The Imaginary Menagerie

Happy New Year

2010-12-25T06:06:00.001-08:00

Got up at 4:15 this morning after tossing about for a while. I decided I'd see where my wakefulness was leading me now and gave myself permission to be tired and cranky later on even though it's Christmas. Also, I get to take a nap later if need be after I make fudge.

Around 5:30, I got the urge to go walking, to see what the streets are like so early on Christmas. So quiet. No cars, no lights in people's windows. All the students have gone home for the holidays.

Got some pics of lights all blurry, my favorite. It's the way I remember seeing them, like they're in motion.

Also this shot of the moon. It looks like an old-timey photo. Most people have already forgotten her so soon after her big eclipse show.

Piano Horn

2010-04-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

“I can’t believe you bought a piano horn.”

She has a friend coming to town. They used to play air hockey at the arcade. The phone call is punctuated with laughter, sharp and big that rings through the bus.

“I’m trying to potty train Kamora and it’s a mission. I get her on the pot and she just wants to run around without any pants on! And I finally got her back and she stood in the bowl. Her feet in the bowl! I nearly died laughing!”

She is working two jobs, one as an intake coordinator at St. Vincent de Paul’s.

She leans past me and raps sharply on the window to catch the attention of someone standing on the street. She smiles and waves, pushing herself into the spaces of others. Another call, she is arranging a delivery of goods to be picked up for the WIC program.

I look up at one point and she is looking me dead in the eye, daring me to shush her.

Cool Socks and Writer's Block

2010-04-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of weeks, my novel writing has hit a snag. I cannot think of anything for my characters to do. They are trapped where I left them: approaching the city where the evil sorcerer is taking over the world, waiting for the woman trapped in the aerie to speak, and stumbling through the outskirts of Hell trying to find their way back to the fashion show. I am dutifully doing all the things I’m told to do at times like this, but now I am realizing that the snag is not in my book’s plot, but in my life.

When I sit down to write, I am overcome with a feeling of my own life’s paucity of details. Part of this is the result of a lifelong depression. Being depressed changes how we remember things. When you are depressed, you remember trends, moods and gists but details slide off into the abyss. So while I can remember having gone to Europe after college and to Indonesia before the break-up of my marriage, I haven’t been able to commit to memory the specifics that would locate a story I might tell.

Now, I am convinced that the human will gives us the wiggle room to change our brains and thus our lives. So, I’ve been working on focusing on the details. I figure that if the depressed mind doesn’t focus on details, then choosing to do so will help my brain to develop into a non-depressed one. And what I’ve realized is I’ve created a life that is, in fact, deprived of interesting details. Makes sense! I have a tendency to not remember details, so I don’t notice my life is bland and devoid of detail. (It’s not devoid of detail; I’m seeing loads of details now that I’m looking for them. I’m just incredibly bored with them. Do you really want to know the details of how I had to change my bus commute when the local bus system changed their lines? This was a serious issue! I’ve had to change my writing schedule! And add 20 minutes of walking to my day! Trader Joe’s is still accessible after work, but the produce market requires an additional walk of three blocks! So many details!)

And the most boring part of my detail filled day is my job. After six years of non-employment, I took the first decent job I was offered. And it’s really decent! Good benefits, easy commute (despite aforementioned bus change ~~catastrophe~~ opportunity) and the work is easy. Too easy. Bang-head-on-desk easy. And I have to hide myself because I’m a Berkeley person working for Republicans who “don’t’ believe in gay rights” and talk about Christianity all the fracking time. Which actually wouldn’t be so bad because they are still nice people in their own way (if you don’t tell them you’re gay), but I am really, really bored all day long because I am not doing what I’m supposed to be doing, which is writing the novel that won’t go anywhere.

Back when I was getting ready to look for my first job in six years (the word “girding” comes to mind) a dear friend of mine helped me to gain the right mindset. He reminded me that David Sedaris’ best work is about the weird ass jobs he’s held. I loved that! Of course! I could just take jobs that are weird and interesting and give me material to write about! This revisioning of the job search radicalized me and I sent out queries to all sorts of places I wouldn’t have otherwise. I still wish I’d been able to take the job of crowd photographer for the Oakland A’s, but by the time they called I already had a 40 hour, full bennies, corporate-wear administration job where I sit on my ass all day surfing the internet and looking busy.

Now with the Great Recession and the fact that I’m old enough I require health care, I don’t know if I can afford to take a bunch of weird part time gigs until I can figure out if health care reform really does allow me to be eligible for health care on my own. But I can try for a job where I can wear cool socks and not dye my hair while I occasionaly mention my ex-wife without having to call her a "friend".

And this is all a part of living the life of someone devoted to creating. Artists, writers, musicians, all people who create, must be sensitive to the world. We must create ourselves as beings who can receive the world as much as we can bear. Depression is so much a defense against too much world too soon with no safety in which to experience. It's a buffer against overwhelm. But to create, we must allow the world in.

Galoshes and Daisies

2010-01-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

Even more rainy today. And windy. I was panicked through the early morning with images of wet feet and my favorite black shoes ruined. Yes, this is the kind of fear my brain will wake me up for at 3 in the frickin’ morning! And I had to go through the whole song and dance to talk the terrified brain down to a point where it could get back to dreaming:

"Our shoes! They're gonna get ruined! We'll be standing at the bus and all the water will wash over our shoes and soak into the leather and it'll dry out and crack and they won't be pretty anymore! We gotta do something!"

“Now that’s a good point brain, but we can’t do anything about it now.”

“But I love those shoes.”

“The best thing we can do now is get the most sleep we can so we can make good decisions tomorrow.”

“But I should have gotten galoshes… I wanted to get galoshes… to wear to work, ones with daisies or stripes, not the polka dots, and I didn’t get them and now my favorite work shoes are going to be ruined, I should have gotten galoshes!...”

“Okay, take a breath, brain. It’s okay. We aren’t going to let that happen. We’ll wear the brown shoes.”

“They’re a little tight. And I don’t want them ruined either.”

“Then we’ll wear our casual shoes.”

“NOOO! I really like them.”

“How about the waterproof duck shoes.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea! We’ll wear the duck shoes and they will look funny with the penstripe slacks and we won’t jump in puddles but we could.”

“Okay, then. Ready to go back to sleep?”

“Yeah, I guess… But what about our lunch bag?! That’s going to get drenched and we have to carry the work shoes in it and then they'll be inside and get ruined!"

And so it goes for about an hour until negotiations conclude with an outfit of duck shoes and the new plastic grocery bag I got in Japantown (daisies!)along with a round of praise for the brain that is always looking out for me (and my shoes, apparently) especially at 3 in the morning.

In Your Face, Portland

2009-12-15T16:06:00.000-08:00

These last few days have been pretty heady for me. You see, I was born in Houston, Texas. Most folks who know me are quite flummoxed to learn that my natal city is in that great state. To them I say that this is the state of Molly Ivins and Ann Richards so you don’t have to act all surprised. I do not usually call myself a Texan having moved to the Great Left Coast when I was a mere kindergartener, but many Texans have assured me that I have well maintained my citizenship due to the fact that not only did I spend one month a year throughout my childhood in Texas, that one month was August. Also, my daddy taught me to make chili.

While being Texan used to carry a certain heady power over Europeans until George Bush screwed everything up - when I went to Europe in the 80’s, Americans were just as hated as they are now, but if you said you were from Texas, all doors opened for the small price of having to tell a few cowboy and injun stories… now, they will shoot you – being from Houston was always anti-climatic. Houston didn’t have the pop icon stature of Dallas or San Antonio, nor the hipster vibe of Austin. And although it has its megachurches, it lacks any FLDS ranches or Waco-cult style crazy. Say you’re from Texas and people ask if you own an oil rig. Say you’re from Houston and people just look at you funny.

But now, thanks to the election of Annise Parker, the first (openly) gay mayor of a top-ten city, I can finally get something other than vaguely pitying looks when I say where I’m from. I don’t have to describe the allure of 2.4 million square feet of blessedly air-conditioned shopping mall. Nor do I have to explain how Houston’s lack of zoning laws has enabled the city to have more than one skyline. And I don’t have to explain what an empanada is (although I still have to settle for just yearning for one.)

All I have to say is: In your face Portland. We are totally more major than you are.

Total Transformation

2009-12-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

I instigated a total transformation over my Thanksgiving weekend. It started out simply with an idea to move some furniture in my apartment. I had one room that had lost all function and another that had taken on too many functions – so I ended up never do anything in it. I thought that if I switched a sofa and a big overstuffed chair – moving each to the room it currently wasn’t in - I could make the non-room into a living room and create more space in the other room for meditation, exercise and art. Seemed simple enough.

And my stepfather was kind enough to help out. The fact that I’d asked him for help was a miracle and a huge step for me. My stepfather is a generous, kind man who was more than happy to oblige, but I am nervous about putting my needs out there, always sure they will look ridiculous and unimportant once I give voice to them and this seemed so frivolous. Starving children, war, greed, and I want to redecorate.

But I am learning how to deal with those silly thoughts and carry on. Bits of me jump up and down saying, “Don’t ask, they’ll laugh! They won’t like you for bothering them.” And I say, “Shhhh, if they laugh, we’ll laugh too, then ask someone else.”

My silly bits say, “This won’t do any good. It’s such a little change.” And I say, “Shhh, if it’s a small change, it’ll be easy and if it doesn’t change anything, nothing is lost.”

They whisper, “It’ll hurt.”

And I take all my silly bits in my arms and say, “Shhhh, little silly bits, life hurts and life is wonderful. We will get through it all together.”

***

I used to think of goals as something to achieve. You decided what you wanted and then broke down the necessary steps, did them in order and voila! you achieved your goal. But that’s not how the cool goals work. The cool goals are goals you can’t imagine. I want to love living. But I don’t know what that’s like. I’ve never particularly wanted to live. But when things get bad, I pull myself up out of the muck with the determination to figure this puzzle out. How does one love to live? I can’t break down the steps to this goal. I can just keep remembering this is what I want and keep choosing to do things that have a chance in hell of moving me towards this thing I cannot yet comprehend. The cool goals like this are dreams.

So we moved the furniture. The big chair, which I thought would be the problem, moved so easily we got cocky. Now all we had was the sofa and that had gotten into the room, so we could get it back out, right? We pushed and turned, tried it this way, turned it over and tried again. Maybe this way, push it up and then to the left. Take the casters off, now the closet door. And don’t worry about the wall. I have to patch the hole made when we moved the sofa into the room… Oh yeah, it was rather difficult to do that, wasn’t it? Funny how you don’t remember those things years later.

I spent Sunday moving about the furniture I had left, the stuff I could move on my own. I tried this arrangement and that. I finally admitted I just had to get rid of the old, huge, color t.v. and the too low coffee table that was really a leftover from an old, cheaply made futon set. I discovered that the drop-leaf table worked better on the other side of the room than where I’d planned because now I can sit at my easel or turn a few degrees and have a large flat space. I discovered that the side tables from my grandmother’s bedroom set make perfect little altars with drawers for holding replacement candles, incense, matches. And I learned that my teak standing screen looks amazing with my dracaena and big chair in front of it. I mean like really amazing, like I’m going to take a picture and submit it to a design blog ‘cause this can’t be my house can it?

If you had told me last week, “Just switch the sofa and the big chair and you will create a space of beauty that can serve your quest for a life well loved,” I would have said, “Well, it’s something to do anyway,” but I would not have believed you.

On Monday, I sat in my new beautiful room, candles lit, checking in with myself, whispering to my old gods and holding my desire in my hand like a precious gem. I could not imagine when I started this little project that I would end up with this room. I realized that this is the small favor I asked of my stepdad. This was the plan that seemed so unformed, frivolous, and potentially disastrous. I could not have imagined this room, could not have set this room as a goal. In a million years or randomly setting and achieving goals I would sooner write a King Lear than aim for this room. And yet, here I am in a place of my own making, one step closer to my dream.

Winter Wishes

2009-12-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

[The story behind the wish can be found here. Be warned. It'll take you *ages* to read because I write ~~too much~~ awesome.]

In the latest installment of Wishcasting Wednesday, Jaime Ridler asks, "What is your winter wish?"

I wish to keep dreaming.

The Worst Moment

2009-11-08T09:26:00.000-08:00

The worst moment for the caterpillar is when it's still munching leaves and is beginning to think, "Is this all there is? Do I really just want to crawl around all my life munching leaves? This sucks! This is a horrible life. I could be doing something else. I feel like I was meant for so much more than just this. But damnit! I can't imagine what I'd be. You know what? Frack this! I'm going to cocoon myself up and not have anything to do with this stinkin' world..."

Bad Sleep.

2009-10-27T09:39:00.001-07:00

Woke up at 2:30 – checked the clock because I suddenly needed to know how long I’d been sleeping. I’d heard something, a beep, a rustle, a collection of sounds that tried to wedge sense into my sleeping brain. And my brain - my ridiculous, anxiety-ridden brain - decided this situation required my immediate and conscious attention.

Running water? Outside? Someone running the garden tap at 2am. A homeless person has snuck into my yard to steal a bath. And he’d forgotten to charge his phone obviously because it kept beeping. He should use the patio outlet. He might need to make a call.

But I really couldn’t be woken up every night with this. I’ll have to install a lock on that gate. And then I’ll have to build up my fences because I could see the homeless people leaping over the fence to steal baths and have tea on my patio where they would play folk tunes on their guitars and laugh right outside my window.

All this work and distrust of humanity, and the horrible feeling that they would never let me sleep, only ridicule me for crashing their party. I’d fling open the window and yell obscenities in my half state of dreaming and all the homeless people would think I was such an asshole.

Then slowly, the sound of water rushing is resolved to be the wind in the trees. Just the wind. And the beeping becomes the random, rusty creak of something, like a hinge… I would figure out what it is, but the relief that I do not have to shame myself or go to the hardware store washes over me. All I need do now is fall back asleep.

Spider Mobile

2009-10-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I don't wash my car a lot. I like it that way. I like that a spider of some kind has chosen my passenger side mirror as a home. I take care of my car, giving it the oil changes and decent gas that it likes. I make sure it runs well, but I don't care if it's a little sticky with tree juice. (I'm lookin' at you Ulnus glabra.) I feel my car makes a statement about how we need to worry about what's on the inside and less about appearances.

And did I mention the spider who has chosen my mirror as a home? I love that. I don't drive much so mostly it eats bugs around my house, but occasionally I take it out to eat.

Anyway, today I came out to find another spider had taken up residence. This one was an orbweaver, Arcaneus diadematus, otherwise known as the common garden spider. These guys are amazing. They build the really beautiful webs and eat annoying bugs all day. They are better than raid. I've run comparison tests. They don't bite and anyway, you always know where they are because they hang out in the very center of their enormous webs.

To make this web, the spider had to drop three anchor lines from the phone cable about 30 feet up. The rest of the anchor lines were on my car. Before I left my house, I carefully detached the web and moved it to a nearby camelia bush.

Wishing in the House of Yes

2009-10-21T09:10:00.001-07:00

For this week, Jaimie Ridler's Wishcasting Wednesday is all about the Yes. What am I saying yes to? Is it something I want? Am I saying yes out of a habit of pleasing other people? Or am I getting to what I really, truly want?

I've started working with an amazing writing coach, Jane Anne Staw, and am finally saying yes to feeling good as I write. No more waiting to feel good if I get a good response! No more waiting to feel good once I master some trick of the craft! No more waiting to feel good!

Sorry cats! The door stays closed even with all the pathetic scratching. (Poor neglected babies, you'll have to wait to get your fancy treats and head rubs, oh dear!) The phone? Off. Email? Off. FB? Off. Any tweets I hear will be from actual, living birdies.

So a big, sloppy Yes! to writing as play!

Luxurious

2009-09-24T09:12:00.001-07:00

What the heck is Luxury anyway?

One of the issues I deal with as I continue to ~~kick depression in the teeth~~ grow into the wholeness of my being is reward. In depression, nothing is rewarding. Neurologically, nothing produces a nice shot of dopamine. Nothing resets the parasympathetic nervous system to healing mode. Nothing feels good. You keep aiming for your North Star but every achievement feels just as shitty as failure so why bother going to all the effort to keep steering when you can get the same mediocre buzz from a decent episode of True Blood?

I have to teach myself how to feel reward. I’m only just realizing how bad I am at rewarding myself. One of the reasons I don’t recognize reward is that I immediately describe it as a failure of my own moral fiber. The feeling of luxury becomes the feeling of selfish indulgence. I could be bettering myself! I could be achieving my goals! But instead I’m doing something that, gasp, just feels nice!

This has to stop. We need down time. We need to exhale in order to inhale. We need rest in order to thrive. Recently, I caught myself framing my experience negatively and chose to reframe it as reward. I just wanted to see what this might be like. The result was pretty cool.

Which would you rather live?

I haven’t been taking care of myself. Since I got back from Michigan, I haven’t cooked the food I know makes me feel better. I keep trying to write, but end up watching bad television on Hulu while constantly looking at Facebook and Twitter, checking email. And then last weekend, despite all my intentions to write, I ended up spending Sunday reading a fantasy novel.

-or-

I have been taking care of myself despite being under the weather since returning from Michigan. I haven’t been hungry at all, some kind of bug?, and this has presented certain challenges to getting enough protein. I haven’t been up to cooking hot meals, so instead I’ve worked to eat healthy snacks. I realized that after a week in Michigan, I’d jumped right back into work. No time off to reflect or recover, no time to adjust for jet-lag. This weekend was the first opportunity I have had to do nothing. Or mostly nothing. I still managed two loads of laundry, and I took out all the trash. But for the most part, all I did was blissfully read a fun novel, the first time I’ve done that in three years thanks to the reading glasses I bought in Michigan. How wonderful to have a beautiful Sunday afternoon just to read. Luxury.

Wishing to Stretch

2009-09-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Jaime Ridler's Wishcasting Wednesday for this week is: What do you wish to stretch?

I believe that we don't always know what all we might be. Right now each of us is huge and myriad and strange and wondrous, but we’ve been taught to be finite. We are constantly pressing our infinitely intricate and miraculous existences into a definition. And everything and everyone we meet is also more than we are willing to imagine. This can be a terrifying notion, but it can also be an exhilarating one. It can make us fearful so that we lash out at anything that might tear down the illusion of our certainty, or we can choose to be grateful that we never, ever need to be bored.

I wish to stretch my ability to exist joyfully. I wish to stretch my perception of myself and in doing so give others space to stretch their own. I wish to stretch my ability to listen to others that I may better know this crazy, mixed-up universe I call home.

Wishing to Begin

2009-09-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

Jamie Ridler throws a Wishcasting Wednesday every week on her creativity blog. This Wednesday her question for all of us is: What do you wish to begin?

Beginnings are such precipitous moments. They are changes of direction carrying all those unexpected thrills and risks. Too often, I zone out right at the beginning of things seeking somehow to escape responsibility for what may happen by pretending I'm "letting the universe decide my course." But abnegating my responsibility for my own life drains me of creativity - you need to own your choices to create - so first and foremost I wish to begin paying attention to beginnings!

I wish to begin a regular practice of creating art. In my family, my sister was always the artist and I was the intellectual. Well, I can be intellectual and create art so there! I can even do it at the same time if I wanna. Okay, that was so not an intellectual way to say that. See, I’m already beginning!!! (And just for the record, my sister can be a fabulous artist and an intellectual as well! Screw you, family boxes!)

And finally – for now – I wish to begin a journey of transforming the loneliness in my life into love and connection. I save the best for last. I grew up terribly lonely and alone. I used to be angry about this feeling that life and family had let me down. It’s good to be angry for a while about childhood things that scarred, but eventually we gotta move on. So I’ve learned some stuff about loneliness and I can use that knowledge to recognize loneliness in others. And because I have stood up for myself, because I’ve been angry at the way a little girl was left on her own too much with no mentoring or encouragement, I am moved to do what I can to alleviate that need in others.

So, what do you wish to begin?

All Is Well

2009-08-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

My Google Reader sometimes tells me "what's hot" in the blogs. I'm sure the blog entries are selected because of "trending" and various other Google determinates of meaning and relevance, but to me it's more a random sample. I often have to struggle to determine the context of the blog, what does it mean to the blogger, what meaning are they attempting to punt across the vastness on the internet to this reader they've never met?

One of the blog entries I got today seemed pretty boring at first. Just some blurry pictures of some folks on a hike. Nice view, but no discernable point except the tantalizing phrase "all is well". Why would that be in question for such a hike with friends?

But looking over the blog itself and the biography of the blogger, the reason for the blurry photos becomes clear as does the medical gloves covering the arm. The place of the hike is implied as is the reason for the large crowd and the small gesture, and in the end, I found myself touched to realize how happy I am for these people that yes, all is well.

Check it out.

Love for the Sea Turtles

2009-08-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

Say what you will about the human species. I know we do horrible things on a scale other species can only dream of.

We're also the only species that would think of making a prosthetic flipper for a sea turtle.

Seriously. This kind of thing makes me feel good about being human.

Captain Kangaroo vs. Rorschach

2009-07-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

There's a veritible firestorm brewing between psychologists all over the world and Wikipedia. In June, Dr. James Heilman* posted pictures of all 10 original inkblots along with the most common answers given for each. Psychologists are up in arms because they think that one of their beloved tests has been rendered completely useless. Now anyone can just memorize the "right" answers and fake being sane.

This is Rorschach Inkblot #4. To me, this looks like a giant mutant kangaroo jumping into battle with guns ablazing. I think he's adorable. His gruff but wisecracking exterior hides the inner pain he still feels from the loss of fellow mercenary, killed in battle saving Captain Kangaroo's life (the children's show was such a whitewash job.)

And hey! Turns out I am completely sane or at least totally normal because one of the most common responses to this ink blot is "massive animal." Whew. And here I've been worried about my mental health!

While the images are being kept up at Wikipedia, the inclusion of a list of most common answers is being deleted and re-entered in an edit battle. Here are the most common answers for each ink blot:

Plate 1 (bat, butterfly, moth)
Plate 2 (two humans)
Plate 3 (two humans)
Plate 4 (animal skin, massive animal)
Plate 5 (bat, butterfly, moth)
Plate 6 (animal hide, skin, rug)
Plate 7 (human heads, faces)
Plate 8 (pink: animal)
Plate 9 (orange: human)
Plate 10 (blue: crab, lobster, spider)

Now memorize these in case you are ever tested. And don't say I never did anything for you because I just saved you some time in the big house.

*Dr. Heilman is from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. That's just about the greatest thing about the whole situation. Ah, the power of these glorious tubes, that an emergency room doctor from Moose Jaw could single handedly bring down the greatest comic book ~~psycho nutjob~~ hero of all time.

Creative Distance

2009-07-21T10:23:00.001-07:00

If you want that a-ha moment, where you suddenly see a completely different way of solving a problem, think first about someplace far, far away. It's more than a metaphor, distance can actually help you be more creative. Just thinking about a distant place will change how you think about whatever problems you are dealing with. Try it next time you're stuck.

For more, read the Scientific American article here.

HOLLAND PREPARES TO YIELD TO ALLIES

2009-07-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

I was trying to find an article I recently read in the New York Times describing Holland's tax system. I searched the NYT for "Holland" and got 10,000 hits. On page three I find the following article:

HOLLAND PREPARES TO YIELD TO ALLIES
Holland, on the eve of her shipping being taken over by the United States and Great Britain, has given evidences of a readiness to make a voluntary agreement to that purpose, even agreeing that the ships shall be sent through the war zone.

I'm like, what the hell? Then I read the date:

March 17, 1918

Did you know you can search the ENTIRE New York Times?

The Ungainly Woman

2009-06-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

There’s a woman who sometimes waits for the bus at my stop, going home from work. A while back, I watched her be humiliated by two other passengers: an older woman with white hair wearing a pale blue gingham dress, and a woman in her forties who got on a couple of stops after we did.

The bus was crowded and the second woman called out over the heads on the intervening passengers.

“Good afternoon to you grandmother! How are you getting on today,” said the younger woman. And yes, she spoke in this high falutin’ way, just like that, overly conscious of propriety.

“I’m doing fine except this fat ass sat down next to me without even saying excuse me,” said the older woman.

Then the younger one turned to the woman I wait with and scolded her in a loud voice. The woman she was sitting next to had been a nurse in a war, or a marine, or something. She deserved respect.

“Who do you think you are just sitting down next to her without saying excuse me. You tell her excuse me right now!”

And the older one is spewing out a string of “sat her fat ass right down” and “young people rude today”.

My bus-stop woman is quiet. She nods her head and tries to look invisible, but too late. They have put their gps on her and will now hound her for the sport of it. So pretty soon, before they have a chance to escalate this much further, she turns to the old lady muttering “fat ass,” and says, “excuse me” in a surprisingly sincere voice, like she really does believe them and thinks she should have been more polite, like she is already beginning to kick herself inside for not being more polite. She is remembering lectures in third grade about knocking other kids down on the playground and feels she should have known the passenger sitting next to her wouldn’t want her there. She should have said excuse me without being told and so she says it a second time just be sure.

And I fell in love with her then, just to watch her and understand her, with her ungainly ways, her lumbering walk, and the way her large, honey-colored eyes bulge out and make her look belligerent and about to say mother-fucker, the way her whole face has a slapped together look like it's made out of clay that is beginning to slide off, and how when anyone talks to her, she answers in a rough, low-pitched voice that apologizes and laughs at herself all at once.

So today, I left work and saw the bus already coming, and I ran, trying to be careful crossing the two streets at the intersection, all in my new shoes with the tiny heels. And when I got to the stop, there she is. I look back and see a second bus a block further and a distance I wouldn’t have had to run for.

I say, “Oh, I run for the bus and there’s two coming! But at least the first one is empty!” and turn to her smiling.

She laughs and barks out, “Oh yeah, I hate getting the full ones.”

We smile together and find our seats, on either side of the aisle, each with our own little row of space in the otherwise empty bus.

Xena is still awesome

2009-06-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

The real difference and prop 8:

Secret Seahorse Wishes

2009-05-22T19:48:00.001-07:00

Seahorses are so strange and wonderful. Personally, I think they look more like dragons than horses. They are best known for the fact that the female deposits her eggs in the male to be gestated, but my favorite thing about them is their eyes, which move independently of each other. Seahorses possess two of my secret desires: the ability to breathe underwater and prehensile tails.

Musings of a Hard Polytheist

2009-05-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

We are like cats to them.
Sometimes they euthenize us,
sometimes they just pick us up
and move us to the next room.
If you think a god is likely
to do the former,
try to escape the apartment
and find one that will pet you
and feed you the good food.
If you pee on their furniture,
they will get angry.
Don't assume you know
what their furniture looks like.
If you find a god that really tries
to understand things from your
limited point of view and helps
you be generally happy in this life,
love them with all your heart.

101 Roto Monkeys

2009-04-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Marcel Duchamp was a very cool artist. He created these fun "rotoreliefs" [click on the spinning wheel to see all twelve]. As they spin, the eye sees the images in 3-d.

There's something hundred monkey about the whole thing because Duchamp discovered this effect through art at the same time that scientists were discovering it using scientific method.

Penguin Sci-Fi

2009-04-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

If you love speculative fiction as much as I do, check out Penguin Books' page on the history of their science fiction publications. The site opens with a wonderful collection of old covers. Click on one for more information about the book. Once inside, you can click on "Contents" to get to the beginning of the narrative.

At The Tea Shell

2009-04-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Kim was there with the old mermaids
sipping from a cup at the tea shell

From the Church of the Old Mermaids.

Landscape

2009-04-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve stumbled across the word “landscape” three times in the last 24 hours. Being a synchronicity expert, I immediately noticed the red flag this trifold occurrence had planted in my awareness.

1) In this review of The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hitchings, Ben Yagoda mentions in passing that the word “landscape” was one of a number of words borrowed in the 17th century from the Dutch by English admirers of artists such as Brueghel and Rembrandt. (One can also reasonably infer that “etch-a-sketch” is ultimately traceable to this very same period.)

2) I ran across an online copy of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese and found that it had not been overplayed. It made me cry again. One of the lines that caught my eye this time was:

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes

The use of the plural made me think that a landscape is really the conjunction of a natural (or not) place and a viewer. Any place (and for some reason when I get to this point in Wild Geese I always imagine the badlands of South Dakota ) can hold within itself an infinity of landscapes. And because a landscape includes a particular vantage point, it necessarily separates us. We each see a slightly different landscape even though we are standing right next to each other. Landscapes exist because we are separate and sharing a world at the same time.

3) And finally, I found the word (landscape) in a John Ashbery poem, The Bungalows, in the provocative line:

the presumed landscape and the dream of home

Since I’ve only just read this Ashbery poem (and his poems require several readings for you to fully realize how much you don’t know what they mean) I’ll only point to the imagery of architecture in the landscape and the repeated juxtaposition of past and future, young and old, and the meaninglessness of staying still. The movement necessary for meaning also makes meaning impossible. To view a landscape, one must remain still, freeze the point of view in a frame. When you move (live) you become part of the landscape viewed by someone else (g*d?).

Edward Heron-Allen

2009-04-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

Edward Heron-Allen

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/heronallen/index.htm

Interests include: Violins, Palmistry, Persian Texts, Selsey, Esoteric Fiction, Asparagus, Barnacles

Twits

2009-03-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

I'm really interested in Twitter. I don't know how to make it work for me, but I'm not giving up. I just subscribed to Downing Street's (British Prime Minster's residence) and got this:

"At the Embassy Residence, Rabbi Schneier gives PM a silver honey pot in the shape of an apple in thanks for work tackling poverty."

Yes. Praise a leader for helping the hungry by giving the guy a useless piece of shiny silver shaped like food. That's either diplomatic studity or a magical working.

Favorite Present

2008-12-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

My favorite Yule present this year is "The Lump of Coal" by Lemony Snicket. From the back cover:

"Miracles can happen, even to those who are small, flammable, and dressed all in black."

Thunder Snow

2008-12-26T09:39:00.000-08:00

I just got back from St. Louis. I'm from the Bay Area. What do I know of weather. Weather.com said that there would be "freezing rain" when I landed.

Freezing rain.

Snow sounds soft and fluffy. Sleet sounds kinda neat. Freezing rain just sounds miserable. And it is. You get immediately wet. The stuff comes pre-melted and wastes no time powdering the new down coat you hoped would be enough. Freezing rain slaps you in the face like a wet towel before burrowing in at the wrists and neck and *then* it freezes.

As I parked at the hotel, the radio guy warned that later that night we might get some thunder snow.

Fortunately, I was asleep by then.

A Spell for Electoral Madlibness

2008-10-29T18:13:00.000-07:00

First you draw the __[noun]__ then you say
__[expletive]____ ___[proper noun]_____ .

Hold the ___[noun]___ and ____[verb]____
Stand on your ___[body part]__
Say ____[magic words]___

lawsuit
jeezy-creezy
Mr. President
constitution
actually read it
habeus corpus
There's no place like 1/21/09.

Your turn.

Why I'm not an Olympic athlete

2008-08-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

If I were to hear the theme from Jaws when I got into the pool, I'd look around for the fin signaling the approach of my death. When Heather Petri, a member of the US water polo team, hears this music, she feels like a shark.

The Chinese Olympic organizers thought it would be a kick to play the theme song at the beginning of each polo match.*  Petri rather likes the touch:

“It kind of fires me up. I feel like a shark.”

And that's why she's an Olympian and I'm not.

*They also have an old lady who goes around the beach volleyball courts to catch the moths that gather at the night games.  She is called Ms. Bug Catcher.

Triple Expedite

2008-08-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

There's a theory in some circles that you insure the gods will come through on a request by withholding the offering until after the goods are delivered. This is more true in Christianity and Hoodoo than general modern paganism. Go to Italy and you may see an old woman spitting and cursing a statue of Mary. The local priest will pass this off. "Of course she curses the statue. Her daughter still is not pregnant." A friend of mine once gave a prayer to Saint Expedite, but she made the mistake of giving him the flowers and pound cake before she got the really cool job. When the job went to someone else, the local hoodoo expert asked her, "Why would Expedite work for the job when he already has his cake?" Magical prayer can be a lot like high-school sex.

***

Last week I lost my bank card. I only lost it for an hour, but that was enough time for me to call the bank and cancel the card. I had to write checks and go without online book purchases for a week. And did you know that Whole Foods does not take checks? I only found that out after I'd unloaded my cart onto the checkout conveyor belt. I let the clerks reshelve my organic golden beets and gluten-free pasta.

Life was going to be a bit rougher for the next few days.

But then I had a brilliant idea. On Friday as I said my morning prayer to Hermes, I realized I could ask him to help. Hermes is a god of business transactions. He makes sure things move. In the divine commerce of gods and men, Hermes delivers the smoke of incense and offerings to Olympus along with praises, prayers and the list of victorious athletes and playwrights. Hermes made the jump to Christianity as Saint Expedite, the patron saint of express mail. My request for a timely arrival for my debit card seemed right up his alley.

I'm not very good at asking for help, and indeed this request seemed a little frivolous. I believe that if you have food, shelter and basic health, the gods figure you are doing just fine. Asking for my new debit card to arrive in a timely fashion so that I could return to my heightened American level of consumption seemed, well, let's just say I would understand if Hermes just rolled his eyes when he heard my prayer.

I told the King of the Rustlers that I understood my request was small, but that it was also a simple thing for a god as great as Hermes. This sounds sycophantic written out in a modern context, but in prayer it's just fact. I told the Many Twisting One that if I got my card that day, I'd pour him a libation and sing his praises at the upcoming theoxenia, a public Hellenic ritual. This second offering was given with a fair amount of dread as I'd been hoping to avoid attending this particular ritual based on past experience.

The card did not arrive.

Well, I thought, I dodged that one. I may not have my bank card, but I also don't have to go to that ritual.

By Saturday morning, however, I decided to try the prayer thing again. There were these really tasty gluten-free protein bars I wanted and the only place that carried them was an online site that charged $4.95 for processing check payments.

I made the same offering to sing the Whisperer's praises at the theoxenia and then remembered that the date of the ritual conflicted with something I really wanted to do. I was torn. If the card showed up on Saturday, rather than having dinner with friends I rarely see, I'd be stuck sitting in someone's living room eating bad potluck and trying to block out the screams of the high priest's hyperactive children.

Thinking quickly (praise Wingfooted Hermes) I amended my prayer. Scratch that earlier offer, I told the god. Instead of singing your praises at the theoxenia, I'll write a piece about you on my blog.

The private libation was still in play. That means I'll have to buy some honey and perhaps a nice Cabernet with the bank card that came in the mail later that day.

I also have to write this blog. The bad ritual would have been torture for an evening, but having to write something carries a higher price. You'll note I haven't written a blog entry in quite a while. It's hard for a writer when the act of writing makes the brain switch into depressed mode. I can journal everyday, but when I write something at all creative, especially something I want people to read, I have a tendency to spend the next few days hating on myself. I have to watch myself for health reasons. This high-risk writer's block is also something I want to overcome so that I can write again. Hermes held out for the more significant offer using the small thing--for him such an easy, simple bit of work--to garner the more difficult offering. More difficult, but also exactly what I needed.

So here's to you, Thrice Great Hermes, Glad-hearted and Glorious. Thank you.

Samuel Johnson to Bush and Hastert

2006-10-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

Clive Wilmer is celebrating the poet Samuel Johnson over at Carcanet Press. I find it both strangely disturbing and reassuring to know that great minds of the past have struggled with the same trends and issues that we do today. Here's something for the lesser minds in government today from Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes

LET Observation with extensive View,
Survey Mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife,
And watch the busy Scenes of crowded Life;
Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate,
O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate,
Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous Pride,
To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide;
As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude,
Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good.
How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice,
Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice,
How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppress'd,
When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request.
Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th'afflictive Dart,
Each Gift of Nature, and each Grace of Art,
With fatal Heat impetuous Courage glows,
With fatal Sweetness Elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the Speaker's pow'rful Breath,
And restless Fire precipitates on Death.

Oompa Loompa Pygmy Hippies

2006-09-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

When I was a young child I was told three things about hippies by my rather conservavtive grandfather: 1) they had long hair, 2) they said "peace" a lot while waving their fingers in the peace sign formation, 3) they wanted to steal your money and make you one of them.

This was enough to make me fear hippies. In my 4 year old mind, I was convinced for some reason that hippies could seep up through the corner between the floor and the wall. With the iron clad logic of that age, I determined my best course of action was to make my older sister sleep on that side of the bed. Me, I wanted to be able to run right into my mom's rooms to escape the evil hippies.

Roald Dahl didn't seem to have a fixation on hippies. His original oompa loompas were African pygmies. These were changed to hippies by his publisher seeking to avoid controversy:
http://www.mrbalihai.com/goof/literature/

Japanese Hooters and Toilets

2006-09-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

My good friend, Tree Cat, tells me the Japanese know their toilets. They've gone beyond the bidet to include massage seats and a bunch of other stuff. Now they've added MP3 players. http://www.popgadget.net/2006/08/mp3_toilet.php

The Japanese also know how to do Hooters with style:
http://anenglishmaninosaka.blogspot.com/

I'd like the melons, the coconuts and a cup of tea, please.

Pidget

2006-09-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

This is what I live with...

Andre Cypriano

2006-09-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

Amazing photographs of Brazil. Black and white, etherial, haunting, editorial, heart rending, breath taking.
http://www.andrecypriano.com

Ghost Stations

2006-09-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

I went to Europe a long time ago, right before the fall of the Wall. Got to go through Checkpoint Charlie and have a bunch of my hard earned money turned into valueless East German dollars. The Berlin underground was built before the wall went up with some of the stations ending up on the wrong side. These became ghost stations. Unused and cobwebby with a single armed guard stationed at the information booth. Trains didn't stop. Since the Wall came down, these stations are being used again. Eventually I'll go back to Berlin and get off at one just because it's possible again.

The London Underground is a marvel. It's a world unto itself. If you ever go to London buy an A-Z (pronounced "A to Zed") and a day pass. There are ghost stations here too, but for other reasons. Here's a site about those:

http://underground-history.co.uk/front.php

Oh Superman

2006-07-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

The thing about gods is that they can look cruel no matter how "good" they are. I just saw Superman Returns last night. It made me so sad. It's one of the most personal portrayals of Superman I've ever encountered. He's definately a Christ figure, but not because he's a god or the Son of God. Simply because he has this tremendous ability to help others. In the movie you see him flying up to the stratosphere where he can hear the cries of all the people who are suffering at the moment. He must chose the one act out of all the possibilities to fix. Lois Lane at one point tells him that humans don't need a savior and he brings her up there and says, "but so many are calling for one". Ultimately, we find out that he understands his mission in life to that of inspiring others to work out their problems on their own.

This mission is contrasted to a few quick scenes that show us Superman as a boy first gaining some of his abilities. He's leaping over the cornfields of Kansas and you can just see how much fun this would be. Imagine being 10 years old and being able to leap hundreds of feet in the air. What fun! What innocent fun! Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all just stay in that joyful moment.

But of course, we can't. At some point we recognize the pain around us and within us and we have to make choices about it. Do we ignore it and keep jumping for our own joy? Do we become twisted and hateful, seeing other people as the problem - as Lex Luthor sees Superman? Oh, there's a wonderful scene near the end where dashing, civilized Lex shows us exactly what he learned in prison. Ah, life is prison, how do we let that shape us?

Or do we decide to act, knowing that by doing so, we are denying all the other possibilities in that moment?

And for most people, the first two options are the most understandable. The child is equally denying everyone of help. The villian is expressing our most shameful feelings. But Superman is actively denying help to the suffering because he chooses to help at all. And to all those he didn't swoop down and save in the nick of time, he appears very cruel indeed.

Where the Sun goes

2006-06-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

Archaeologists have found an prehistoric earthwork in Wales they believe was the inspiration of Stonehenge. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/06/22/tomb_arc.html

From the article:
"It’s as if the builders of Stonehenge were translating an interest in the sunrise from a centuries-old burial tradition to a new religious tradition," said Burrow. "I think (the mound) tells us something about where the builders of Stonehenge got their inspiration. Bryn Celli Ddu is the only other monument in Britain to have a midsummer sunrise alignment."

Isle of Avalon

2006-06-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

As a practicing Pagan with an academic background, one of my greatest laments is that there are so few good books out there on Paganism. So when I find a well-researched book on a Pagan topic, I like to tell people about it.

Nicholas R. Mann's "Isle of Avalon" [Green Magic Press] is a spiritual exploration of the area around Glastonbury Tor, one of the sites considered to be a forerunner of the mythical Avalon of Arthurian legend. Mann grounds his work in modern archeology and historical understanding, but he interprets things with an eye to the religious and spiritual practices of nature-based worship. He is careful to note when he is speculating and lets the merit of his conclusions rest in the reader.

It is quite a task to integrate the Matter of Britain, the collection of legends and history that form what Mann calls "a charter for [British] nature, unity, spirituality, sovereignty, and ultimately for their destiny." That's a big job, but as Mann shows, the Matter of Britain is up to the task. And not just for the British either, but for everyone who has read the tales of the Mabinogi and King Arthur and felt a pull to something deeper than mere tales. Through the history of Glastonbury, from its beginnings in prehistory through its Christianization, Mann integrates the huge range of time and practice showing an approach to the material that allows modern readers to use this history to move forward.

This book is well written, well researched, and exhaustive in its coverage of the history and myth of the Tor.

Monks on the rampage

2006-06-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

Libanius was a Classical orator who lived before, during and after the reign of Emperor, the last Pagan Emperor of Late Antiquity. In his Oration XXX, For The Temples, he writes to Emperor Theodosius regarding bands of monks who coursed through the countryside “like rivers in spate.” Their destruction was not only of the physical temples and shrines that dotted the countryside, but also of the people's relationship with the land.

“…by ravaging the temples, they ravage the estates, for wherever they tear out a temple from an estate, that estate is blinded and lies murdered.”

The kinds of practices we see in peoples who have maintained their contacts with the gods of their land are sustainable. I can only imagine that the kind of terror Libanius describes was the start of the Western way of dealing with the environment.

Bonnie Rideout

2006-06-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere, I think in Patricia Monoghan's beautiful book Red Haired Girl From The Bog, that Irish music expresses two feelings, grief and joy. Regardless of where I got this idea from, you should do two things, read Pat's book and know that this is true.

And if you don't believe me, check out Bonnie Rideout. She's a fiddler. In one song of hers, she will break your heart and make you dance with happiness. And all you have to do is listen.

X-Men so sad

2006-06-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

I used to be a buyer for a comic book store, which is why I hate comics. I love the medium, in fact, it is my favorite storytelling medium. It allows for all the unmarked story elements of prose, many of film, plus there are some really amazing thing you can do with the sequential art. It is a highly compact medium, being able to tell a complex story is a fraction of the length of prose, much less film (consider that it took a mere 4 comics to tell the story of the first X-Men movie and there are 100's of X-Men comics.)

For the most part, the X-Men movies have been an exercise for me in seeing what can and cannot be converted from comics to film. Jackman's Wolverine was a nice surprise that made the whole thing bearable. By far my favorite parts of all three films has been seeing the mutants, whose powers I am embarrassingly familiar with, in motion. Wolverine claws moving under his skin, Colossus' armor flowing over his body. This had been balanced by the ridiculous, a sequence showing first Storm and then Jean Grey using their powers indicated by their blank stares at the out of scene blue screen.

It's an understatement to say the plot of X-Men 3 meanders. If properly treated in comic book form, I estimate it would take at least 20 if not 30 issues. (At 3.50 a pop, the price they were at the last time I stepped foot in a comic book store, that's $70-105 or a handful of movie tickets.) And there is absolutely no reason given for why two of the bad guys were given different solutions at the end. No reason for much of any of it.

Except for Kitty Pryde and Juggernaut. Not really worth the price of admission, but like Nightcrawler's power aria in the second movie, seeing Kitty use her powers against the musclebound, mysteriously Australian Juggernaut was cool.

Cabell the lost

2006-06-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

I finally found James Branch Cabell.

From Figures of Earth:

“Yes, but,” asked Manuel, slowly, “what is success?”
“In your deep mind, I think, that question is already answered.”
“Undoubtedly I have my notion, but it was about your notion I was asking.”
Horvendile looked grave, and yet whimsical too.
“Why, I have heard somewhere,” says he, “that at its uttermost
this success is but the strivings of an ape reft of his tail, and grown rusty at
climbing, who yet feels himself to be a symbol and the frail representative of
Omnipotence in a place that is not home.”

I love it.

There's a reason for that ritual

2006-06-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'm reading "Celtic Sacred Landscapes" by Nigel Pennick. Pennick is a great author for the modern Pagan. He's a scholar. He knows his sources. But where other scholars see a bunch of superstitious beastmen or wannabe Christians when they look at the fragmentary and inconclusive historical record, Pennick sees thoughtful, religious people. It's a nice change.

In chapter 1 he makes a statement about sacred landscape and the rituals that emerge from them in human consciousness: "[Rituals] ensure harmonious conformity of the visible world with the invisible."

This got me thinking about the Oracle of Delphi. Some of you may know that recent studies seem to indicate she was huffin' ethylene, a sweet smelling narcotic vapor, similar to what has been used at times in the last century for anesthesia.

At Delphi, the Pythia would go through some ritual steps before sitting over the sacred vent. This included things like fasting for a certain period of time. But at least once in recorded history, the Pythia was forced at sword point to give oracles immediately without ritual preparation. In the story, the Pythia goes into violent convulsions, freaks out, and sends the soldiers running in fear before she dies. (May she rest in the arms of the gods.) To modern scholars, this whole incident looks like ethylene overdose.

What is striking to me is how the ancient rituals of fasting and the practices around how the Pythia did her job, how far she was from the vent, how long she stayed, what time of day she inhaled, all seem to guard against ethylene overdose. This is certainly a case of ritual ensuring a harmonious conformity between the visible and the invisible.

Melora My Love

2006-06-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

I just got a copy of "The Book of Arthur" by John Matthews. Matthews is one of the best of the popular Arthurian scholars and he has collected a group of tales relatively unknown to modern readers. Many were known by Malory, who pared down a larger collection of known tales to create his reknowned Morte D'Arthur. Matthews has gone back to that earlier collection and selected some of the tales he feels Malory would have put in Morte D'Arthur II. Matthews has also looked farther afield and found some really wonderful tales from Ireland and from the centuries after Malory. Altogether this book is a wonderful expansion to the better known literature for any Arthuriana buff.

Enough of Arthur. The tale that got me going is "The Story of Malora and Orlando." In this Celtic romance from the 17th century, we meet Malora, the daughter of King Arthur. She and Orlando fall in love, but it's Orlando who gets kidnapped and Malora who must do the rescuing. And a fine job she does of it as well. Maybe it's the name "Orlando" but I kept seeing Kiera Knightly as Malora. Anyway, I was really struck by how easily Malora was able to take on the masculine hero role in this romance from several centuries ago. It's a good read, I highly recommend it and the collection as a whole.

I love arguing

2006-06-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

I love arguing with someone who has the stamina. Presentation of potentially contradicting points of view, analysis of the other's reasoning, feedback on one's own reasoning. Adjustment, learning, appreciation for differences, bad thought processes purged by an outside perspective, good arguments tempered into better arguments.

One of my professors in college, George Lakoff, wrote in his book "Metaphors We Live By" that our culture almost consistently uses the metaphor "argument is war". We "demolish" our "opponent's" "defenses", etc.

Then he drops da bomb that made me chose Linguistics as my major... What kind of culture would we have if we used the metaphor "argument is dance"?