence, what was your life about? Nixon: Watergate. Billy the Kid: Quien es? And what is the Ren of the Director? Actors frantically packing in thousands of furnished rooms and theatrical hotels: "Don't bother with all that junk, John. The Director is on stage! And you know what that means in show biz: every man for himself."

Sekem corresponds to my Technician: Lights. Action. Camera. "Look, boss, we don't got enough Sek to fry an elderly woman in a fleabag hotel fire. And you want a hurricane?" "Well, Joe, we'll just have to start faking it" "Fucking moguls don't even know what buttons to push or what happens when you push them. Sure; start faking it and leave the details to Joe."

Look, from a real disaster you get a pig of Sek: sacrifice, tears, heartbreak, heroism and violent death. Always remember, one case of VD yields more Sek than a cancer ward. And you get the lowest acts of which humans are capable-remember the Italian steward who put on women's clothes and so filched a seat in a lifeboat? "A cur in human shape, certainly he was born and saved to set a new standard by which to judge infamy and shame."

With a Sek surplus you can underwrite the next one, but if the first one's a fake you can't underwrite a shithouse. Sekem is second man out: 'No power left in this set" He drinks a bicarbonate of soda and disappears in a belch. Lots of people don't have a Khu these days. No Khu would work for them. Mafioso Don: "Get offa me, Khu crumb! Worka for a living!" Ba, the Heart: that's sex. Always treacherous. Suck all the Sek out of a man.

Many Bas have poison juices. The Ka is about the only soul a man can trust. If you don't make it, he don't make it. But it is very difficult to contact your real Ka. Sekhu is the physical body, and the planet is mostly populated with walking Sekhus, just enough Sek to keep them moving. The Venusian invasion is a takeover of the souls.

Ren is degraded by Hollywood down to John Wayne levels. Sekem works for the Company. The Khus are all transparent fakes. The Ba is rotten with AIDS. The Ka is paralyzed. Khaibit sits on you like a nagging wife. Sekhu is poisoned with radiation and contaminants and cancer. There is intrigue among the souls, and treachery. No worse fate can befall a man than to be surrounded by traitor souls.

And what about Mr. Eight-Ball, who has these souls? They don't exist without him, and he gets the dirty end of every stick. Eights of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your dirty rotten vampires: A hundred years ago there were rat-killing dogs known as "Fancies." A man bet on his "Fancy," how many rats he would kill. The rats were confined in a circular arena too high for a rat to jump over. But they formed pyramids, so that the top rats could escape. Sekhu is bottom rat in the pyramid. Like the vital bottom integer in a serial, when that goes, the whole serial universe gone up in smoke. It never existed. Angelic boys who walk on water, sweet inhuman voices from a distant star. The Khu, sweet -bird of night, with luminous wings and a head of light, flies across the full moon . . . a born-again redneck raises his shotgun. . . . "Stinkin' Khu!"

The Egyptians recognized many degrees of immortality. The Ren and the Sekem and the Khu are relatively immortal, but still subject to injury. The other souls who survive physical death are much more precariously situated. Can any soul survive the searing fireball of an atomic blast? If humans and animal souls are seen as electromagnetic force fields, such fields could be totally disrupted by a nuclear explosion. The mummy's 'nightmare: disintegration of souls, and this is precisely the ultrasecret and supersensitive function of the atom bomb: a Soul Killer, to alleviate an escalating soul glut.

~William Burroughs

I'm about to run amuck

This is not my usual blog, y'all, I'm sorry. I just have to rant and bitch a little bit today. You know, if I kept it all in all the time, I'd swell up like a bullfrog and explode. We wouldn't want that, now would we?

Every week I get quite a number of emails, either from strangers or from people on my friends list, emails of a particular kind that are pushing me to the limit of my tolerance. What kind of email is it, you ask, that would test the infinite patience of the most gracious and kind Tess? Obviously, I intend to tell you, just now.

An example of the kind of email I mean is like this: "Hey Tess, Are you having a good day? How was your weekend?" or sometimes it's "How are you today?" Toward the end of the week, it's "Hi Tess, Do you have any fun plans for the weekend?" This being the entire text of the email, in full. Putting me in the position of either ignoring the email, which is not in my nature as I don't like to be rude, or responding with answers to the mind-numbingly dull questions as briefly as possible, which again is rude and not my usual style, or responding with a gracious, detailed, conversational response complete with reciprocal questions regarding the well-being of the other person and the events of their weekend past or future.

I'm flattered and I do understand that these people send me these emails because they want to stay in touch, they want to know me, they want to chat with me. Thank you, that's very sweet. But if you don't have anything interesting to say to me, please don't expect me to say anything interesting back in response to your email! Don't put the burden on me to be polite and stimulating and creative and charming, all on my own! If your email is no more charming than "Hi, how was your weekend? How are you doing today?"--what do you want from me??

And if you're a man hoping to capture my attention and spark up a little sump'n-sump'n with me via MySpace, you must know you gotta try way harder than "Got any fun plans for the weekend?"

One would think that receiving a bland response such as "I'm fine, thanks. No fun plans. Take care." would discourage a person from writing again. Yet, I get the same email week after week from some! The following cycle repeated, week after week:

"Hi, how are you? Did you do anything fun this weekend?" "Hi, I'm fine. No I didn't do anything fun." "Hey Tess, how's it going?" "Hi, it's going fine." "Hi, are you having a good day? Do you have anything fun planned for this weekend?" "Hello, I'm having a good day. I don't have much planned for the weekend." "Hey, Tess, how are you?" "Hi, I'm fine." "Hi Tess, how was your weekend?" "Hello, my weekend was fine."

Does that not make you want to commit an atrocious crime? Does that not numb your mind with boredom to the point of having your brains melt and run out your ears?? Then why do we keep doing it, week after week?

If you want to send me a friendly email and tell me about your weekend, fine. I'll read it and if something inspires me to have a conversation, then perhaps we will correspond back and forth for a bit about what you said. Perhaps I will be inspired to share something of my own with you. Heck, it's even remotely possible, like maybe a fraction of a percentage point possible chance, that we might hit it off so well that I will begin foaming at the mouth and having convulsions over you and threaten to shave my head if you don't meet me right away.

But if you approach me with mundane, boring, generic, chitty-chat questions, please expect to be ignored. I'm thinking of putting together a form letter response, what do you think of this:

"Hi, I'm suicidal today, thanks for asking. I had a fun weekend, swallowed a live cricket. I plan on doing that again this weekend, if I have time. Thanks, /tess."

Goddess of Grace, Inspiration, and the Moon

Legend says that a goddess rides these hills, so swiftly that no horseman could catch her. To invoke her, you need only to call her name.

Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night and wouldn’t you love to love her?

Rhiannon is the Celtic goddess of the moon, a Welch goddess. Her name means “Divine Queen.”

Rhiannon’s myth tells that she was promised in marriage to an older man she found repugnant. She defied her family’s wishes that she, like other Celtic goddesses, would marry one of her "own kind."

Takes to the sky like a bird in flight and who will be her lover?

The goddess Rhiannon fell in love with the mortal Prince Pwyll and grew more restless and anxious as she considered her dilemma. It was bad enough to have displeased her family by turning away the warty old man they wanted her to marry, but to marry a mortal would get her banished forever. Many nights she walked, singing to the moon, calling out her heart’s agony, until she knew that she would have no peace unless he was hers.

Rhiannon appeared to Pwyll one afternoon while he stood with his companions on a great grass-covered mound in the deep forest surrounding his castle. These mounds, called Tors, were thought to be magical places, perhaps covering the entrance to the otherworld beneath the earth. It was thought that those who stood upon them would become enchanted, so most people feared and avoided them.

Indeed, as he stood in the magical place, the young prince was enchanted by the vision of a beautiful woman with flowing hair and midnight eyes, who was dressed in glittering gold as she galloped by on her powerful white horse. Rhiannon rode by without casting him even a glance. Pwyll was intrigued and enraptured, and his companions were understandably concerned.

All your life you’ve never seen a woman taken by the sky.

Ignoring the protest of his friends, Pwyll sent his servant riding his swiftest horse to catch her and ask her to come back to him. But the servant soon returned and reported that she rode so swiftly, it seemed her horse’s feet scarcely touched the ground and that he could not even follow her to learn where she went.

The next day, against his friends’ advice, Pwyll returned alone to the mound and, once more, the Celtic goddess appeared. Mounted on his horse, Pwyll pursued her but could not overtake her. Although his horse ran even faster than Rhiannon's, the distance between them always remained the same. Finally, after his horse began to tremble with exhaustion, he stopped and called out for her to wait. “Don’t leave me! Come back!” And Rhiannon did.

When Pwyll drew close, she teased him gently, “It would have been much kinder to your horse had you simply called out instead of chasing.” The goddess Rhiannon then let him know that she had come to find him, seeking his love.

Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Would you even try?

Pwyll welcomed this, for the very sight of this beautiful Celtic goddess had tugged at his heart and haunted his spirit. He reached for her reins to guide her to his kingdom. But Rhiannon smiled tenderly and shook her head, telling him that they must wait a year and then she would return to marry him. In the next moment, the goddess Rhiannon simply disappeared from him into the deep forest.

Taken by the sky.

She went home to appeal to her family, that they not cast her out for choosing a mortal husband. She begged them to see that she was not whole without him and that she would never be happy with any other. She told them how much she loved them all and that it would break her heart if they rejected her, but she would choose to be with him no matter what they decided. Very quickly, her mother’s heart was touched by the fire in her daughter’s eyes, and she admired Rhiannon’s courage. Over time, her father and the others were won over by her determination as well. They wanted only her happiness. They gave their blessing to Rhiannon, but told her that she could not return to the world of the gods if she chose the mortal path.

She rules her life like a bird in flight and who will be her lover?

Rhiannon did return one year later, dressed as before, to greet Pwyll on the Tor. He was accompanied by a troop of his own men, as befitted a prince on his wedding day. Speaking no words, Rhiannon turned her horse and gestured for the men to follow her into the tangled woods. Although fearful, they complied. As they rode, the trees parted before them, clearing a path, then closing in behind them when they passed.

Soon they entered a clearing and were joined by a flock of small songbirds that swooped playfully in the air around Rhiannon’s head. At the sound of their beautiful singing, all fear and worry suddenly left the men. Before long they arrived at her father’s palace, a stunning abode surrounded by a lake. The castle, unlike any they had ever seen, was built not of wood or stone, but of silvery crystal. Its spires soared into the heavens.

After the wedding, a great feast was held to celebrate the marriage of the goddess. Rhiannon’s family and people were both welcoming and merry, but the festivities were interrupted by drama from an unexpected source. The man Rhiannon had rejected began carrying on, shouting and arguing that she should not be allowed to marry outside her own people.

Rhiannon slipped away from her husband’s side to deal with the situation as discreetly as she could . . . using a bit of magic, she turned the persistent suitor into a badger and caught him in a bag which she tied closed and threw into the lake. Unfortunately, he managed to escape and vowed that Rhiannon would pay.

She is like a cat in the dark, then she is the darkness.

The next day Rhiannon left with Pwyll and his men to go to Wales as his princess. When they emerged from the forest and the trees closed behind them, Rhiannon took a moment to glance lovingly behind her. She knew that the entrance to the fairy kingdom was now closed and that she could never return to her childhood home. But she didn’t pause for long.

The goddess Rhiannon was welcomed by her husband’s people and admired for her great beauty and her lovely singing. Within two years, she delivered a fine and healthy son. As was the custom then, six women servants were assigned to stay with Rhiannon in her lying-in quarters to help her care for the infant. Although the servants were supposed to work in shifts tending to the baby throughout the night so that the goddess Rhiannon could sleep and regain her strength after having given birth, one evening they all fell asleep on the job.

When they woke to find the cradle empty, they were fearful they would be punished severely for their carelessness. They devised a plan to cast the blame on the goddess Rhiannon, who was, after all, an outsider, not really one of their own people. Killing a puppy, they smeared its blood on the sleeping Rhiannon and scattered its bones around her bed. Sounding the alarm, they accused the goddess of eating her own child.

Although Rhiannon swore her innocence, Pwyll, suffering from his own shock and grief and faced with the anger of his advisers and the people, did not come strongly to her defense, saying only that he would not divorce her and asking only that her life be spared. Rhiannon’s punishment was announced.

For the next seven years the goddess Rhiannon was to sit by the castle gate, bent under the heavy weight of a horse collar, greeting guests with the story of her crime and offering to carry them on her back into the castle.

Rhiannon bore her humiliating punishment without complaint. Through the bitter cold of winters and the dusty heat of four summers, she endured with quiet acceptance. Her courage was such that few accepted her offer to transport them into the castle. Respect for her began to spread throughout the country as travelers talked of the wretched punishment and the dignity with which the goddess bore her suffering.

Once in a million years a lady like her rises.

In the fall of the fourth year, three strangers appeared at the gate—a well-dressed nobleman, his wife, and a young boy. Rhiannon rose to greet them saying, “Lord, I am here to carry each of you into the Prince’s court, for I have killed my only child and this is my punishment.” The man, his wife, and the child dismounted. While the man lifted the surprised Rhiannon onto his horse, the boy handed her a piece of an infant’s gown. Rhiannon saw that it was cloth that had been woven by her own hands. The boy then smiled at her, and she recognized that he had the eyes of his father, Pwyll.

Soon the story was told. Four years earlier, during a great storm, the nobleman had been called to the field to help a mare in labor, when he heard the infant’s cries and found him lying abandoned. He and his wife took the baby in, raising him as if he were their own. When the rumors of the goddess Rhiannon’s fate reached his ears, he realized what had happened and set out at once to return the child to his parents.

Pwyll and his people quickly recognized the boy as Pwyll and Rhiannon’s son. The goddess Rhiannon was restored to her honor and her place beside her husband. Although she had suffered immensely at their hands, Rhiannon, goddess of noble traits, saw that they were ashamed and was filled with forgiveness and understanding.

“Oh no, Rhiannon,” you cry, but she’s gone. Your life knows no answer.

In some versions of the legend, Rhiannon was the Celtic goddess who later became Vivienne, best known as the Lady of the Lake. She was the Celtic goddess who gave Arthur the sword Excalibur, empowering him to become King in the legends of Camelot.

The story of the Celtic goddess Rhiannon reminds us of the healing power of tears, grace and forgiveness. The goddess Rhiannon is a goddess of movement and change who remains steadfast, comforting us in times of crisis and of loss.

Dreams unwind, love’s a state of mind.