95. BURROWING

From the Archives

(May 2005) From the Witer's Almanac:

BORROWED TIME
by David Moreau
from Sex, Death and Baseball (Moon Pie Press)

I will not die tonight
I will lie in bed with
my wife beside me,
curled on the right
like an animal burrowing.
I will fit myself against her
and we will keep each other warm.

I will not die tonight.
My son who is seven
will not slide beneath the ice
like the boy on the news.
The divers will not have to look
for him in the cold water.
He will call, "Daddy, can I get up now?"
in the morning.

I will not die tonight.
I will balance the checkbook,
wash up the dishes
and sit in front of the TV
drinking one beer.

For the moment I hold a winning ticket.
It's my turn to buy cold cuts
at the grocery store.
I fill my basket carefully.

For like the rain that comes now
to the roof and slides down the gutter
I am headed to the earth.
And like the others, all the lost
and all the lovers, I will follow
an old path not marked on any map.

•

THINGS
by Fleur Adcock, from Poems: 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe Books)


There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

LISTENING TO: Julian Bream playing Mozart’s Four Horn Concerto on baroque guitar

BEST-OF SPAM SUBJECT LINES: Sexually outperform anyone in the world! • Broad doldrums • Satisfy every women around

(Broad doldrums. Hmmmm.......)

94. NATURE AND ITS PROCESSES

From the Archive

(May 2005) Have been re-reading Bill Moyers’ interview with Joy Harjo, who is interested in how our linguistic choices reflect our separation from the natural world and thwart connection. Our manufactured separations, she says, make it difficult for us to create a home for ourselves in the world and increase the likelihood that future generations will, like Shrub and Reagan, view nature as a compilation of resources to be plundered.

I study connection, contemplate how it might build bridges, because that, to me, is what good art does: it speaks across great distances and shows us our universality, our connections.

We use symbols, art, magic, pain—whatever works (and it all does)—to capture something that’s on the tip of everyone’s tongues (if we listen). We articulate what we recognize at a subconscious level, bring it out into the open and examine it.

This can build a bridge, create a connection with someone with whom we have no apparent connection, and thereby remind us that we’re all a part of the same big whole.

Harjo notes that these are “difficult times when the illusion of separation among peoples has become so clear.”

Moyer: You said “illusion.”

Because I think it is an illusion. I think this is more the shadow world than it is the real world.

Moyer: This world of alienation and of separation is the shadow world?

Yes, but this shadow world is also very real. There are many wars going on all over the world and each of them is very real, and the losses people suffer because of them are very real. I don’t mean to deny that at all.

Moyer: And yet there is something underneath that the artist sees?

Yes, but I think artists always have to include what’s apparent and real in that vision, even while we’re always searching for what makes sense beyond the world.

So, basically, she is simultaneously asserting that these separations are an illusion while acknowledging that they exist (gulp).

This is consistent with her poetry.

Europeans/Americans are separated from everything around us in Harjo's world. And we did this to ourselves. We're a sad collection of postlapsarian characters who stick our flags down into land and women and poor countries and whatnot, insisting that these things are MINE MINE MINE. Yet, in her big picture, we're all interrelated.

She also says that, since nothing exists, we are not really separate at all.

Bear with me.

Harjo's ultimate point is that we are not separate from the natural world at all, despite our insistence to the contrary. We exist in nature and its processes not as unique beings, but as one undifferentiated aspect of everything else. Even if we designed those clever little hierarchical structures and created that elaborate Great Chain of Being theory and the Judeo-Christian creator who defined us as separate, superior, the ones who name and have dominion over everything.

We’re related to everything, folks. We're interconnected and dependent, just one human mushroom in a giant steaming stew.

What strikes me most about this interview is that, when you think about it, Harjo has (as J. Scott Bryson noted before me) managed to have her ontological cake and eat it too. What she’s positing is that we’re all in relationship with nature but that we’re also separate from it, and by choice.

I make an obscure leap from that realization to folks with victim complexes, because this seems like another way that we humans create and maintain alienation, isolation, disconnection that we wind up propping up around us as protection.

Gotta ponder that one some more though and see if I can do something with it.

So think about it. We create the illusion of alienation from our environment and then this illusion creates actual alienation from our world and comes to defines us.

I don’t always feel a connection to people, but do always feel one to the natural world, and especially to water. Maybe that’s why I like Mary Oliver’s writing so much.

Oliver may be somewhat of a one-trick pony (as a poet recently announced to me), but she walks in the woods the same way that I walk in the woods and I feel that recognition in every one of her lines.

LISTENING TO: PARIS La Belle Époque: The Music of Gabriel Fauré, César Franck, Jules Massenet, and Camille Saint-Saëns, performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott, currently Massenet’s “Méditation” from Thaïs. It’s very beautiful, especially when I stare into an orchid bloom and listen to that cello.

READING: still reading Carol Guess’s Switch and wish I had a block of time big enough to read the rest in one sitting. I like her awareness of working-class choices but wish some of her sentences were a little different.

SANG IN SHOWER: All right, I don’t know where these things come from, but this song came out long, long ago when I was maybe 10 years old and is now running through my head: It’s called “Daddy, Don’t You Walk So Fast” and I have no clue who sang it, but it’s running all ‘round in my brain.

BEST-OF SPAM SUBJECT LINES: Shed inches in minutes • It doesn’t hurt to check Alana

93. ALL THAT FUCKING AND NO ART

From the Archives

(May 2005) Joy Harjo’s poem “Remember” concludes with these lines:

Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

I am trying to remember, but my life is filled with too goddamn many commitments right now, so I am instead slam dancing at a dizzying pace in a mosh pit of commitments—and the band is definitely NOT playing any Desiderata-like "Remember That You Are One With The Universe" medley.

I did take a break last night to to watch the season finale (sob) of The L Word though, which included this fabulous line:

All that fucking with no art is really rather boring, dear.

•

So sometimes clever little poems are too precious and just remind me of Mud’s fratboy dungeon-and-dragon pals and the tedious little verbal arm-wrestling matches they engaged in purely so they could sit around and be pleased with themselves for out-clevering another person. (The very definition of tedious to MEDEAgrrl.)

This clever little poem is kind of interesting though:

SF
by David Lehman

SF stood for Sigmund Freud, or serious folly,
for science fiction in San Francisco, or fear
in the south of France. The system failed.
The siblings fought. So far, such fury,
as if a funereal sequence of sharps and flats
set free a flamboyant signature, sinful, fanatic,
the fire sermon of a secular fundamentalist,
a singular fellow's Symphonie Fantastique.

Students forget the state's favorite son's face.
Sorry, friends, for the screws of fate.
Stage fright seduces the faithful for the subway fare
as slobs fake sobs, suckers flee, salesmen fade.
Sad the fops. Sudden the flip side of fame.
So find the segue. Finish the speculative frame.

SINGING IN SHOWER: Earl “Fatha” Hines’s rendition of "St. James Infirmary Blues"

LISTENING TO: Beethoven’s Theme and 32 Variations in C Minor (discovered after his death, hence no opus number)

READING: Carol Guess’s Switch and Rodale’s Successful Organic Gardening

BEST-OF SPAM: outperform any women’s expectations in bed! • Via-gra pro - will get you hard coppery

92. TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA , OR, I GET MY KICKS ABOVE THE WAISTLINE, SUNSHINE

From the Archives

(May 2005) Friday the 13th. Huh. Maybe that explains why my laptop went bonkers and started typing Arabic numerals when I tried to type words today. Yeah, I’m sure some random date on my calendar and not an accidentally pressed button is to blame for that one.

Now this is going to seem like a picaresque leap—which I can assure you my poetry pals and I do love to make—but give me a few sentences and it’ll make sense.

Joy Harjo replaces the hierarchical system typically presented in Christianity with a vortex, a spiral-shaped “pattern of survival,” and says,

I think where theologians get into trouble is that they’re working out of a hierarchical structure. There’s God sitting at the top of the world, in the image of a man, no women around in that trilogy of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I propose a different structure; it’s not original but what I’ve learned from being around tribal peoples, and in my own wanderings. The shape is a spiral in which all beings resonate. The bear is one version of human and vice versa. The human is not above the bear, nor is Adam naming the bear.

No Great Chain of Being for this poet, and no masturbation-punishing graybearded old god either.

I like this notion of a spiral, which suggests interrelationships, going back and forth, nonduality.

•

Now, since two people have recently told me that they’re abstaining from sex, I’m posting 3 excerpts from a popular ABSTINENCE ONLY program (as compiled in the February 2005 edition of Harper’s):

• Occasional assistance may be all right, but too much assistance will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess

• While a man needs little or no preparation for sex, a woman often needs hours of emotional and mental preparation

(You don’t say? Me, sometimes I like those unexpected quickies that make us late to something.)

• Sexual relationships often lower the self respect of both partners.... Emotional pain can cause a downward spiral, leading to intense feelings of worthlessness. Depression [from a break up] may lead to attempted or successful suicide.

Oh that’s ripe. Think I’ll use that as my reason to never have sex again—“Sorry. I can’t have sex with you. It’ll make me kill myself.”

SANG IN SHOWER: “Wilder Than Her” by Dar Williams

READING: details of my home warranty insurance policy

SELECTED SPAM (Subject Lines): r u little? • Fix your situation Mamie

91. RENT-A-DILDO.COM

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90. WILLFUL IGNORANCE

From the Archives

(May 2005) The climate on campus has changed considerably in the Bush years as conservative Christians have become defiantly vocal and increasingly proud of their ignorance. This anti-intellectual climate is sobering, especially to someone who was raised Southern Baptist and encouraged to embrace science-defying explanations of natural processes (coz those dinosaurs were, of course, right there on Noah’s ark y'all and those scientists who insist otherwise are just Devil worshippers who spend their careers thinking up new ways to make the, um, enlightened miserable for all eternity).

The freshman reading assignment at a university where some friends teach recently caused a flap because conservative donors and students accused the text of marginalizing Christianity. They also objected to the fact that budding adults were being exposed to Islamic culture at a time when so-called American patriots are killing Islamic um infidels.

A male student at this same state university enrolled in a seminar course that explored feminist issues in popular culture, then complained that his tax dollars were being used to support offensive texts that encouraged students to empathize with ho-ho-homosexuals.

(Let me guess: women were not instructed to submit graciously to men either.)

This student complained to legislators that his professor prohibited his right to free speech because she would not let him monopolize daily discussion time with his endless tirade against queers (which, when you think about it, provided a handy example of the patriarchal assumption of male privilege to his class. But I’m sure that never occurred to McBoy!)

The university reprimanded the professor but did not fire her, so McBoy's actions effectively contributed to a climate in which professors are now afraid to introduce new and controversial ideas in class or to give assignments that encourage students to expand their limited worldviews because we know we might be next.

(Perhaps Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale should be required freshman reading there this fall?)

For several years now, a co-instructor and I have opened our graduate-level seminars with an In Search of America episode about Christian conservatism and racial injustice in a small South Carolina town. We then incorporate this video into a series of persuasive-writing and intentional communication exercises.

Listening to non-Southerners depict the locals as stupid hicks (as the southerners among us bristle) proves to be instructive fodder, and course exercises have prompted much good discussion about the limits of tolerance and the need to at least attempt to understand how bias and religious intolerance affects others in a pluralistic civil society.

The town in this video has the distinction of having more churches per person than any other place in the country, and its mayor posts “character banners" on the lamp posts—you know, because public material about Christians' version of character (à la the gambler William Bennett) is the substitute of choice for Christians in places where religious material has been prohibited.

Town water bills include "character quotes." City officials attend weekly prayer sessions and character-building workshops as part of their professional training. And the mayor himself wants creationism to be taught in the public schools.

Meanwhile, professors at the state university's branch do “missionary work” to try to counter the lessions these children of creationists learned in the public schools. And at least one of the profs Peter Jennings interviews was queer in this place.

This kind of sanctioned ignorance is what happens when the government endorses Christian home-schooling and Moral Majority founder Jerry (cough) Falwell raises millions of dollars by declaring war on difference ... or should I say on us queer “brute beasts” who are “part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated”?

Lou Sheldon, Falwell’s partner in bias and the founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, asserts that queers target children for recruitment. He also says that, given the chance, gay men will kidnap boys and convert them to queer sex ... and says this with an, um, straight face in a world where girls are raped by men, and especially male relatives, on an alarmingly regular basis.

Christian Coalition founder and resident wingnut Pat Robertson warned us that tornadoes and earthquakes would descend on Orlando unless Disney World canceled Gay Day (which queers, not Disney, organize). Robertson also insists that allowing queers to serve in the military gives “preferred status to evil.”

(Just an aside but, if you look at a map of where Florida was hit by those back-to-back hurricanes, almost all of the Republican counties were damaged but almost none of the Democratic ones were. Wonder if Robertson reported this on his Christian so-called news shows?)

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s most recent Intelligence Report includes a map designating the 762 active hate groups in our nation, by state. The tiny state of South Carolina comes in first in this category with a whopping total of 47 organized hate groups. (Does anyone see a correlation here?) Florida is second with 43 and California is third with 42. (And, interestingly, only 2 active hate groups have been organized in the entire tax-free state of Montana.)

The editor of the Intelligence Report points out that it is hard not to equate Sheldon’s statements with “blood libel” against Jews, or the accusation that Jews kidnap Gentile children and kill them so they can drain their blood to use in making matzohs.

Yeah. It’s hard to listen to evangelicals describe queers as voracious sexual beasts who recruit innocent kids—especially on this day when a father has just been jailed for stabbing his second-grade daughter and her best friend to death in a particularly gruesome fashion—without recalling the nineteenth-century racists who insisted that “lust-crazed, demonic nigra men” were intent on raping innocent white women.

I grew up a free thinker in the religious (tic) south and have had a fascination with and severe allergic reaction to organized religion ever since. I keep my Jesus allergy to myself in the classroom, but have had many lively one-on-one conversations with like-minded students over the years when they asked outside of the classroom what it was like to grow up here.

(More on that later, I'm sure, but let’s return to the classroom fo now because I'm in the midst of a story.)

So, last semester, my co-instructor and I noted that more students than normal bristled at the predictable stereotyping of my so-homeys but, for the first time in my teaching career, this did not result in healthy dialogue. Instead, several conservative students in these small classes used the exact same phrase to describe why they objected to completing assignments that require them to take opposing viewpoints on public-policy issues such as teaching creationism in the schools, same-sex/spousal-equivalent benefits, and other ripped-from-the-headlines topics.

They said "I have an internal moral compass that does not waver” and said that this means that they do not need to explore both sides of an issue or even entertain an opinion that is not supported by scripture.

I guess, to their way of thinking, such close-mindedness shows character.

I say that with a smart-ass tone, but this very different way of moving in the world is all too familiar to me (as are the collective chips on their shoulders). And it is not lost on me that someone trained them to respond in the exact same manner, like lemmings.

Most of the disenfranchised people in my southern town of origin and many people in my extended family move through the world in this same manner.

For example, when my younger (and evangelical) sister, who never left home, is threatened by new ideas (such as the assertion of her equal status with a man), she becomes agitated. And, if she’s threatened enough, she goes into a sort of trancelike state that involves her stringing together random Bible verses and prayers that she repeats aloud in what I can only describe as stream-of-consciousness Jezuschanneling.

I guess imagining herself as Other, as powerful, is so threatening that she must instead disassociate from the world and its opposing views.

When I think about the limits of what she has seen (or is likely to ever see) of this big wide world of possibility, I feel very sad for her and for women who are continuously told that they are second-class citizens who must be isolated, veiled, protectd.

I also recognize that the easy route for intellectuals is to make fun of such people—especially if they're southern and uneducated and trying hard to find some way to make sense of a world that is so threatening to them (even though I am guilty of making fun of them myself too, on occassion, and am more than a little impatient with such responses).

I place a high value on logic, am turned off by closed-mindedness and bigotry, and am INTP enough to be vocal when someone hits the right chord—and this reality can sometimes get me kicked out of extended-holiday gatherings and religious gatherings.

(For example, when my uncle asserted that God Hates Queers—that’s why he gave us AIDS, natch—I countered that God must prefer lesbians then, since we’re the least likely group to acquire this disease. This didn't go over so well.)

My mother’s religious sledgehammer frustrates the hell out of me and the fact that so many evangelicals attempt to dictate my life with their narrow worldviews does too.

Yet flinging around easy stereotypes shuts down dialogue and fails to acknowledge everyone’s experience in the world. I also know how easy it is for educated liberals to belittle the prescribed existences over people whose lives leave them with relatively little control over their destinies.

Some of my students were just not reachable last semester and this troubles me greatly. I think of them in terms of Plato’s Parable of the Cave.

There they stood, staring intently at the back of the cave and insisting that their world is comprised of undifferentiated darkness. Their moral compasses and those prescriptive character lessons and holy bible held them in vise-like grips that insisted that they not turn their heads and not see the light shining in through the cave’s opening.

And, for the first time in my teaching experience, some of my students still stared at that dark wall at the end of the semester.

I know, at some level, that willful ignorance is willful ignorance—that a dogged insistence on one particular mythology as truth is often based in deep-rooted fear of the randomness of the universe, of the unknown. And I know that pat black-and-white homilies, if you don't think about them too much, can allow you to maintain the illusion of safety.

But philosopher David Hume’s birthday was this week, so let's look at his experience.

In early 1700s Edinburgh, religious groups known as the Seizers grabbed people who skipped out on church and forcibly dragged them to mass right there in front of young David.

Perhaps then it's no big surprise that Hume lost his faith as a teenager. He lived near a university student who was found guilty of blasphemy and hanged for denouncing Christianity too though. Yet, despite the threat he felt around him, Hume wrote, "I found a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority. I was forced to seek out some new medium by which truth might be established."

In his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume argues that it may be impossible for any of us to know the truth about anything, that we humans can only experience the world but never fully understand it.

The Church of England tried, but failed, to prosecute Hume for this belief, and he continued to openly question the existence of a god ... and, thankfully, students in Philosophy 101 still hear this tale.

I worry that our country could become a Nazi theocracy like Hume knew, that the jihadists who are currently defining the conversation and attempting to dismantle our legal system and demonizing difference could create a landscape in which modern-day Seizers can, with Borg-like moral compasses, bully the rest of us until the ones who are left are all (publicly) assimilated.

Did anyone else notice that, when legal decision after legal decision in the Schiavo case failed to align with the so-called religious faithful’s insisted outcomes, that the conservative leaders merely announced that there was something wrong with the legal system (as opposed to their way of thinking)?

The speaker of the house and Tom DeLay are waging war on our legal system at a time when Falwell’s Heritage University is offering legal degrees to Christian activist judges to counter what they see as liberal activist judges.

This scares the living shit out of me.

SINGING IN THE SHOWER: I’m having an eclectic sort of day musically. Sang "I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be [insert happy thrashing about in a mosh-pit–like fashion to the guitar’s driving “duh-duh-DUH-duh-duh” beat here], soon you’re gonna be fucking me. I’m gonna tell you what your mama won’t say. She’s ashamed her daughter is gay .... [skipping to chorus now] "I’m gonna take you to queer bars [more mosh-pit–like thrashing to duh-duh-DUHs] I’m gonna drive you in queer cars...You’re gonna meet all my queer friends. Our queer, queer fun it never ends...." I believe Two Nice Girls sang this back in the early nineties, but can’t remember for sure. It certainly sounds like something Gretchen would write though. [OKAY, OKAY. WE DO RECRUIT!]

LISTENING TO: C Major Prelude from the Well Tempered Clavier, performed by Darron Flagg. God I love this piece! Was listening to Siouxie and the Banshees singing “Peekaboo” before that. Go figure.

READING: Switch by Carol Guess

SELECTED SPAM (Subject Lines): cheep erecction mads. you won't stop screewing thanks to it jest

89. DOWN BY THE RIVER

From the Archives

(May 2005) PBS’s Voices and Visions series on American poets included, in its Elizabeth Bishop profile, breathtaking footage of a spot where two rivers—one with blue water and one with brown water—converge. The bird’s-eye view of this colorful convergence is incredible.

Then there’s Cambodia’s Tonie Sap River, which flows north for half the year but reverses its direction during the rainy season and flows south for six months.

When I am at the end of one emotional journey, when one way of thinking or being collapses around me and I feel the tug of strange new powerful forces that could disrupt every process that has grown around me like a habit, blend my colors into a whole new palette and change the course of my journey, I try to think about those rivers.

It is so difficult to just “go with the flow” and absorb the pull of new and powerful presences in my life, allow the colorful waters of my old self and these new forces to converge as they will.

Talking with a writer friend yesterday really made me long for the space to write. It also reminded me of just how much my commitments limit my ability to do that. It's a problem that I come home from work too brain dead or stressed or exhausted to do more than process or veg for way more nights than is acceptable to me.

I was also reminded of just how I much I miss conversations with other progressive (urban?) artists who feel as passionate about their work, about their creative process, as I do, and who have managed to make creativity a central part of their lives.

I struggle to carve out time to devote to my own creations and also struggle with the question of how I might find a way to support myself in a manner that allows me to write more.

My friend’s enthusiasm as I described the structure of my novel also reminded me that it is good, that the layers I have so carefully linked together with so many disparate threads do create a moving, tight story that I need to complete so that I can do what I hate to do most—send my creation out into the world.

My grandmother used to say “Let go, let God.” Since I think of God as a verb, a vibe, a web of connections between things and people—a verb, not a noun—I like this advice.

New connections are converging in my life and, although they’re sometimes overwhelming, they’re also providing an opportunity for me to let go of some of the old parts of me that don’t serve me. I know that I must let go and let what happens happen, that I must trust the process and my own ability to grow and change, trust my heart’s capacity to accept stunning loss and love again, but here I sit, way too often still stunned into silent paralysis as the TV blares or I stare at the walls instead of picking up the pen and spilling my guts.

But at least I’m writing here.

BEST OF SPAM (subject lines): wanna be a bedroom superstar? • Satisfy every woman around

88. THE BLUE WHEELCHAIR

From the Archives

(May 2005) The blue wheelchair sat abandoned by the pond.

I sat at lush gardens tonight till dark, reading. Stopped by Whole Foods earlier and picked up fresh herbs, a loaf of crunchy bread, a lime tart, and some Saint Nectaire cheese that disappointed me because it lacks the complexity of Saint Andre, which was Whole Foods’ comparison cheese.

(I knew I should have gone to the farmer’s market instead and purchased local cheese from the friendly dyke cheesemakers.)

Poured some pinot noir into a flask, then took my food, wine, Carole Maso’s Art Lover, and myself to a little creek that runs between two grassy knolls at the gardens.

A beautiful, heavy-branched willow by the water provided shade over the rough stone bench where I sat. I settled in amongst the irises that kine the boulders that line the creek that empties into the pond and read till dark as the ducks swam around me.

There’s a whole chunk of time during graduate school when I missed films and books that were not directly associated with my studies. Kenneth Branaugh and Emma Thompson were all the rage then, but I had neither time nor money to enjoy such extravagances.

Maso’s Art Lover came out during this period, too, and I missed it the first go ‘round nut, boy, what a find now!

This book is hauntingly beautiful and raw and very, very well written.

Maso’s narrative approach is intimate and disarmingly heart-wrenching and the book brims over with insights and observations and tender quirky moments that leave your entire nervous system twitching.

I don’t believe anyone in the midst of losing a father could bear to read this book, but how wonderful it must be if you find a way to acknowledge that connection as you read.

My own father has been dead for six years now and I could still hardly bear to read this story ... and the declarative sketches of her sad, suicidal mother nearly took my breath away.

Here’s an excerpt from her opening page:

Although there is only a slight resemblance, the man can only be her father. You can tell by the way he moves toward her. As she stands up now I can see the intricate jigsaw shapes their bodies make to fit together. They will gnaw off an arm if necessary to properly fit, bleed at a joint, tilt the head, or nod a little too deeply just to maintain the vaguely heart-shaped vacuum that must always exist somehow between them.

•

Meanwhile, as I mentioned way back at the beginning of this entry, someone abandoned a blue wheelchair by the pond. I’d read several chapters by the time I saw the thing and it was getting dark—cone? rod? cone? rod? and that whole confused sight thing—so I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. And the heady scent of honeysuckle was so intoxicating that I almost felt drunk. Meanwhile the ducks splashed down in the water around me as I jumped over the rocks to investigate.

I hiked up the grassy knoll and discovered that, right there by the water, was a well-used faded blue wheelchair with a sagging seat.

Maybe it’s the curse of living through a loved one’s repeated suicide attempts or maybe it’s the influence of Maso’s book or maybe it’s the fact that this garden sits near a medical center. Not sure of the source,really, but can tell you that I immediately thought that a dying patient had rolled herself—and it was a her in my mind: Ophelia, Virginia W, my cancer-ridden mother-out-law, and my sad suicidal mother all rolled into one—down from her room and into this lush, late-spring paradise swollen taut with beauty, and thrown herself into the water.

Sometimes I wonder how a person who does not have a personal experience with suicide might translate such a scene.

BEST-OF SPAM: clytemnestra portraiture. (Hmmm. Perhaps Agamemnon Spam sacrificed his daughter Spam in an effort to make it through a challenging spam editor, then Clytemnestra got revenge in a scene that was captured by a digital portraitist? Now that’s obscure.)

87. HOLY MOTHER OF MASTURBATION, BATGRRL!

From the Archives

(Amy 2005) “In my site you can acquire chaep mads horrid”—that’s the subject line of my most recent SPAM. Not quite jabberwocky and there’s a touch of Chaucer in there somewhere, but what do you suppose it means? The best I can come up with is that I have been invited to purchase cheap, naughty maidens from someone whose English is extremely limited. Second best SPAM of the day: “Are you a 2 pump chump? Go all night and drive her crazy!”

Never had that problem, actually; perhaps Mr. 2 pump chump is using the wrong equipment (-;

Had another glass of that tasty pinot noir last night (ah, those dimples...), did laundry, and read Best Lesbian Love Stories in between playing the guitar.

They’re not Pat Califia, but these sweet little vanilla tales are charming.

Meanwhile, Just read an interview with Betty Dodson (AKA the Mother of Masturbation) who reports that she is working on a new video entitled Orgasmic Woman that “will show vaginal penetration using a vaginal barbell.”

So now I'm trying to picture what a vaginal barbell is. Is it sort of like the base end of a Feeldo, only it has a “5” or a “10” or whatever stamped on it? What color is it? And its texture?

Dodson continues:

A lot of women hate penetration because it's too hard or fast or because of friction. Orgasmic Woman shows me working hands-on

(and oh I hope she recognizes a good pun when she makes one—although "hands-on" could mean many things in Dodson's case, I reckon.)

I work with a woman who doesn't think she is having an orgasm. Some orgasms are like hiccups or a sneeze and some are huge and profound. But, if a woman doesn't recognize that she's having an orgasm, then what happens? How would you intensify it? That would be by taking more time after you have that first orgasm. Don't stop! Keep going! Women are not like guys. We are so ignorant about female sexual pleasure.

So. I wonder. If a woman has an orgasm and no one hears it, does she still have one? Does a dildo still fall off the bed if no one hears it? The lesbian world presents us with such conundrums sometimes

•

And now for something completely different.... I recently referred to the following poem that I ripped it out of the New Yorker. It's so, so beautiful:

IN THE ABSENCE
by Kathleen Lake

In the absence of Christ, one must become
one's own hands, moving
one's self tenderly
through all the shapes that pain takes.
Whatever you thought you knew, your hands
will forget it for you,
remembering only the hollows
and lilts of your lonely body
which quietly holds its own
story, and waits to be heard.
So when you are listening
at last, your hands will be holding
that wordless quality your mother's had
which changes everything and nothing.
And in this luxury the marrow
of your bones
will finally speak.

TODAY’S TOP SPAM: You can have a bigger cock than Ron Jeremy. (Uh, I already knew that.)

86. VIOLENT PINOT POETRY

From the Archives

(May 2005) I checked my e-mail a little while ago. My spam says that Women Will Love Me and that Julie [7] says Hi Honey.

Am eating some locally made brie on crackers and drinking a nice glass of pinot noir because the lovely woman in the Whole Foods wine department snared me as I walked past with my creamer and cilantro.

“Hi there,” said she. “Would you like to hear about our pinot noirs?”

I thought well I would certainly like to look at your dimples a while longer and my purchases ARE disgustingly alliterative, so sure, show me your wares.

She described several pinots as I studied her gorgeous jaw line, then I said, So tell me, which pinot that doesn’t cost a small fortune has made you smile most recently?

She grinned at my question and handed me the bottle that I have just now opened, which is quite good ... plus I get to imagine her dimples deepening as she discovers this taste.

Yesterday, I passed the Joy Delight Commandment King Church van on my way up the mountain. I really wanted to look through those tinted windows to see if the bus was filled with shiny happy people (who probably wouldn’t get that REM reference) too. Their name reminded me of the (shiver) Baptist camp where I spent too many summers.

Whew what a God um forsaken place that was!

The shiny happy counselors confiscated my Neil Young cassettes (AKA Devil's music) way back in 1976 and I still want them back. They also forced me to memorize Bible verses and recite them before getting in line for my meals.

In my book, if you f*ck with someone’s food, then it’s brainwashing.

I did enjoy canoing there though—when the counselors left me alone. Usually, though, they decided that this introvert spent too much time alone and so called me in off the lake and made me join in a variation of kickball/dodge ball that involved us kids pushing a ball that was bigger than all of us combined up and down a fresh-mown field.

Idleness is the Devil’s workshop, I reckon, so canoeing instead of playing with big balls must have put my soul at risk of eternal damnation. Or something.

(Just an aside but wouldn’t you think that someone who places a bumpersticker of the American flag announcing These Colors Don’t Run on his truck would replace the dumb thing when it fades to almost white?)

•

My friend gave me a copy of her spiritual autobiography yesterday. She grew up attending a Seventh Day Adventist church—“the cult” is what she calls it—and first encountered television and films as an adult. She can’t watch either though because the violence is too real and the stories make her lose her faith in the goodness of people.

This fascinates me.

She wrote this last week:

You aren't afraid to go anywhere, are you? I just managed to make it through [my blog entry] SITUATIONAL ETHICS. You grapple with things I can't even get close to without nearly dropping off some inner edge. The first time I heard about snuff stuff, I threw up, and couldn't sleep for days without waking up screaming. How can you ponder these things, and then go about your daily routine? ... I wish I had not read that entry! Please remind me again that the vast majority people are not out to damage other people.

Um, okay. The vast majority of people are not out to damage other people. There’s no tangible evidence that anyone has ever made a snuff film. And, when you think about it, we mostly find a way to love extravagantly despite it all.

I wrote a short story and painted a disturbing, multilayered torture painting that Mud dubbed “The Angry Painting” in an effort to get the snapshots I talk about in that entry out of my head. I wouldn’t say that I ponder atrocities and then just go about my normal routine though.

We carry all that shit around with us like luggage (note absence of baggage here), I reckon, just as my body carries around every punch my father ever delivered and all the terror I felt as a child, and so it stays tensed and ready to bolt even now if I’m not paying attention.

But my body also carries around healing caresses, the comfort I feel falling asleep as my lover kisses my eyelashes, a snapshot of my little brother at age 4 holding out his grubby little hand and saying “I Made You a (dirty) cinnamon toast ball,” and so many acts of kindness, and passion and love and unsolicited generosity. So there is some balance, I reckon, if we’re fortunate.

I don’t think my friend could read JM Coetzee’s Waiting For The Barbarians, but his main character asks similar questions.

This pal has lost faith in humanity because a patient told her horrible abuse stories last week, in which a father anked his daughter out of bed and held her underwater till she thought she would die every time she peed in bed. This has made her lose faith in our goodness. Again.

I’ve been pondering what poems to send her way.

I'd send Vassar Miller’s sonnet “Without Ceremony” to myself, but am not sure it would comfort her. The final stanza of Frank O’Hara’s “Steps” would comfort me too:

oh god it’s wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

but I believe I will send her Kathleen Lake’s “In The Absence,” Mary Oliver’s “Morning Poem” and “Poppies,” and Wendell Berry’s “Work Song. Part 2, A Vision: The Wisdom to Survive,” which seems like the perfect poem for her.

85. UNWRITTEN

From the Archives

(26 April 2005) Here's a poem for a momentous day.

THE UNWRITTEN POEM
by Louis Simpson

You will never write the poem about Italy.
What Socrates said about love
is true of poetry—where is it?
Not in beautiful faces and distant scenery
but the one who writes and loves.

In your life here, on this street
where the houses from the outside
are all alike, and so are the people.
Inside, the furniture is dreadful—
flock on the walls, and huge color television.

To love and write unrequited
is the poet's fate. Here you'll need
all your ardor and ingenuity.
This is the front and these are the heroes—
a life beginning with "Hi!" and ending with "So long!"

You must rise to the sound of the alarm
and march to catch the 6:20—
watch as they ascend the station platform
and, grasping briefcases, pass beyond your gaze
and hurl themselves into the flames.

Today’s Writer’s Almanac notes the following sober anniversary:

It was on this day in 1937 that German bombers attacked and destroyed the city of Guernica in Spain. Hitler was one of the allies of the Fascist side, the side of Franco, in the Spanish Civil War, and he wanted to use the Spanish Civil War as a testing ground for his new blitzkrieg military strategy.

It was a Monday, this day in 1937, a market day in Guernica, farmers were in the town square with their harvest, shoppers filled the street, and that afternoon the German Luftwaffe attacked.

The first wave of planes dropped blast bombs that destroyed the principal buildings; the second wave flew low, gunning down the citizens; and the third wave dropped incendiary bombs to burn any remaining parts of the city. The attack lasted for three and a half hours. When it was over, almost nothing of the city remained. It was the first time in history that a city was completely destroyed from the air.

One of the people who heard the news of the bombing the following day was the painter Pablo Picasso, who was in exile in Paris. He was trying to come up with an idea for a mural to be displayed at the World's Fair in Paris that summer, and when he heard about the bombing, he began a new painting called Guernica. He did it on a huge canvas: 12 feet high, 26 feet wide, worked on it for a little more than a month. The painting he produced showed no planes, no bombs, no explosions. It was just a black and white image of a wailing woman holding a dead child in her arms, a dead man on the ground holding a broken sword, a bull, a screaming horse, a woman on fire, a woman falling to one knee, another woman leaning in a window and shining a lamp on the whole scene.

It was done in a primitive, almost cartoonish style to look like newsprint. It was displayed at the Paris World's Fair and people weren't sure what to make of it. Leftist critics said the painting didn't have a direct enough political message, but some people saw the painting as a warning that everything they loved was about to be lost.

Two years later Hitler invaded Poland, using the same bombing strategy, and Picasso's painting went on to become the most famous antiwar painting of the 20th Century.

Today is also the nineteenth anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident, which occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire that occurred in Reactor No. 4 sent radioactivity into our atmosphere and killed 31 people instantly.

Was reading a Greenpeace article about the Savannah River Nuclear Site the other day. It has the odd distinction of being a Superfund site that the government is pouring billions into for clean-up while at the same time being a site for new bomb production, thanks to GWB's so-called thinking. So, essentially, we're making a Superfund site even more contaminated as we spend billions cleaning it up!

I guess burying all those radioactive fuel rods in cardboard boxes at this site wasn't the BEST idea...

84. McFAITH

From the Archives

(April 2005) I was stuck on a looooong phone call and so took a religion test while the guy blabbed on. It’s at Tickle.com, if this kind of thing appeals to you, and is ostensibly designed to help me find the faith that fits my beliefs (although it seems to actually be designed to get me to pay for summaries of various faiths that I can find for free elswhere on the Web).

THEIR SPIEL: Ever wonder if you're practicing the right religion for your beliefs, or if there's a faith out there that's really right for you? It's possible you might be compatible with more than one religion since many religions share similar takes on certain subjects. In fact, it's possible that you're more compatible with religions other than the one you believe in. Want to know which religion you're most compatible with based on your belief system? Take the test now!

Here are the questions. I was frustrated by how many had no answers with which I agreed—but hey, who’s shopping for the divine at Tickle.com anyway?

1. Life is full of little miracles. (A) Strongly agree, (B) Agree, (C) Disagree, (D) Strongly disagree. ANSWER: A

2. The way I behave in this life will: (A) Directly affect my next life, (B) Determine whether or not I go to heaven, (C) Only affect what happens to me in this life. ANSWER: PROBABLY C, BUT THAT'S UNKNOWABLE, ISN'T IT?

3. When I pray, I would most like to be: (A) In or near a religious building, (B) At home, (C) In a sweat lodge, (D) In nature, (E) Meditating, (F) I don't pray. ANSWER: F. I DON'T PRAY. I WRITE & TAKE IN AS MUCH AS I CAN & TRY TO APPRECIATE THIS AMAZING WORLD & THE MANY AMAZING CREATURES, HUMAN & OTHERWISE, THAT INHABIT IT

4. For the most part, people are inherently: (A) Good, (B) Sinful, (C) Ignorant ANSWER: A

5. Which is more important: (A) How one behaves, (B) What one believes. ANSWER: A—BUT BOTH ARE IMPORTANT

6. Before I die, I most hope to have: (A) Contributed to the world, (B) Loved and been loved, (C) Served my God, (D) No regrets. ANSWER: B, PREFERABLY WHILE DOING A

7. I'd feel most comfortable with a religion that: (A) Encourages an individual investigation of truth, (B) Confidently answers life's most important questions. ANSWER: A

8. It's important to me that my work: (A) Serve a higher purpose, (B) Enable me to make generous charitable donations, (C) Give back to the community directly, (D) Inspire others to use their personal gifts, (E) Aid humanity's progression. ANSWER: C. ALSO A, D, & E ... & NOT OPPOSED TO B EITHER. SEE WHY I HATED THE SAT, GRE?!!!!

9. I most like to feel: (A) Protected, (B) Inspired, (C) Led. ANSWER: B

10. When I die, I hope to reach: (A) Heaven, (B) Paradise, (C) Nirvana, (D) Enlightenment, (E) A higher level in my next life, (F) The next phase of my life in the spiritual plane, (G) A peaceful and final conclusion. ANSWER: G, BUT D WOULD BE COOL TOO

11. I believe that I have lived past lives. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: I DON'T BELIEVE OR DISBELIEVE IT BECAUSE THIS IS ESSENTIALLY UNKNOWABLE. SEEMS UNLIKELY THOUGH.

12. I believe that Adam and Eve carried out the first sin, the original sin. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: B. I DON'T BELIEVE IN SIN.

13. God is best described as: (A) A single entity, (B) The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (C), A divine essence that is both one with the universe and transcendent, (D) Many gods and goddesses, (E) Non-existent. ANSWER: C COMES CLOSE, BUT E IS MOST LIKELY

14. Do you believe that there is only one true God? (A) Yes, absolutely, (B) I believe there are multiple gods and goddesses, (C) I believe in a spiritual force, not an Almighty God, (D) I have serious doubts about the existence of God. ANSWER: D (BUT DO BELIEVE IN DIVINE CONNECTION)

15. What happens after we die? (A) Our souls are absorbed into the cosmos, (B) Our souls are reborn or freed from the birth-death cycle, (C) Our souls wait for judgment, (D) Our souls transition to the spiritual plane and continue to live, (E) When we die, that's it, (F) I don't know. ANSWER: F

16. I believe that the death penalty: (A) Is warranted in some extreme cases, (B) Is not a justifiable punishment for any crime. ANSWER: A (SEE BLOG ENTRY "SITUATIONAL ETHICS" FOR EXPLANATION)

17. I am morally responsible because: (A) It makes my life more fulfilling and pleasurable, (B) Being that way will help me after I die, (C) I'm not particularly moral. ANSWER: A, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THIS REMINDS ME TO RESPECT OTHERS AND MYSELF, OUR CONNECTION WITH EACH OTHER AND THE WORLD

18. How do you feel about lying? (A) You should never lie, (B) You should only lie to avoid hurting others, (C) A little lie now and then is necessary, (D) I lie when I want to, without regret. ANSWER: B

19. I believe that mine is the only true religion. (A) Strongly agree, (B) Agree, (C) Disagree, (D) Strongly disagree. ANSWER: D

20. If I see someone running toward the elevator I'm in, I: (A) Hold the door open for them, (B) Let the door close on its own and hope they make it, (C) Push the "close door" button. They can catch the next one. ANSWER: A, OF COURSE (UNLESS I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HAVE TO PEE)

21. I will be reborn into a higher social position if I build good Karma in my present life. (A) Yes, absolutely, (B) It'd be nice, but I'm not sure if I believe it, (C) I don't believe that. ANSWER: B. FUNNY HOW GOD IS ABOUT MONEY & SOCIAL POSITION IN A CAPITALISTIC WORLD

22. I believe that Jesus was: (A) Our savior and son of God, (B) A prophet, (C) A wise teacher of religious ethics, (D) A fictional character. ANSWER: C

23. My religious faith allows me to feel deeply thankful. (A) Strongly agree, (B) Agree, (C) Disagree, (D) Strongly disagree. ANSWER: A, ALTHOUGH I'D REMOVE THE WORD "RELIGION" FROM THAT STATEMENT

24. I believe that Muhammad was the last true prophet sent to Earth by God. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: B

25. When someone hurts you, do you wish them harm? (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: NO, FOR THE MOST PART, BUT I HAVE SLUGGED PEOPLE BEFORE SO MAKE OF THAT WHAT YOU WILL

26. I believe that: (A) Evolution is the only explanation for the origin of the world, (B) Creationism is the only explanation for the origin of the world, (C) Evolutionism and creationism are not mutually exclusive. ANSWER: I SAID A BECAUSE IT’S CLOSEST TO WHAT I BELIEVE, BUT ALSO RECOGNIZE THAT WE DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO BE CERTAIN THAT EVOLVING IS THE ONLY WAY WE GROW & ADAPT, ESPECIALLY GIVEN NEW EVIDENCE ABOUT THE LITTLE MUSTARD PLANT THAT "CORRECTED" ITS FLAWED GENES.

27. Mediums who claim to communicate with the spirit world are: (A) Gifted spiritualists with insightful messages from beyond, (B) Communicating with demons, (C) Frauds. ANSWER: I SUSPECT MOST ARE C

28. When was the world created? (A) Long, long ago, (B) It is always in the process of being created, (C) The physical world is an illusion. ANSWER: B

29. I prefer to worship: (A) In a group, (B) In solitude, (C) I don't worship. ANSWER: I FEEL CLOSEST TO THE DIVINE WHEN I’M ALONE IN NATURE OR MAKING LOVE BUT FEEL MORE CONNECTION WITH HUMANITY WHEN I'M INVOLVED IN SOME MEANINGFUL COMMUNAL RITUAL

30. A religion could encourage its members to find their own spiritual truths while unifying around the basic values held by all religions. (A) Yes, I like the idea of an open-structured religious organization, (B) No, all of the members should all believe basically the same thing about God. ANSWER: A

31. I believe that the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross was necessary to save us from original sin. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: B

32. You pass someone on crutches when they drop their bag. You: (A) Double back to pick it up for them, (B) Keep going on your way. They'll manage. ANSWER: A (WOULDN’T ANY DECENT HUMAN BEING?)

33. My hope is that humankind will unify as one race in a single, global society. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: NEITHER BECAUSE I BELIEVE RACIAL VARIATIONS TEACH US USEFUL THINGS ABOUT EACH OTHER—BUT I DO HOPE WE BECOME A MORE UNIFIED GLOBAL SOCIETY THAT APPRECIATES OUR DIFFERENCES SOMEDAY

34. Where can you discover the ultimate authority of the universe? (A) God, (B) Nature, (C) The divine essence of all things, (D) Within yourself, (E) Communication with spirits, (F) There is no universal authority. ANSWER: F (ALTHOUGH NATURE DOES HAVE ITS RULES)

35. If a genie granted me a single wish, I would wish for something that benefits: (A) Myself, (B) Someone else I know, (C) My community, (D) The world as a whole. ANSWER: I HOPE THE ANSWER IS D & NOT A

36. I believe there is an opportunity in the afterlife to fix earthly mistakes, even for the most sinful. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: THIS IS ESSENTIALLY UNKNOWABLE BUT I SUSPECT WE'LL JUST BE DISPERSED MATTER & ANTIMATTER THAT COULD CARE LESS ABOUT ALL OUR ULTIMATELY INCONSEQUENTIAL HUMAN FUCK-UPS & INSECURITIES

37. My relationship with nature is inseparable from my religion. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: A

38. I like to pray: (A) Many times each day, (B) One to two times per day, (C) Once a day or week, (D) Primarily at major festivals, ceremonies, or other religious occasions, (E) I pray rather infrequently, (F) I don't pray. ANSWER: F. I DON'T PRAY, BUT INSTEAD TRY TO TAKE IT ALL IN & JUST SIT WITH IT & APPRECIATE IT INSTEAD OF TALKING WITH SOME ESSENTIAL UNKNOWN THAT HAS SOME THEORECTICAL POWER OVER ME

39. Communication with the dead is: (A) Impossible, (B) Something I believe to be possible, (C) Scientifically proven. ANSWER: B. COMMUNICATION CAN BE SELF-GENERATED & IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO REALLY KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, SINCE THE PERSON IS DEAD, BUT I COULD STILL EXPERIENCE SELF-GENERATED CONNECTION, SO....

40. Your religious beliefs in this life directly affect where you will end up in the afterlife. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: B (PROBABLY)

41. The best way for me to be closer to the Divine is: (A) To live according to the moral laws of my belief system, (B) To accept Jesus Christ as my savior, (C) To perform ceremonies and rituals for the gods and/or goddesses, (D) To communicate with the spirit world through a medium, (E) I don't know. ANSWER: A. I TRUST THE SANITY OF MY VESSEL. . .BUT ALSO WANT TO KEEP REACHING OUT & GAINING NEW INSIGHTS THAT EXPAND THE BORDERS OF MY BELIEF SYSTEM.

42. Our Savior: (A) Has come in the form of Jesus Christ and saved us from original sin, (B) Has yet to come and will bring world peace (C) I don't believe there is a Savior. ANSWER: C

43. Why do bad things happen to good people? (A) Personal suffering can help make people better, (B) Everything is a gift from God and sometimes the gifts must be surrendered, (C) It is our perceptions that cause suffering, not the events themselves, (D) People's bad actions in a past life are catching up with them, (E) No reason, sometimes bad things just happen. ANSWER: E. ALTHOUGH SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST MAKE DUMB DECISIONS THAT COME BACK TO BITE THEM IN THE ASS

44. How would you like your religion to view divorce? (A) Divorce is sometimes necessary and permissible, (B) Divorce should be discouraged, but permitted, (C) Divorce should be absolutely forbidden. ANSWER: A

45. Homosexuality is: (A) A special blessing that warrants reverence, (B) A completely natural sexual orientation, (C) A sexual tendency that should be discouraged and overcome, (D) A sinful and perverted sexuality. ANSWER: B (AND A GIFT)

46. Why are we here? (A) To find salvation from sin, (B) To prove our loving surrender to God, (C) We're on a journey to escape the impermanence of human existence, (D) We're on a journey to attain true wisdom and enlightenment, (E) To show our love for God by following his commandments, (F) To live in harmony with earth, (G) Because we evolved from lower life forms. ANSWER: NONE OF THE ABOVE. WE ALMOST CERTAINLY EVOLVED FROM LOWER LIFE FORMS, BUT “EVOLVE” COULD BE THE WRONG PROCESS, ULTIMATELY, ESPECIALLY GIVEN NEW EVIDENCE INVOLVING THAT MUSTARD PLANT (see earlier blog entry). I TRY TO LIVE IN HARMONY WITH THE EARTH, BUT CAN’T SAY THAT THAT’S WHY I’M HERE EITHER. IF ANYTHING, I THINK WE'RE HERE TO LOVE EXTRAVAGANTLY & LIVE AUTHENTICALLY, TAKING IN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, DESPITE EVERTHING THAT INHIBITS OUR ABILITY TO DO SO

47. Why do bad things happen? (A) To test my faith, (B) To punish my wrongdoings, (C) To give me a chance to suffer piously, (D) To show me that my perception of "bad" is merely an illusion, (E) It depends on the situation, (F) They just happen. ANSWER: MOSTLY F, BUT SOMETIMES BECAUSE PEOPLE MAKE BAD CHOICES OR ALLOW OTHERS TO INFLUENCE THEM TO DO SOMETHING THAT FEELS INAUTHENTIC

48. I prefer to explore my spirituality on my own, holding private rituals and sharing only with those that I have selected to bring closer to my religious self. (A) Yes, (B) No. ANSWER: A

49. Politically speaking, I am: (A) Liberal, (B) Moderate, (C) Conservative. ANSWER: A

50. The further I distance myself from the clutter in my mind, the closer I will be to the Divine. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: A

51. My biggest challenge is to: (A) Let go of pain and suffering, (B) Overcome wicked urges, (C) Continually increase my spiritual education, (D) None of the above ANSWER: SOMETIMES A, BUT MY BIGGEST CHALLENGE IS TO LIVE IN A STATE OF AWARENESS & CONSTANT LOVING-KINDESS, TO BELIEVE NONSTOP.

52. I like the idea of creating my own symbolic rituals to connect with the power of nature and the Divine. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: A

53. My religion should have a strong emphasis on organized social action around the world. (A) True, (B) False. ANSWER: A, BUT NOT AT THE SACRIFICE OF YOUR SOUL.

54. When a baby is born, s/he: (A) Is pure and free from sin, (B) Is born with a sinful nature, (C) Brings burdens from a past life into this one, (D) Is ignorant and imperfect. ANSWER: NONE OF THE ABOVE. A IS CLOSE, BUT I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE CONCEPT OF SIN

FREE SUMMARY: MEDEA, your belief system is best suited to religions that value open mindedness.

Ya think?

83. HOSTILE TAKEOVER

From the Archives

(April 2005) Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks are filled with one sentence, repeated again and again. Scholars believe that he wrote it whenever he was testing a newly cut pen:

Tell me, tell me if anything got finished.

That sentence summarizes how this semester has been going of late. (sigh)

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about this whole hostile takeover by the Christian jihadists who attack our judicial system and democracy with the stated goal of turning us into the theocracy they believe we once were. Frist's whole so-called Justice Sunday is so obscene and churches that participate and preach that Christians must only support the GOP party should have their tax-exempt status rescinded.

The fundies pepper their sentences with references to so-called liberal judges in an effort to colorcoat their own efforts to place extremists on the bench (which they seem to be succeeding in doing on Bush’s watch ... and the Supreme Court's mak-up by the end of his term is a scary thing to ponder).

In some ways, the fundies remind me of objectivists—only they actually believe that their ethics of self-interest is divinely guided.

(I'll write more on that in a bit because I must ponder this idea for a few more days while zoning out on the elliptical cross-trainer.)

Meanwhile, I am brain-dead and bone tired and have been flipping channels again instead of doing meaningful work.

Tonight, the CMT network is showing a special about Abbeville SC and the scary League of the South. If a war breaks out, we’re in a much better place than they are because we’ve got the good old boys with all the firearms, a good old boy just said.

He is involved with a group that wants to bring about a new civil war that will happen in the next twenty years, he says, because the US government is corrupt and they intend to take their county back.

(Um which country is that? I’d like to ask. The one that was founded by um deists?)

(Read any good history books lately?)

I've met my share of good old boys and can tell you that many of them are armed to the teeth. Many also have hearts of gold and are not as stupid as most would like to believe and very, very many of them have giant chips on their shoulders (sometimes for good reason). I've also met my share of one who are willing to die for their principles (even if these principles are defined by others).

In this particular television show, anti-government sentiment reaches its pinnacle when a family from New Hampshire (live free or die, dude) that has relocated to South Carolina (because these folks are the most like us) object to the government taking less than feet of its land in order to widen a highway, so the family stages a shootout and actually kill a couple of cops over the grass around their mailbox.

Remind me to send in my renewal payment to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

82. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

From the Archives

(April 2005) Huh. My Dukie friend just e-mailed me to say that an emu is loose in Durham! Several people have apparently spotted it and called the cops, who humorously note that they can't exactly outrun an emu.

What fun!

Meanwhile, here’s a heart-breaking piece I’ve been working on for a couple of months now.

THE HOLLERIN’ CONTEST (draft)
Every June, in Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina, hollerers gather to share their lexicon of calls. Many bring their calls down from the mountains, where they developed these sounds to convey specific information across great distances concisely. An anticipatory bark might tell a wife that her man is one valley away and heading home; a piercing howl might say he’s broken his leg and needs help right away. I imagine the hollerers’ mournful voices drifting over the mountaintops, coloring the fog as it settles in.

A phalanx of Duke residents and I, wearing scrubs and beepers, wander the alley of vendor tents and crafts displays. The fact that I’m on call and must be ready to leave at a moment’s notice looms large in my mind as I study the nuances of the callers’ sounds and eat my bag of kettle corn.

A cacophony of other sounds competes with the contestants’ calls. The deejay by the kids’ rides plays nursery rhymes. Vendors shout out their wares as we pass them. Car alarms reverberate off the sound equipment as a businessman barks into his cell phone by my ear. The teenager beside him describes her new Guess jeans to some disembodied person on the receiving end of her phone call who has probably never even heard of a hollerin’ contest.

It is difficult to imagine a place devoid of any other means of communication, especially here. Research Triangle Park is headquarters to so many high-tech. communications companies, after all, a virtual Promised Land where cell phones and wi-fi–enabled coffee shops and gas-station fax machines and household T lines deliver and receive information instantly. Despite this ever-present technology, though, I have not mastered how to convey some information across great distances with accuracy.

The emcee insists that hollerin’ is the earliest form of precise communication between human beings, but I know it’s sex. Yeah, I talk a good talk beforehand, but I never really communicate with someone until we make love. My previous communications sound right, but they are guarded, selective, partial, incomplete. I reveal glimpses of myself through a copy of some poem or a humorous story about my workday or my careful, measured replies to personal questions. These words offer insight into who I am, but I dispense them from behind a protective wall that hides my vulnerability. Until I stand naked with someone, until we discover how to speak to each others’ bodies without the need for words, I am incapable of conveying love or deep emotion in unrehearsed syllables.

•

The first year that you loved me, you studied my hands in public until you knew that I knew you were doing this. Good hands, you called them. Made for fucking. Your friend Deborah inevitably called when we were deciding if we were hungry enough to get out of bed. You laughed when her call came through, said, “that would be Deborah,” told her that yes, as a matter of fact she had done it again and that she was speaking to a well-fucked woman.

We had our own language of calls then, a holy vocabulary between us.

Later, in a restaurant, you studied the thumbs that had been inside you as I remembered moving them toward that specific spot near my tongue that makes you gasp unintelligibly, each of your unarticulated sounds and movements leading up to that moment conveying so much information: where and when and how and how much and with how much intensity—precise instructions that you conveyed without ever speaking a word.

I told you later, over dinner, in whispered words that made you blush from your neck up to your hairline, exactly what I would do with my hands when we returned home and we stared across the table at each other, anticipating the moment when my entire hand would disappear inside you, reducing you to babel. We shared this quiet language of whispers in such public places.

This morning, in the emergency room, a migrant worker howled in misery. Unable to articulate the source of her pain in words that I could understand, she curled into the fetal position instead and howled at me, her dark eyes desperate. ¿Como esta usted? and the few other phrases that I learned in orientation conveyed nothing useful to either of us, so I ordered a battery of tests and sent the nurse for a translator, did what I could to apply deductive reasoning to our babel as I used my hands to search her body for some physical clue that could tell me how to heal.

Bodies convey information even when their owners can’t. They send signals to the lymph nodes that trigger them to swell sufficiently to indicate an infection; cause pupils to dilate enough to indicate a concussion or drug overdose or loss of brain function or any number of other medical conditions; dispense tears to indicate depression in patients who insist that everything is fine, just fine, just couldn’t be any better, doc. Our miraculous, fragile bodies enable us to communicate love through physical expression more profound than any word in our vocabulary, but they keep their own language too.

People who lose loved ones share a unique language too. ICU waiting-room conversations reflect this language in anguished glyphs of hope and denial and sorrow. These glyphs whisper Failure to doctors who lose patients too, but Hope is the primary word of this whispered lexicon—until I deliver the coup de grace that demolishes any possibility of it with as much distance as I can muster: We tried to save your wife, but her heart was damaged. We tried to save your son, but he is gone. Your Daddy is dead. Your grandmother has passed on. I am so very sorry for your loss.

How did the hollerers isolate that specific sound that represents loss, that mournful call that can make a stranger choke up, missing someone? Adrienne Rich knew the sound. There is no other language for it, she assures us—we have to call it grief. In my case, my friends call it bravery, too, tell me what a great job I’m doing holding up, remaining in control.

Poets reminds me that my walls do not protect me, though, that studying your blue eyes failed to provide sufficient insight into your interior world, your dishonesty. My grief moves over me in waves, becomes a mountain that I lug around inside me, that makes me obsess about that phone call I made when you discussed a meal that you had prepared the night before. For yourself, you said, this meal worthy of Gourmet magazine. Your voice said other things, too, though. And later, when I showed up unannounced and you blushed deep red from your neck up past your dimples all the way up to your red, red hair, you reiterated that you were alone, just sitting there alone because you just wanted some silence, even as I noted the two wine glasses on the counter, the dishes stacked in twos on the dining room table, ready to be put away.

I need a new language to hold all this pain, a deep-throated and gutteral holler that can convey this staggering loss.

I am on this earth to learn, after all, to at least attempt to articulate my experiences authentically and in meaningful sentences, to organize these rabbit screams that escape from me sometimes. I want to do something with these I do and forever memories that have ended so abruptly now, translate our ten years of a shared language that remains so acutely on my tongue into meaningful sounds and phrases.

I write words on charts that heal patients’ bodies, speak knowledgably about immune disorders and disease and disease prevention, but know that I have become a child again—someone who requires a cardboard wheel to identify what I am feeling. I study this wheel that is divided neatly into two concise outer sections. Am I happy or am I sad? The answer is obvious. Your body, our language, are divorced from me now. I will not see you grow old or even wrinkle around your deep dimples and what I feel is anguish. I keen in sobs loud enough to announce our broken union to our neighbors, to my patients.

I do not give you to him, but I have let you go—have walked away and know I must keep walking. I do not know this ground and yet I walk it, take these first strange steps toward a new vocabulary—some descriptive holler that can locate the hollow behind my eyes where I always feel you gone—search for a word that can make me me again.

81. WHEREVER WE TRAVEL

From the Archives

(April 2005) Here's a poem from today's Writer's Almanac.

WHEREVER WE TRAVEL
by Linda Pastan

Wherever we travel
it seems to take the same
few hours to get there.

The plane rises over clouds
into an unmarked sky,
comes down through clouds

to what we have to believe
is a different place. But here
are the same green road signs

the numbered highways
of home, with cars going
back and forth to houses

with chimneys and windows
identical to the ones we thought
we had left behind.

The radio blares familiar
radio music. Soon we will knock
on a door and someone will greet us,

will pull us into a room
we have never seen
but already know by heart.

80. FIX

From the Archives

(April 2005) Posted on Sunday’s Writer’s Almanac

FIX
by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

The puzzled ones, the Americans, go through their lives
Buying what they are told to buy,
Pursuing their love affairs with the automobile,

Baseball and football, romance and beauty,
Enthusiastic as trained seals, going into debt, struggling—
True believers in liberty, and also security,

And of course sex—cheating on each other
For the most part only a little, mostly avoiding violence
Except at a vast blue distance, as between bombsight and earth,

Or on the violent screen, which they adore.
Those who are not Americans think Americans are happy
Because they are so filthy rich, but not so.

They are mostly puzzled and at a loss
As if someone pulled the floor out from under them,
They'd like to believe in God, or something, and they do try.

You can see it in their white faces at the supermarket and the gas station
—Not the immigrant faces, they know what they want,
Not the blacks, whose faces are hurt and proud—

The white faces, lipsticked, shaven, we do try
To keep smiling, for when we're smiling, the whole world
Smiles with us, but we feel we've lost

That loving feeling. Clouds ride by above us,
Rivers flow, toilets work, traffic lights work, barring floods, fires
And earthquakes, houses and streets appear stable

So what is it, this moon-shaped blankness?
What the hell is it? America is perplexed.
We would fix it if we knew what was broken.

79. WILLFUL IGNORANCE

From the Archives

(April 2005) SC voters will soon decide whether their state constitution should be amended to ban same-sex marriages. I grew up in the deep south, completed undergrad studies there, and can already tell you that their answer will be yes.

Sadly, I also know that many of the southerners in my extended family would vote to legalize this selective bigotry.

And speaking of the humid Carolinas, someone just emailed me to say that notorious homophobe Fred Phelps and his clan plan to protest a high school production of The Laramie Project near Duke University. This play is about the afteraffects of the savage death of Matthew Shepard, the twenty-one-year-old gay man who had recently moved to Laramie from nearby Chapel Hill, NC.

Phelps is the asshole who held up “God Hates Fags” signs at Shepard’s funeral and shouted to his mourning parents that their son was in Hell where he belongs.

(Cruel. And to do so in the name of Jesus! These homophobes have no decency and it is so deeply offensive that they couch their hatred in Jesus’s name.)

Phelps et al. show up in DC too, where their seething hatred is a sight to behold.

How will Dukies react to this show of hate? I'd like to think that kids in the art department will make paper-maché Jesuses with their arms around a gay couple and holding big “Hate Is Not A Family Value” signs. Or maybe Jesus can wear Reeses shirts and their placard can read “Look. They put their hatred on my Jesus” or something.

What rocks did these hate-filled people crawl out from under?

78. PASS THE COW CHIPS

From the Archives

(2005) Today is April 15. One year has passed since Lynne's untimely death and I am in a pensive mood.

It's also tax day. Or, as Molly Ivins’s aptly says

April 15: You’re Getting Screwed.

She refers to NYT regular and Pulitzer prize–winner author David Cay Johnston’s Perfectly Legal—The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich—and Cheat Everyone Else.

Johnston reports:

Through explicit policies, as well as tax laws never reported in the news, Congress now literally takes money from those making $30,000 to $500,000 per year and funnels it in subtle ways to the super-rich—the top one-one hundredth of one percent of Americans.

People making $60,000 paid a larger share of their 2001 income in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes than a family making $25 million, the latest Internal Revenue Service data show. And in income taxes alone, people making $400,000 paid a larger share of their incomes than the 7,000 households who made $10 million or more.

The rest of us are subsidizing not only the super-rich, but also corporations. Fifty years ago, corporations paid 60 percent of all federal taxes. But by 2003, that was down to 16 percent. So individual taxpayers have to make up the difference, as corporate profits soar and wages fall.

It’s a Bush world after all.

•

Meanwhile, the stock market fell to the lowest it’s been in two years today and the World Cow Chip Throwing Contest was held in Beaver, Oklahoma.

(The ways in which some people can distract themselves never fail to amaze me.)

JUSTICE SUNDAY?

From the Archives

(April 2005) I'm pasting this entire article because the news is so obscene. We’re already a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy; will we be a theocracy by the time Bush finally leaves office?

FRIST SET TO USE RELIGIOUS STAGE ON JUDICIAL ISSUE
by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, New York Times
Published: April 15, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 14—As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias [by SC Dixicrat Strom Thurmond-MEDEA], and it is now being used against people of faith."

Organizers say they hope to reach more than a million people by distributing the telecast to churches around the country, over the Internet and over Christian television and radio networks and stations.

Dr. Frist's spokesman said the senator's speech in the telecast would reflect his previous remarks on judicial appointments. In the past he has consistently balanced a determination "not to yield" on the president's nominees with appeals to the Democrats for compromise. He has distanced himself from the statements of others like the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, who have attacked the courts, saying they are too liberal, "run amok" or are hostile to Christianity.

The telecast, however, will put Dr. Frist in a very different context. Asked about Dr. Frist's participation in an event describing the filibuster "as against people of faith," his spokesman, Bob Stevenson, did not answer the question directly.

"Senator Frist is doing everything he can to ensure judicial nominees are treated fairly and that every senator has the opportunity to give the president their advice and consent through an up or down vote," Mr. Stevenson said, adding, "He has spoken to groups all across the nation to press that point, and as long as a minority of Democrats continue to block a vote, he will continue to do so."

Some of the nation's most influential evangelical Protestants are participating in the teleconference in Louisville, including Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The event is taking place as Democrats and Republicans alike are escalating their public relations campaigns in anticipation of an imminent confrontation. The Democratic minority has blocked confirmation of 10 of President Bush's judicial nominees by preventing Republicans from gaining the 60 votes needed to close debate, using the filibuster tactic often used by political minorities and most notoriously employed by opponents of civil rights.

Dr. Frist has threatened that the Republican majority might change the rules to require only a majority vote on nominees, and Democrats have vowed to bring Senate business to a standstill if he does.

On Thursday, one wavering Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, told a television interviewer, Chris Matthews, that he would vote against the change.

"By the way, when Bill Clinton was president, we, effectively, in the Judiciary Committee blocked a number of his nominees," Mr. McCain said.

On Thursday the Judiciary Committee sent the nomination of Thomas B. Griffith for an appellate court post to the Senate floor. Democrats say they do not intend to block Mr. Griffith's nomination.

That cleared the way for the committee to approve several previously blocked judicial appointees in the next two weeks.
The telecast also signals an escalation of the campaign for the rule change by Christian conservatives who see the current court battle as the climax of a 30-year culture war, a chance to reverse decades of legal decisions about abortion, religion in public life, gay rights and marriage.

"As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group's Web site. "For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms."

Democrats accused Dr. Frist of exploiting religious faith for political ends by joining the telecast. "No party has a monopoly on faith, and for Senator Frist to participate in this kind of telecast just throws more oil on the partisan flames," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

But Mr. Perkins stood by the characterization of Democrats as hostile to faith. "What they have done is, they have targeted people for reasons of their faith or moral position," he said, referring to Democratic criticisms of nominees over their views of cases about abortion rights or public religious expressions.

"The issue of the judiciary is really something that has been veiled by this 'judicial mystique' so our folks don't really understand it, but they are beginning to connect the dots," Mr. Perkins said in an interview, reciting a string of court decisions about prayer or displays of religion.

"They were all brought about by the courts," he said.

Democrats, for their part, are already stepping up their efforts to link Dr. Frist and the rule change with conservatives statements about unaccountable judges hostile to faith.

On Thursday, Mr. Schumer released an open letter calling on Dr. Frist to denounce such attacks. "The last thing we need is inflammatory rhetoric which on its face encourages violence against judges," he wrote.

76. PUBLISHED BIGOTRY

From the Archives

(April 2005) Law professor Gerard V. Bradley:

Putting same-sex relationships on a par with marriages harms the family by radically severing the biological tie between the married couple and the kids they are raising. Once same-sex marriage is accepted, children are no essential part of what marriage means.
... No two men—and no two women—form a mated pair.—From his 2003 article against marriage equality

Law professor Lynn D. Wardle:

The very concept and reality of the relationship between man and woman that we call marriage fundamentally differs from the nature of the relationship between two persons of the same sex.—Wardle, 1996 B.Y.U. L. Rev., at 38

75. QUOTE TO MAKE YOU SHIVER

From the Archives (April 2005)

We set the jurisdiction of the courts

said Tom DeLay, the House majority leader with bucketsfull of questionable ethics said.

We set up the courts. We can unset the courts.

74. WELL WITH HER SOUL

From the Archives

(April 2005) Yesterday was a long hard day.

My friend and former publishing colleague Florence, an incredibly kind, seemingly healthy and intensely driven woman, was diagnosed with nonHodkins lymphoma eleven months ago and has been in treatment ever since. Her treatment just ended and she had tests this week to check its effectiveness.

Florence grew up in the mountains with a hard father.

We talk about that sometimes.

She says, When people ask you how you turned out so functional (well...), tell them that you had a kind grandmother.

See, Florence’s theory is that, even if you have a hard childhood, you’ll turn out okay if you have at least one good person in your life who is kind to you and loves you unconditionally.

Many Christians make me break out in hives but not Florence, who really does try to live Jesus's teachings and whose beaming face I remember so vividly from my same-sex wedding.

Florence sent the following on the same day that I was at the hospital with Louisville for her cancer follow-up tests.

I read it, thought about how hard her's and Louisville’s and Lynne's treatment were, about how much they just wanted to live and be healthy and loved, and felt like the most vacuous person on the planet for getting annoyed by traffic when I’m alive and healthy and able to see a blooming vibrant world every day.

Florence wrote:

Dear Family,
I go tomorrow to get the results of the CT scans. I desperately want to hear the words “cancer free” and to be placed in the category of patients who are in full remission. I still plead with God, on a regular basis, to leave me here until my children are grown and married, with babies of their own so that I can love them, hold them, spoil them. I want to grow old alongside my husband, to retire from working and to travel all over this country in an Airstream, possibly doing mission work, definitely doing volunteer work. I want to build a new home on our land and have dogs, cats, horses, goats, maybe even a llama, but always enough room for any who need a safe place to sojourn, to rest, to regain their footing. I want to keep living and to be healthy, strong and full of joy.

In the last 11 months, I have been on an incredible journey that has been all uphill. I didn’t really want to travel this particular path but found Jesus was there, right in front of me. He has taken every step I have, but always one step ahead. And when I have kept my eyes on Him, my journey has been an easy one; I have barely been tired. But in the times when I have taken my eyes off Him and looked down, instead, at my own feet, I have stumbled and fallen. I have called out to Him and He has turned and offered me His hand. He has pulled me up and He has guided my steps over the areas on this path that I could in no way traverse on my own. I have been in the presence of Jesus these last 11 months.

I have become accustomed—in fact, almost comfortable—with the uphill climb and the pace, the feel of the burn in my soul. I want to keep climbing, for I have a very long way to go to become the person that God intends for me to be. I do not want to become complacent, or even worse, to start the descent back into the darkness. I want to continue to be in His presence, I want to be brave enough to follow.

So, I want to say on this beautiful day that, whatever I hear tomorrow, I know and I believe that it will be okay. Whatever is ahead, I want, more than any of my other wants, to find myself exactly where He wants me to be, within His will for my life. Because I believe, whatever God has in store for me next, He will walk with me, uphill, through it, and He will give me the courage, strength, grace, peace and joy to continue putting one foot in front of the other, one step at at time. And wherever this journey may take me, please know, that it is well, it is well, with my soul.

Trusting and believing,
Florence

And, after 11 hard, hard months, the news was good. Florence has no growths, her blood work and scans are good, and there’s no indication that she’ll have a recurrence any time soon.

So now it’s time to grow her hair back so I can teach her how to spike it with product!

73: FERRON, YOU ARE HALF-WAY PRETTY

IN THE MEAN TIME
by Ferron


So many people are so broken and this story's broken too
We go looking for forgiveness for things we did or didn't do
In our hearts we know we're goodness,
In our souls we feel the call
To be someone to somebody, each other, one and all.
I have wept upon the mountain, I have walked upon my knees
I have crawled along the rubble of broken promises and unmet needs
And the thing that I was looking for, and the thing I could not see
Was the image of a perfect girl ... the one I'd never be,
Oh my father, how I've missed you, having never touched your face
And just like you I feel a sorrow that time cannot erase
When I cross over will you meet me, will you walk me to the bright,
Will you lead me on the dance floor of that everlasting light
In the meantime, here on earth time, I am something of a song
But I once drank your whole abandon, wanting only to belong
Now I walk beside the broken, glass of water in my hand
And in the prism of their reflection I see the once invisible man.
You are with me as I love her, you are in me as I care
You have shown me not to hold back,
Knowing what is gone's .. not there.
You have helped me to be tender, you have helped me to be true
I went empty up the mountain and brought back a piece of you.

72. BAD POETRY HAND

From the Archives

(April 2005) A pal told me she used my term “bad poetry hand” in conversation the other day. I’ll explain the term but, first, background: A nearby university hosts a literary festival every year and I was invited to participate in a poetry panel and workshop a few years back, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to accept, however, because a poet whose work I do not respect was also on the panel.

I had an almost visceral reaction to this poet when I heard him being interviewed on NPR and wound up yelling at the radio because of his pompousness and blatant unrecognized privilege and frankly, his plain bad writing pissed me off.

This poet is the son of a mill owner, which places him among the southern social elite. He slummed at his daddy’s mill one summer though when he was a teenager and was somehow left with the impression that this enabled him to speak for those dull, dumb millworkers, all of whom are just so happy working at Daddy’s mill.

He wrote an entire collection in the voices of those um simpletons and doesn’t appear to even understand how revealing his writing is.

My writing friends listened to me fret as I tried to decide whether or not to be on this panel with him, and they heard me say more than once that I just couldn’t shake this guy's bad poetry hand. So I fretted. What if I got into a situation in which I had to shake his hand? I absolutely could not touch touch it or even hold polite conversation with him because I know I would end up snarling. And what if he stuck out his bad poetry hand and introduced himself? What was I supposed to do then? Huh?

In the end, I actually did manage to avoid shaking his bad poetry hand, despite being in his general vicinity all afternoon, but it took some wrangling to pull off.

71. MESSY, MESSY, MESSY!

From the Archives

(April 13, 2005) I am tempted to poll my pals and see how many of them get my title reference, and maybe I’ll even offer them a Blenheim’s hot gingerale if they say it with the right accent.

So happy birthday Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney, and Eudora Welty—three excellent writers born on the same day.

The following two quotes are from today’s Writer’s Almanac. Since I’m a writer who worked briefly in advertising and took many advertising classes, I understand Ms. Welty’s reaction completely (see below). Odd thing is, I was actually good at creating those headlines and highly manipulative ads, but am so anti-consumer / disgusted by conspicuous consumption that, the few times I created them, I felt so dirty, so like a traitor to the human race, that I began caling myself Poetry Killer (and promptly found another job).

Ms Welty:

It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass.

And after she tried working in advertising:

It was too much like sticking pins into people to make them buy things they didn't need or really want.

So she became a writer.

•

Today a Senate subcommittee holds the first hearing this year on marriage between same-sex couples. Wonder how many witnesses are going to use the Bible as a weapon to justify denying equal rights to their fellow citizens in a democracy?

•

Meanwhile, a woman reportly reported to me that she covets my creativity, so she decided to start eating with her left hand and see what developed. It's been a few weeks and she can now report that she succeeded in becoming more messy, but not more creative.

70. TWO BEEPING JESUSES & A SCENTED ORCHID

From the Archives

(April 2005) I was reading Refusal’s blog yesterday and came across this interesting bit:

I’m not sure if I mentioned the ‘two Jesuses’ theory before. This is rather like the Kennedy-shooting ‘two gunmen’ theory, except it assumes that the Bible combines the story of 2 Jesuses, one nice as pie, the other mean and temperamental. One blessed the meek, the other kicked out the moneychangers and told you to hate your parents. What worries me is the effect on the trinity. If there are 2 Jesuses, is there still 1 holy ghost? Two? Maybe three for a nice triangle? If you’re one of those people who likes to get stoned and discuss 4-dimensional space, maybe you have a theory about multi-dimensional paracletes.

Ponder that.

It’s 7:30 AM and something in my kitchen is beeping every 5 minutes or so and I cannot figure out the source. I unplugged the microwave and still heard a beep, unplugged the coffeepot and still heard a beep, turned my mobile phone off and still heard a beep. That leaves the oven, unless I’m missing something, and I have no clue how to make an oven stop beeping. Jezuschreeeesto! I gotta play my music louder!

•
This is a horrible thing to say but I’m going to say it anyway. Mac released OSX a couple of years ago. We’ve now had Jaguar and Panther and now the Tiger upgrade s coming out. They have really limited themselves categorically by using big cats, however, and I fear that they will soon have to resort to associational upgrades—you know, like the Siegfried and Roy upgrade OSX.5.4.2.7.

•

I made a flowerbed by my front walk last night and put a flat of marigolds in around the rosemary plant.

They’re not my favorite flower and they’re not even native, but they’re good natural insecticides and my goal is simply to fill in the space until the rosemary bushes out. Then I’ll plant natives around it.

Next I’ll move the hostas and monkey grass that run beside the deck to a spot farther back in the yard where I put a wrought-iron table and chairs. Then I’ll plant butterfly bushes beside the deck so that, in a few years, I can sit on the deck and watch butterflies.

In other news, I have too many things I want to do on Friday night. Adrienne Rich is giving a free reading. There's an art crawl. An LGBTQ group wants queers to show up at a restaurant that was less-than hospitable to two bois, and to announce our group affiliation at every opportunity. And I promised a pal that we'd go orchid shopping.

Some places transform me when I enter the space, almost stop me in my tracks with their beauty. Hurricane Ridge in Washington state does. The Hoh Rainforest does, especially on a foggy morning. Butterfly/hummingbird havens do. Cathedrals do. And the greenhouse of orchids that we'll be visiting does too.

READING: Rodale’s Successful Organic Gardening

LISTENING TO: Bitch and Animal’s “ovumture (in Areola minor)”

SINGING IN SHOWER: How’s this for random? So I’m shaving my pits this morning and burst out with “5 golden riiiiinggggs . . .”