tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216781172024-03-13T23:18:09.905-04:00Auspicious JotsSometimes you are lucky... Laugh.
Sometimes your soul is in the blender... Laugh harder.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.comBlogger404125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-8984821815497582182014-06-22T13:55:00.001-04:002014-06-22T21:22:59.378-04:00It's like that thing when something does you knowI have a bad case of CRS. It's better than Alzheimers but worse than just being a dingbat. CRS for you youth who don't have to worry yourselves with these sorts of problems is Can't Remember Stuff. We all know the S isn't for Stuff but I am tired of libraries blocking my posts when I tell it like it is.<br />
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My case of CRS began last month with a big ole seizure that I don't remember and there's just been a waterfall of don't remembers ever since. And if one more well-meaning nugget brain says, "Gosh, you should get that looked at" I will transform into Can't Refrain from Slapping. </div>
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Yes, there are tests, doctors, plans, diagnoses. Blah blah blah. This is one of those rare situations in life when I really don't give a rip about what most anyone has to say. Unless you are my neurologist or an epileptic, please do not tell me how I should feel, what I should do, or how I should live. Bad mood much? Zip it, stuffhead.</div>
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There is a happy side to this. Because I work on a hospice unit and can find happy in most anything. Unfortunately, I just took a break for a tortilla chip and can't remember the happy side. Or why I started typing. Hmmm. Let's try this again.</div>
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I looked back in the blog posts from 5 years ago. We thought I had viral meningitis back then. I tried to blog about it. It was seizures we know now. Weird. Clearly Resolving Something. </div>
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I have become Lucy from "50 First Dates" or the scary tattoo-covered dude from "Memento", two of the most famous memory loss movie characters. I prefer to think I am Lucy. She at least can remember for a whole day. I can't, but it is something to strive for. I'm realizing that Lucy isn't played with nearly enough rage. The lack of memory isn't as upsetting as the times when I have an inkling of everything I am forgetting. </div>
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I was thinking today, if I had a friend who had this - how could I help him or be there for him without making things worse and aggravating him to the point of Cursing Really Stoutly at me? The answer can only be concocted by taking the little perfect bits of help others have been doing for me and put it all together in some sort of gentle cookie. Then tiptoeing to his door and oh so carefully passing him the cookie. Then not expecting him to remember the cookie. </div>
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My parents offer me a 5 o'clock cocktail. That is nice. A friend texts every couple of days to make sure I don't need another trip to the coffee shop. Others send little messages here and there just to letting me know they and I are alive. I try not to eat out any more because it makes me pretty sick - all the people, the sounds, the lights, the movement but for less than an hour it can be nice. Good friends have offered to do fun things with the children. That's the best of all. That and not expecting me to remember anything.</div>
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And one friend reminds me of who I am, what I am doing, what's been going on for over a month. It's like telling me a bedtime story. It is very relaxing and it all sounds familiar if not completely believable. (Have I really given THREE public talks, done a good job of them, and don't remember a word of ANY of them? Did I really play the role of a crazed religious apocalyptic commentator for a multi-media art collaboration at the Anderson Gallery? And... Oh my gosh - I haven't been paid for that funeral?!)</div>
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If I had a friend who was going through this, I'd send up the occasional hi with an offer to do something or go somewhere. I would NOT ASK, "How can I help?" Or offer, "Call me if you need me." That assumes a level of memory and understanding completely beyond me/him. The key phrase is, "Is there anything you need TODAY?" </div>
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I know that a thoughtful blogger would wrap this all up in a bow with a smile. Maybe that's not true. One of my readers is very ill. From his hospital bed he told me that it is hard for him when my blog goes black. Not everyone is looking for brilliance. Sometimes just a sign is kindness enough. A thoughtful blogger is trying to say hello by just saying the truth. Writing is very hard. Strange words just leap into sentences, and not much seems to rationally leading to not much else. Hello! Truth.</div>
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No, I don't need anything today. I'll be checking in on my reader in the hospital and he and I will chuckle when we can't remember what the other has said. </div>
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Curiously Resilient and Sturdy<br />
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<i>Author's Note: As an experiment, I wrote and edited this as I normally do. I went over it three times in full before posting. 8 hours later I came back and saw all the strange little wordings and mistakes. I have kept them to give you a bit of the feel of temporal lobe mayhem. And no, I did not remember what I wrote but felt like the cat who ate the canary because I knew I wrote anything at all.</i></div>
The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-89651921647186154012014-06-06T08:31:00.005-04:002014-06-06T08:33:28.439-04:00Ransom Note<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear Bliss Failure,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have taken custody of your happiness. Your neglect of it
was unconscionable. We will not disclose its location. If you want it, get off
your sorry procrastinating selfish lard butt and find it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of our members insist on giving you hints as to its
hiding place. The rest of us think that if you are so dim as to not know the
location of your own happiness, you don’t deserve to find it. Our Chaplain
overruled reason by pointing out that your sense of direction may be obscured
by your suffering. Bleeding heart, that one. Fine. Here are a few hints.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your contentment is on the move because you don’t deserve to
find it easily after your blunders with that relationship a few years back,
your lackadaisical approach to saving for retirement, and what you’ve done to
your body. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seek it out in places both quiet and rowdy, in critters and
cretins, tomes and movements. If you do not search for it, work for it,
consider it, and value it… we will eat it all up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We will return what is yours sooner if you are willing to
dance, even if only in the privacy of your own home. Otherwise you got to do it
the hard way, suckah.</div>
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Assistance of others is a non-negotiable term of our
surrendering your delight back to you. Friends, lovers, family, strangers are
all welcome. No police.</div>
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We are giving you plenty of time to come looking - but should
we discover you have spent that time surfing the net, gossiping, Facebook
stalking, watching porn, buying lottery tickets, or looking in the mirror while
making disparaging comments about your appearance – we will take your happiness
on a lovely hike complete with picnic and sunset marveling and never bring it back.</div>
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There is no monetary ransom because you can’t buy happiness,
you dumbass.</div>
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These are our conditions. </div>
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Hugs and kisses,</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The Suffering Resistance Front, Central Virginia Chapter</div>
The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-64177295763796530982014-04-11T17:23:00.000-04:002014-04-11T17:24:14.609-04:00Holy Lessons at Lenten End - no, not exactly<div>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">I learned this stuff this week. What did you do?</span></i></div>
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* Go to the damn support group. Are you listening to me? Do it. We all are working through something. Get out there, listen to someone else, admit your imperfections, and go try life again. Mine is a bereavement support group. We meet Tuesdays at 5:30. </div>
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* Independent radio, public broadcasting, documentaries, museums and Wes Anderson movies are good for you. I swear. And when they don't meet your needs, let them know. Thanks to my 8 year old daughter, the independent radio listeners of RVA were treated to the mellifluous sounds of Ron Jeremy crooning the Miley Cyrus ear worm "Wrecking Ball" this morning. How can you ever risk missing an experience like that? (Praise Buddha - she thinks Jeremy is a professional comedian.)</div>
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* Any phone app that suggests its owner has PMS was created by evil spirits and should be deleted immediately. Followed by the ceremonial eating of a white chocolate and cashew cookie.</div>
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* Whatever your religious or spiritual leanings - your world perspective is better when hanging with my LGBTQM Lenten Book Group. M stands for <b>M</b>y goofy tail and if you think we are talking Christian dogma -we think you had an unfortunate head injury and wish you speedy recovery.</div>
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* After a terrible day, someone you love really does want to be with you and doesn't mind that you aren't a glowing, charming ball of happiness. And you don't have to keep apologizing. (Haven't really learned that second one but I like the way it looks on the page.)</div>
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* The parenting pickle: your child has been grounded since what feels like the Reagan era. On the last day before Spring Break he wants his best friend who gets exceptional grades and is never grounded to come over. And you do need help getting some things into the attic. What to do, what to do. (Yeah, they are on the front porch right now and the attic is a bit fuller.)</div>
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* The best friends are the ones that are impossible to discern whether they are a friend of yours or your kids. Until they pop open a beer.</div>
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* When a dying man who can barely breathe asks you about your beliefs on Jesus and you have a view considered heretical in some circles (mostly just Christian ones), take a deep breath and tell him the truth, no matter what it is. Nobody wants to be lied to at the end of their life. And what's the worst thing that can happen? Never mind. Try not to think about that.</div>
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* There are very limited circumstances in which the lyrics of the Gap Band make any sense. For greatest clarity, play on a Spring Friday afternoon at 5:00 PM. "Say, <i>Oops up side your head...</i>" makes no more sense then but you can dance or hula hoop to it.<br />
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Gotta' go hula hoop now...</div>
The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-19857100341784184692014-04-04T23:37:00.000-04:002014-04-04T23:41:32.188-04:00How I Make Deviled Eggs<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I woke up Friday at 5:30 AM in a gorgeous Manhattan condo. The
condo's two babies and two daddies were asleep as I snuck out the door at 6:15 for Penn Station.
I had tried to explain to the babies that I was saying goodbye last night. They
weren't buying it. I'd spent four nights in their playroom Murphy bed. In baby
time conception that meant I would be there for their proms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The daddies were probably glad to see me go. I fixed a huge
Southern meal for them last night which had so much fat and triglycerides that
I am almost certain I gave myself a hernia slinging butter in the pots. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Let me
stop exaggerating. The butter was slung and I have a small herniated spot on my
belly button, but there is no scientific explanation suggesting causality other than
timing. I think I got the hernia from lugging my 6 ton luggage around. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">And I’m sure the daddies were just glad to see me go because now
that I have introduced them to the Burlesque Babysitter I can do nothing more
for them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Yes. You read that: the Burlesque Babysitter. Every cougar mom’s
nightmare and I invited her over for sweet taters, shrimp and grits, and this
terrifying concoction I make with brown sugar and Jack Daniels. The daddies
were already weakened by the food, she just came in for the kill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The Burlesque Babysitter is the closest I get to knowing a
superhero. Mild mannered, sweet Jewish humanist by day and gyrating goddess
whose fake eyelashes are longer than a deviled egg by night, she came over for
the Southern cooking. She had been at a photo shoot and still had her gear and sparkle
boots on. The mom in me is sure she will need a chiropractor from the
wig.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Last time I saw her she’d been all Clark Kented out and was
hugging her auntie and cousins. This time she had the daddies debating the
Kinsey spectrum of sexuality and just where they might be on it after all. I’d
be really jealous if she weren't so flipping adorable and hadn't raved about
every single thing on her plate. (Such a good lass, that one.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The daddies were not one bit inappropriate with her either. You
see, Lady Gaga had a piano teacher who was a stripper teaching her lessons
throughout her childhood. This is the kind of information two daddy Manhattan
couples have and find inspiring. But my girl's sparkle boots didn’t hurt her chances
for babysitting either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Where was I? Condo, hernia, daddies, artsy nudity… oh right, the
train ride home. The long and short of that is the multi-state conversation
with my seat mate about his former sex addiction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">What? What do you talk to your Amtrak seat mates about? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">He was totally appropriate, too, as much as one can be when
sharing their recovery process with a stranger of the opposite sex on a train.
You see I had dropped the C bomb on him accidentally. That means I come to know
how his mom died, what his father regrets most, his greatest fears for his
children, why he is clean and sober in every way, and how he is adapting from
knee surgery at Christmas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">C bomb = <i>So, what kind of
work do you do?</i> he asks. I work as a hospice <b>chaplain</b>, I respond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I try not to drop the C bomb when traveling. A seminary professor
warned me decades ago, “If you want to sleep or read when traveling tell them
you are an evangelist. If you feel like working, tell the truth.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I told the truth. And so did he from what I can tell. Nice guy, too. I gave him a big hug when I departed and told him to tell his Nana and them I said Hey! </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">My beautiful, elegant mother who is without flaw forgot she was supposed to pick me up at the train station and went off galavanting in the Shenandoah so in between nibbling crudite from my purse and talking sex addiction I arranged a ride with a friend during the trip. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I would very much like to just post that friend's name for all to see. Why? Why would I do such a cruel thing to such a good pal who drops everything to save me from a Richmond cab? (For another time can we examine why taking a cab in Richmond is seen as offensive? <i>You took a CAB? Good God, why didn't you call me?</i>)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I am plotting my revenge on this dear friend because the second he had me in the car he says. "I've gotta' go by Dirt's. Then I'll drop you off." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Nooooo!!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Dirt is Richmond's most notorious Transgender Performer also known as Dirt Woman. I prefer to call her Baby Girl out of a misguided notion that affirmation will engender self-respect on her part. Hasn't worked thus far.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">We roll up in Dirt's, sorry - Baby Girl's neighborhood after driving past mine as I put my nose against the window and whimpered. Baby Girl was rolling down the street. In her new wheelchair and looking pretty good for her which is pretty frightening for anyone else. Friend-who-will-not-be-named rolls down the window. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">"I brought your groceries!" (I think it was hooch but I've never seen Baby Girl drink much and my pal usually brings her food so, who knows?)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><i>"I'm going to the Dr. Drop 'em off."</i> No thank you. No peals of delight. <i>"You got any cash?"</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">"No, Dirt. I got your groceries."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Baby Girl looks meaningfully at me. Baby Girl believes I am the greatest minister Richmond has ever had and scolds me in public for not having my own church because I am denying the city its spiritual core. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I give her a 5. No thank you. No peals of delight. She rolls off. I ask my buddy if I can go home now. We laugh hard.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When we finally arrive at my place, even though my poor bedraggled friend tells me his back is killing him I explain my belly button hernia to him and he carries my suitcase up cursing in new and imaginative ways while I carry my work bag and purse. We get to my porch and I freeze.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I made it 5 days at a scientific convention in NYC about research pertinent to health care chaplains. I walked 19+ miles while I was there because I have Winter of '13-14 PTSD and kept thinking a blizzard could come any moment so I shouldn't ride the subway. I cooked for 6 hours for a dinner party and then upstaged my own self by introducing my fabulous cohorts to each other. I got up before dawn to get on a train where I would become chatty with a recovering sex addict, not in spite of that revelation but because of it. My mama forgot me. I gave my last fiver to a funky gal/guy in an electric wheelchair and I have a belly button hernia. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am EIGHT FEET from my flipping front door and I throw my back out.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I may be a chaplain but when I look back on this day all I can think is...</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">What The HELL Was That All About?</span></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don't know. Here's my deviled egg recipe.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">8 boiled eggs</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3T Duke's mayo (more if it's lumpy)</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1T Grey Poupon</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1T of capers, crush after measurement</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">dash of caper juice</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">white pepper, black pepper and salt to taste</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">chopped anchovies for garnish</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">(All measurements require generous dollops that seem like they would be Tablespoons if someone made them commit to something as patriarchal as measurements.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Directions: Open beer and drink. Peel the eggs. Drink. Slice the eggs open with a serrated knife because that's how my grandma did it and it makes them groovy. Mix yokes and other ingredients preferably in bowl. Drink. Stick your finger in the yoke mix and taste. Rinse palate with beer. Add random crap til it tastes like you want it but you won't remember when someone asks the recipe. Garnish with anchovies. Serve with beer to daddies and Burlesque performers.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Now say thank you and squeal with delight. It's all I ask.</span></div>
The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-32632335375861336802014-03-31T09:00:00.000-04:002014-03-31T09:00:00.207-04:00Back Page CollectionOne of the activities keeping me busy over the past months as I was not blogging was freelance writing. Some of my work has been for a German publisher and has to be bought to read -sorry 'bout that. But I have been contributing more regularly for Richmond's Weekly Magazine, Style Weekly.<br />
<br />
I have a long, strange history with Style. My mother worked as an editor there in my youth. Naturally I considered those the glory years of the publication (until they started paying ME).<br />
<br />
I was named one of their Top 40 under 40 one year, a huge honor. But the way the piece came out caused a bit of... let's say animated conversation. All agreed the photo by Jay Paul was jaw dropping in loveliness, however.<br />
<br />
Style reported on my final day at one of the churches I served. That was pretty cool.<br />
<br />
And now whenever they want something unpredictable, they call me and I write for their Back Page. Long strange trip it is. I hope to keep truckin' with Style.<br />
<br />
Here are the 4 columns I've done so far. If you like them, let Style know. I like their assignments they offer me and their checks always clear.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/12-years-a-host/Content?oid=2040710" target="_blank">Sci Fi Socio Political Parenting Piece (With Ed Harrington's very creepy graphic. I love it.)</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/rules-for-the-living/Content?oid=2020879" target="_blank">New Year's Resolutions 2014</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/in-cooch-we-trust/Content?oid=1875309" target="_blank">Some Sodomy Humor</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/red-meat/Content?oid=1777062" target="_blank">How Obama Can Win the 2012 Election (Voter sex piece.)</a>The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-24248073580147243512014-03-31T06:41:00.001-04:002014-03-31T06:41:36.818-04:00Techno Bustcontinued again it in the complete and total engraved answering machine you must be bad.<br />
<br />
Hmmm, well never mind on the voice recognition plan for blogging. I'll check back in later when I am done lamenting the lack of engraved answering machines in my life.<br />
<br />
I must be bad.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-67181304707954422292014-03-30T09:00:00.000-04:002014-03-30T09:00:04.307-04:00The Mayor of the Hospice UnitMost people think of dying at home when they think of hospice. Then again, most people don't want to think of hospice at all.<br />
<br />
Although I work for hospice, I work mostly in a hospital. On the hospice inpatient unit our job is to find solutions to complex pain and symptom issues unmanageable at home. Well, that is the medical side of it.
As chaplain, my job is to be with people and their loved ones in a way that reminds them of what they value and hold dear. Yes, I have the better job. No, I'm not one bit biased; I just hate suction tubes, suppositories, and the math involved in pharmacology.<br />
<br />
It is not uncommon for us to have patients for only a day before they die. It is not uncommon for us to have a complete turnover in our unit within a week. Hospital staff think, "Well, duh. That's our life every day."<br />
<br />
The difference is that hospitals have the goal of prolonging life. Our goal is to relieve suffering, provide compassionate connection, and prepare for death. The difference in our goals changes the style of care.
An example of the difference: when I worked on regular units in hospitals and patients died, there were often many staff in the room because some sort of emergency code had been called. Everyone is talking, rarely is anyone talking to the patient. Family is asked to step outside. People have side conversations about their shift, the president, a sale at Kohl's; nervous conversations based in the fear of failure.<br />
<br />
Vigorous attempts are made to save a life, an anonymous life. When the patient dies, comforting of the staff takes place in private because an environment in which success equals life has difficulty balancing the reality of grief and loss. (Don't get me wrong- if I should choke while we are eating tapas, get me to the hospital quickly. I'm just saying the perspective is not warm and fuzzy.)<br />
<br />
In hospice when a patient dies we move slowly and deliberately. Prayers are said if appropriate, soothing words if not. There are no alarms or bells, few tubes or machines. If family is present, they are surrounding the patient and only a couple of staff are in the room at the same time. We all know the dying person's name.<br />
<br />
Unless we are singing or praying, we the staff are very quiet. Afterwards we may give each other hugs, or thank one another for the care we gave that patient. In the best cases, we have come to know the family, so we better understand what this particular loss means to them. We talk about the patient again after death to assess the bereavement risk for the family, and if we were there, to share our opinions on whether it was a "good death" (when the patient dies in a way that was in line with their hopes). This latter part is important to us because we want every patient to die well, but know that this is not something we can truly control. The assurance that the best end occurred is a great comfort to hospice workers.<br />
<br />
Which brings me to the Mayor. The Mayor was a member of the Greatest Generation. He was on our unit for a couple of weeks getting symptom management. He sat up and received visitors like a priest receives confessors. He smiled when staff came in. He read books and magazines. He was sound of mind, strong of character, and a gentleman in every way.<br />
<br />
We planned to send him home with his medications stabilized to be with his family for his final weeks or months.
I went home from my shift on a Friday after saying good night to the Mayor. It's a habit you get into with certain patients. When they are fully aware of their surroundings you give them the respect that you would give them if you were a guest in their home. Before you leave "their place" you say goodbye. At least I do.<br />
<br />
When I would check out with the Mayor, he'd look over his reading glasses, put out his hand for a shake, and bid me a happy evening. He also always thanked me for coming to see him, even though he had visitors every day. What a guy.<br />
<br />
I came back Monday morning and went to say hello but the Mayor had gone home. It was a great way to start the week. The Mayor had become well enough to go home and live in the comfort of familiar surroundings. Or so I thought for about thirty minutes. And so did several of my co-workers. We were all smiles.<br />
<br />
In team report we covered the deaths of the weekend. The Mayor had not gone to his home in Richmond but to his eternal home. We were shocked and distraught. How could this happen?<br />
<br />
Now you are probably thinking, "You work in hospice every single day and you get distraught when a patient dies? One patient?" Well, yeah. It's called a breakdown in compartmentalization and here is how it works.<br />
<br />
We can all agree - working in hospice is not easy. There have been 12 patient death weeks at our unit. And I mean work week not 7 day week. There are a limited number of ways to deal with that and remain engaged and open to the next 250 patients, much less 250 more families. In general, we do it through routine.<br />
<br />
Our patients mostly die according to a couple of patterns. We learn the patterns and we say goodbye to them incrementally according to the pattern. We can handle it as long as it stays within the emotional safety of the rhythm we know which is usually one of gradual decline in communication and interest in the outside world. Just as a baby becomes increasingly interested in the world beyond what she can reach as she grows, the dying person becomes less engaged the closer she comes to death.<br />
<br />
Until they don't. Like the Mayor.<br />
<br />
On the last day of the Mayor's life he ate three small snacks, read a magazine, hosted family and guests in his room, and took a nap. As he was getting ready for bed he began to feel ill. He was sitting on the side of his bed waiting for the nurse to assist him to the bathroom. She entered and he shared that he didn't feel well. They talked. She checked on his vitals and she realized that the Mayor would not be following the pattern. She told him. He talked to her. She held his hand and laid him on his bed. She talked quietly to him and he to her until he died. It all lasted ten minutes.<br />
<br />
The Mayor didn't die as we or he had hoped or planned. He was in a hospital not home. He was without his family. He had not finished his plans.<br />
<br />
But he died with someone caring for him. Someone holding his hand. Someone who knew his name. Someone who mourned him when he was gone. Staff all hugged each other quite a bit that day we found out how the Mayor had died. Then we went into other people's rooms and remembered to give a little extra eye contact, hold their hands, and say goodbye when we left for the day. The dying may never end with hospice but neither does the learning.<br />
<br />
<br />The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-25673374933808094532014-03-30T08:32:00.000-04:002014-03-30T08:32:48.342-04:00Newcomer Introduction<div class="MsoNormal">
Wanna know what I've been to since conception? First - you need a better hobby. Second - well, ok.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Life History or at least the good parts.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>1970's</b> - Idyllic childhhood in Richmond,
Virginia filled with urban living, roller skating, dancing,reading and marching
to the beat of a tune heard only in my noggin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>1980's</b> - Discover boys, DIY fashion design,
poetry, Prince, and an interest in theology. Go to college. Fail to fit in.
Revel in that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>1990's</b> - Throw away youth on formal education
including seminary. Learn that hate is a word reserved for: endless committee
meetings, traditional worship styles, cookie cutter weddings and funerals. Determine
that organized religion can easily disintegrate into a 4 letter word. Tap into
an unknown gift of calm and comfort in the face of death. Go into hospice work
because death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>2000's</b> - Have babies! Love babies! Have babies
suck the life out of me. Brainwashed by unknown forces (aliens? ghosts?
zombies?) to go back into parish ministries within "organized"
religion for over 6 years. Transform the concepts of death rituals and worship
experience for a small set of religious liberals who reward me greatly. Blog,
rebuild some crucial closets and bathrooms of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane
Katrina, learn a ridiculous amount about death, dying, grief, funerals,
cemeteries, and death related legislation. Leave parish ministry in search of
sanity, time with the "babies", and a family business.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>2010's</b> - A roller coaster. High points include
teaching hundreds of students on a variety of topics, writing, protesting
uterus obsessed legislation, mentoring the "babies" in State Fair
arts and crafts competitions, learning to play full body tambourine in New
Orleans. Low points include family tragedies and marital dissolution. You can't
have everything, right?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>These days </b>- Revel in the opportunity to provide my
offspring with an idyllic childhood in Richmond. Rejoice in urban living,
roller skating, dancing, reading and marching to the beat of a tune heard only
in my noggin.</div>
The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-83541882423956076682014-03-29T13:06:00.000-04:002014-03-29T17:37:38.772-04:00Luddite Lament"<i>And now I'm back... from outer space... you just walked in to see me here with that same look upon my face...</i>"<br />
<br />
I have been locked out of the Jots world for MONTHS. Madness, chaos, misplaced passwords, rabid procrastination, technology continuing to advance while I wonder where I put the instructions for my stereo.<br />
<br />
Oh, yeah, and now that I am back I see all the stuff I was trying to fix on this thing when I locked myself out. Ugh. No wonder it took me so long to get back. Luddite life - you never really put it behind you.<br />
<br />
Well, this loooong silence no doubt separated the wheat from the chaff as far as my dear twelve fans are concerned. I have so much to update the remaining three of you on! There have been publications. There have been radio shows. There have been T-shirts designed! There are zines in the works. There was the world's zaniest birthday cake. Most importantly, I neither broke any part of my body nor had any catastrophe.<br />
<br />
The only bad news is that I work six jobs in order to keep my children in shoes that fit. They are very tall and I daily wonder how that happened. The balance is that one of those jobs is paying for health insurance. I can't afford a co-pay yet but... baby steps.<br />
<br />
So, if all goes well (toes and neck hair crossed) this is the first of several entries bringing us back together and caught up. Please feel free to say hi in the comments. I've missed you three.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-71944206729717806102013-09-02T15:12:00.000-04:002013-09-02T15:12:56.075-04:00Rosh Hashanah - the "boring" one<b>"But I don't wanna change."</b>
<P>
This is going to be a tricky Jewish New Year around my house. I talked with the children again about Rosh Hashanah, the forgettable Jewish holiday in the worldview of the under 12 set. My offspring value neither apples with honey nor lengthy Hebrew recitations, so Rosh Hashanah is not-too-affectionately known as, "the boring one."
<P>
I'd like to chalk it up to their affinity for latkes, nightly candle lighting, building tree shelters, and matzoh ball soup; none of which are associated with this holiday. But the truth is that I have happy children. Change and regret have not become part of their daily lives. They feel no need to ritualize loss and hope. They're happy little Zen masters most hours of every day except when it's time to clean their bodies or their rooms. Or, G-d forbid, they accidentally touch each other. (That's their orthodox streak coming out.)
<P>
I love Rosh Hashanah. For years I spent the weeks coming into the holiday with a little book called <i>Preparing Your Heart for the High Holy Days.</i> I'd meditate and pray and read stuff and be an all around bore about it. Good times.
<P>
As I aged and suffered more losses, the metaphor of the books of life and death and who will be inscribed in which became more and more meaningful. The literal image is a nightmare, but coming to an understanding that we all have a limited amount of seasons has been transformative. I enjoy the meditative mood of the holiday, and the days of awe are aptly named for me. But try telling that little soliloquy to 8 and 11 year olds.
<P>
So there we were in the chapel where I give all of my spiritual guidance (the car) and I shared with the Buddha babies my incredibly brilliant, thoughtful, and laudable idea to celebrate this year with the kid-appropriate ritual adapted from Tashlikh. Smartly, I didn't put it that way.
<P>
"So what we will do is tramp down to the Mighty Mighty James River and write what we want to change about ourselves on biodegradable paper and then we will cast them into the river and watch them float away!"
<P>
My son gave his diplomatic nod which means, "I am still young enough to refrain from derisive snorting. Revel in these days, madre."
<P>
My daughter declared decisively, "But I don't wanna change."
<P>
How is it that the parenting coup of raising happy people from scratch becomes a mega-fail in celebrating my most favorite-ist holiday? Crap. Being a responsible, spiritual adult on my own is hard. Raising up little spiritual chicklets in my personal direction is a bear. Zen masters aren't necessarily good little devout Jews. That's fine with me. Well-adjusted Unitarian Universalist kids.
<P>
With that goal in mind I took the puddins to the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Glen Allen yesterday. They had a great program planned and the sermonizer was rumored to be tolerable. You know what that means. Yeah, I was preaching. I led the children's worship talking about Tashlikh and how Rosh Hashanah is happening during the start of the new school year. Thanks to the tepid reaction of my own offspring on the subject, I mixed it up a little for child-relevance sake. I invited the children, of whom my daughter was one, to think of changes in their school life they wish for this year. One wanted to be better in math, another in English. One was positively, absolutely NOT going to be bullied. (Amen to that!) My daughter had her hand up for awhile.
<P>
"Yes, madame. What will you be changing this year?"
<P>
I'm stumped. Her grades are good. She's a happy puppy and she already has made it clear that change is not on her mind. Then my daydreaming began. Oh, please please please let her vow to become a morning person. Or an overwhelming desire to wash all the dishes from now on. Pleeeeeease.
<P>
"I'm going to quit choir this year!" She announced with triumph.
<P>
"What? This..." Not mornings. Not dishes. Yes change. Poop. "(<i>Stammer</i>). You... (<i>sputter</i>)," finally I had to drop the Rev. and just be Mama right up in there in front of everyone. "Choir? Really? Darn it. And this is how you tell me? In front of dozens of witnesses. You..." I was thinking how lovely her little voice was practicing "Man in the Mirror" last year. Then I remembered she didn't actually sing half the songs at the concert, just looked nauseous and well-behaved in the front row. Sigh.
<P>
"Well played, little bird. Well played. Way to embrace change." I high fived her.
<P>
The little church pumpkins then commenced telling scraps of paper their secrets for transformation and metamorphosis and throwing them in a "river" (wheelchair ramp) by the pulpit. I whispered "Fear" into mine as I had told the children I would, and tossed it high. My daughter gleefully threw the choir away. While the others tossed bad grades and bullies down the ramp with flourish, some huzzahs, and even a bit of dancing with celebratory fist pumping, one little curly haired cherub came up to me. I bent down to her and she cupped her hand around my ear, whispering, "I'm not going to be afraid any more either. Just like you." If that isn't an engraved invitation into the days of awe...
<P>
So this is how we will be doing Rosh Hashanah this year. I'll be praying in services and my secret prayer spots for two days, then we'll all tramp down to the riverside. I will prayerfully put my hopes for the New Year on a piece of thin paper and ceremoniously toss it in the river. My little imps are welcome to make boats, swans, airplanes, arrows, rockets, or whatever else they desire to celebrate the New Year in whatever way they want. They can include secrets, hopes, pet peeves, or name the projectiles George, as long as they send them soaring. Whatever they choose, I doubt it will be boring. Shanah Tovah, y'all!The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-20079372667887074412013-08-26T21:41:00.002-04:002013-08-26T21:41:49.435-04:00Drunk Texting Gene RoddenberryIt happens to all of us. A little beer or other spirits, maybe even just too much caffeine. A moon in a cool summer sky. Then an electronic device with internet or phone connection just a little too close at hand. Suddenly... POW! You've made a memory, baby. <br />
<br />
For someone else, that is. Your out-of-it tail doesn't have a clue 'til the bliss clears, the headache starts, and your friends are mocking you mercilessly.<br />
<br />
For my friend, whom we will call "Giddy" to protect her dignity (as if), this happened in the form of a Facebook post. The spirit was wine, the moon at about half glory, and Neptune kissingly close. I'm not sure what the occasion was but Giddy is a slight gal and I can't imagine it took much fruit of the vine before she was reaching for her phone, accessing her Facebook account and typing...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">STAR TRKK IS THE BEST FIREVER ALWAYS</span><br />
<br />
That's my girl. Kinda brings a tear to my geeky eyes. <br />
<br />
I think there must be something in the air this summer: a siren sci fi song that is making mild-mannered retro, steam punk, alternate reality, and time travel loving geekettes get buck wild. This post is my proof but the signs have been multiplying.<br />
<br />
Exhibit A: I butt dialed a co-worker while in bed with my children reading China Mieville's <u>Railsea</u>. Twice. She said she screamed my name a few times to shut me up, then finally gave in and listened as I read aloud and the children and I discussed the post-apocalyptic <u>Moby Dick</u> on rails. She's asked to borrow it when we are done.<br />
<br />
B: One of my book club homeys begged me to get some saki with him so we could process <u>Freedom TM</u> without book club supervision. Gasp! That means... we could... say... ANYTHING! (Including our true feelings about the appropriateness of Philip K. Dick's name and that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" still makes us cry a little in the same ways as The Smith's "Meat is Murder" album.) As cruel fate would have it, I was called into work and missed that golden opportunity for unfettered cyber armageddon based bacchanalia. But for a few days there that risky business was on this girl's Google calendar. Oh yes it was.<br />
<br />
Then... THEN! (Dear heavens I hope you are sitting down for this.) I realized that Red on "Orange is the New Black" is none other than Captain Janeway from "Star Trek: Voyager"! (I know you are perfectly aware who Janeway is, but my mom reads this blog so I do what I can to communicate clearly.) The realization made me sit straight up in bed and frantically email my book club buddies in the dark.<br />
<br />
So when Giddy drunkenly took thumb to iPhone and essentially drunk texted Star Trek's progenitor Gene Roddenberry for all to see, I was thrilled to know that it wasn't just me feeling the love. <br />
<br />
On a brief tangent, this ain't just about the ladies. My buddy who lets me dip in his deprivation tank every now and again loaned me his copy of <u>Starship Troopers</u>. It had a bite mark on it. Perfect teeth imprint halfway down the pages. I'm not afraid to taunt a benefactor. <br />
<br />
"Hey, Dude. You getting a little out of hand in some old school cosplay? I didn't even know they did Heinlein, but it looks like hard core bad boy stuff from the bite mark." <br />
<br />
"My dog, you dweeb."<br />
<br />
Yeah, right, Big Man. (<em>Mama, I'll explain all this later after I come up with some way to link this to Doc Martin or that Abbey thing you dig.</em>)<br />
<br />
Back to STAR TRKK, Giddy inevitably opened the door to trash talk from some backwoods homunculus Facebook friend of hers.<br />
<br />
"You misspelled it. That is W-A-R-S," the slug typed with his tiny antennae.<br />
<br />
Oh, please. No woman worth her ovaries would ever publicly text George "I am an overgrown Ewok" Lucas on a tipsy summer's night. To quote Giddy herself when I met her years ago: "The prequels were an abomination for which Lucas must forever march in shame and without female companionship."<br />
<br />
Not that we don't love those Amidala costumes but, come on, given the choice between Alec Guinness or Patrick Stewart? Exactly.<br />
<br />
I'm off to boldly go into the laundry room and start the dryer now. Prepare to find a point in all this... Engage.<br />
The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-28249026587481414952012-10-10T10:27:00.000-04:002012-10-10T10:27:09.725-04:00Endings
<em>I gave a service in Virginia's beautiful Northern Neck this week. The topic was endings. I was asked to put this excerpt on the blog. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The common thread between our stories is that most everyone
I know at some point in the past thought that they would be different at this
point <em>now</em>. I credit that difference to our lives being non-linear, our
development coming erratically, and to put it diplomatically: our self-awareness and worldly wisdom being
not exactly, well, on point. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I believe th</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">e Buddhists really do have an edge on the rest of us. The
state of mindfulness takes all the painful zing out of an unexpected ending. If
we have been in the moment accepting <em>now</em> for what it is, then the ending is
just another version of this moment. When we live in the <em>now</em> and stop the monkey mind from yelling
“What if???” and “It’s supposed to be like <u>this</u> not like <u>that</u>!”-then we see that
all endings are pretty surprising. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">This past week I visited with patients in a large Richmond hospital as
part of a continuing education program I am in to become a certified chaplain.
I have been there only three weeks and have already given up on the elevators. Taking the stairs is a superb tool for mindfulness training. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">When I take the elevators, I walk in the box. The doors of
the box close. The doors of the box open. I see a patient or ten. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I get back in the box. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The doors of
the box close. The doors of the box open. I go down a hall that looks identical to the last. I see another patient or ten. I get back in the box. The
doors of the box close. The doors of the box open. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">When I take the stairs I have a better understanding of
where I am in the labyrinthine hospital layout, and where I am in here <em>{pointing to my heart}</em> and I begin to see patterns that were invisible when I traveled via box.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I leave the chaplain office, climb the
stairs three floors, and turn right. There I meet premature infants as little as
a pound in size. They live in boxes but the doors neither open nor close. When I
step back, turn left, and walk down a hall I meet pregnant women confined to the bed so that they
may have infants who are larger than a pound. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">They look like sci fi mamas because often they are not allowed to move off their backs so all I see is a head, a belly, and pillows. When I exit and turn left down another hall I
meet families who had normal labor and seven pound babies. Sometimes they are mad about
hospital food and the sound of construction in halls and often are wondering how their hair
looks. I get very confused on the third floor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I walk up a flight and I turn right where I meet men and women of all
ages who are being monitored at all times by machines. They look out their windows as they worry about their families and homes. I met two young men in two rooms who were despondent
because each was depressingly certain he was the youngest person on the unit. Their rooms
were nineteen steps from each other but they were together in concern and in youthful spirit. I was with each of them when their lovers visited and saw them gaze at their girlfriends as if starlight were trapped in
women's bodies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Nineteen steps down from them and around a corner is a man in his nineties whom I visit next. He is a bit
confused, but when I lean over his bed he reaches up and gently strokes my hair which has fallen over my shoulder.
He says, “You are such a pretty girl” and as I look into his face I see the
reflection of starlight in his milky blue eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I go back to the stairs and I walk up to the top of the
hospital where the intensive care unit sits right
beside the psychiatric unit, both closest to heaven. In intensive care I visit with a wife in her 30’s
who tells me about how the man in the bed on the ventilator stole her heart when they met and
how she asked him, “Why steal it? I would have just given it to you.” He has already spoken his last words but we pray
that he will live just one more day. “I just don’t want it to end today,” she
says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I make the few steps next door to the behavioral health unit for a group
session where the patients are walking their twelve steps but not with their feet.
They have strong bodies and perfectly healthy hearts. “We are dying,” they tell
me, each in her or his own way. Their families say they just need to go to church. Or they need to just
stop taking those drugs. If I took the elevator I might agree with their
families. But I take the stairs and I know that they are dying. There may very
well be a cure, but right <em>now</em> they are dying. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">There are endings to each of the stories I walk in on in the
hospital. I rarely learn the ending to theirs, not that ours are any clearer. As I walk up and down the stairs I
think about the endings, all of our endings. I fear some of them. I hope for some of them. I go home and I wonder
about all of them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">But I can’t enjoy supper with my kids when I think of all the
people I see in a day in terms of endings and beginnings. Such thinking puts a timer on
our stories. If when I am sitting with someone in their <em>now... </em>if I am thinking in terms of endings then I can’t concentrate for all that ticking. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">While I take the stairs I have been thinking that wherever I
am in my life there is someone a few houses down, a few streets over, a couple
of seats away in the labyrinth of life struggling with the same thing but calling it by a different
name. How our stories will end seems overwhelming but isn't that because we are not the authors? It is not our place to say when the story is over. We can control some of the action, we get to write all of the emotion, but
the ending is not ours to know. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">What makes not knowing bearable is that in this moment... </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">right here... in the eternal <em>now</em>.... if we are being who we are meant to be... the ending doesn’t matter at all. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">May it be so.</span></div>
The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-66986883141549293722012-09-16T18:56:00.000-04:002012-09-16T18:56:27.375-04:00L'Shana TovaAny journey in faith is always an embracing of a very big "what if...". Many of the "what ifs" of the world's religions suggest answers to questions about meaning and purpose within the cycle of life. What if we were created with a purpose? What if the only moment is this moment? What if we will be resurrected when we die? What if we loved all people as if they were our sisters and brothers? What if we spent our energy throughout our lives building the kingdom of heaven on earth?<br />
<br />
The High Holy Days changed how I understand the cycle of life forever. I was in seminary. I was learning Hebrew. I was NOT calling the Hebrew Scriptures the Old Testament and so I was feeling a bit out of place among my Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist classmates. I began attending sabbath services at synagogues wherever I could find them. And then came the High Holy Days. I had a fresh brain full of a beautiful new language and I went to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services (after some serious work to get tickets, but that is another story.) The services were so intensely meaningful to me that they changed how I saw ministry, faith, life and death. So year after year I kept going, and if I couldn't go because I was a minister of a congregation I hosted a UU variation on the services.<br />
<br />
I think back on all the High Holy Day services I have attended and the variations on them which I have led, and they each serve as a beacon to my better understanding of the intricacies of the phases of life. The High Holy Days are the time for us to look back on what has become of our lives including that which we could control and that which was beyond our control. To borrow from a different tradition, the High Holy Days are a great time for learning the lessons of serenity: accepting the things we can't change, courageously working to change what we can, and becoming wise to the difference between the two. What if we can do it better next year?<br />
<br />
I consider this some powerful philosophical and spiritual stuff and I believe it stands in stark contrast to the New Year's observances of December 31 and January 1. When the celebration of a new year is removed from spiritual concerns we seem to find a way to make it about ourselves and not our better selves.<br />
<br />
A new year becomes about <em>my</em> house being de-cluttered, about <em>my</em> weight, about <em>my</em> goals, <em>my</em> stuff, <em>my</em> vanity, more of <em>my my my</em> crap. But when the new year is part of a spiritual belief, part of ritual, part of an understanding of oneself in relation to others the focus becomes something beyond <em>my</em> self-interest and <em>my </em>control issues. For me the High Holy Days are about how life works and how it changes depending on where we stand on our lifeline and with whom we stand.<br />
<br />
As a young woman, the prayers, rituals, and readings of the High Holy Days taught me the humility to face my own responsibility in relationships needing reconciliation. As a mother who lost a child in pregnancy I learned to think of the cycle of death as a natural part of life and to be observed solemnly but hopefully every year keeping the love for those we have lost alive. As a woman of a unique faith journey (raised Unitarian Universalist by an atheist and a Methodist, attended Presbyterian seminary, being spiritually Jewish and denominationally UU) I was reminded annually that we are all responsible for our own convictions, hopes, and disappointments and how we will allow them to shape what we understand as Truth.<br />
<br />
The past three years have been, without exaggeration or maudlin pouting, the worst of my life. But the lessons of Rosh Hashanah are that some years are just like that. Ever notice how the iPod shuffle seems to favor some albums over others? Ever hit five red lights in a row on a stretch when you normally just get one or two? It happens. Life is benign. There will be tragedy. There will be wild success. We have control over some of it but almost always less than we think. What we do have control over year in and out is how we will be with others. How we will get up and brush ourselves off. How we will honor those we have loved and lost. How we will forgive and ask for forgiveness. <br />
<br />
We begin Rosh Hashanah again today. I am not going to any services this year. The Unitarian Universalist churches in town chose not to observe it and it has been too emotional a year in the Book of Life for me to trust myself to be surrounded by strangers in a Jewish community, even though they are always welcoming. I prefer not to sob on strangers. So I am asking my New Year's "what ifs" here. <br />
<br />
The year I look back on - I lived in 28 places in the past 395 days. I have not said "Thank You" enough. I have said "I'm sorry" at the wrong times. I have worked for reconciliation in the wrong ways and sometimes for the wrong reasons. I have some tears to shed as I reflect on the past but what if I can do it better? What if I can receive love more willingly? What if I can hear a person's heart in spite of their garbled words? What if I have the power to make a difference in spite of my vast limitations?<br />
<br />
This year has been abundant in blessings and signs of hope. I have been written in the Book of Life day after day. I have seen beautiful people begin their lives. I have been able to say goodbye to those who lived full lives and rest peacefully. I have watched my children blossom. I have had the blessings of living parents. I have been embraced by wondrous friends and loved by a huge extended family. I now have a place to live for a more extended stay. What if that is more than enough?<br />
<br />
Three years of loss but this is the beginning of a fourth year. My Florida relatives swear the bad streak always ends at three and they have known more tragedy than can be numbered. What if they are right?<br />
<br />
I stand in this place - mid-life, going back to school, mom of kids who are growing in independence and wisdom, daughter of parents finding their way into senior years, a divorcing woman - and I wait for the sun to set and the New Year to start, I am content. I am at peace. I have reconciliation to build and dreams to pursue and I am grateful for the days of life in which I get the opportunity to move forward in my journey. <br />
<br />
But I didn't write this for me. As the New Year begins, I was also thinking of you because that is what all those High Holy Days services taught me to do: stand on your spot in the life cycle and pay attention to everyone around you. They might need a hand. If your last year has been peachy, maybe you could send this along to someone who has been tripping along with me in the briar patch. (We often can't see each other in there, you know?)<br />
<br />
A blessing for Rosh Hashanah:<br />
<br />
May your new year be sweet, my friend. <br />
May your pain be brief and may it have a purpose you can grasp. <br />
May your healing come with smiles and wisdom. <br />
May your opportunities be well-marked so you do not pass them by. <br />
May your shame fade in the dusk of every day. <br />
May the love you give and the love you encounter be abundant.<br />
May you learn how to build bridges of reconciliation and hope. <br />
May you trust and be trusted. <br />
May your name be inscribed in the Book of Life so that we may meet on the path this year<br />
<br />
Happy New Year or l'shana tova.<br />
<br />
In love,<br />
AThe Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-19504971311299872502012-09-06T09:46:00.001-04:002012-09-06T09:46:25.441-04:00Scientists Link Children to Theism in Beflusterformed ParentsI became a praying woman this summer. <br />
<br />
"But you are a minister," you say?<br />
<br />
Let me rephrase. I became a begging, praying woman this summer.<br />
<br />
<em>God, thank you for so many blessings but, babe, these kids gotta go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Preferably a jobs training program, a really intense one. But they gotta go.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
Here's the funny thing, at ages 10 and 7 this was one of their best summers ever. They learned how to play together. They weren't whining all the time. They could entertain themselves sometimes. They were funny and happy often. <br />
<br />
So what's the problem? I think what got me was the intensity of focus. Those kids spend way too much time staring at me.<br />
<br />
"You got something on your lip, Mama." <em>That's a zit, you little twit.</em><br />
<br />
"You sure are white." <em>That's because I don't have adoring grandparents with pool access. And I prefer the term "very light-skinned".</em><br />
<em></em><br />
"Your roots are showing." <em>Ok, THAT'S IT! Back to school with you, you little perfectly visioned monster.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
It was never ending: You dance funny. Your boobies are ginormous. Your breath smells like raisins and I don't like raisins. Stop falling asleep, I want to tell you something. Rub my back. Scratch my hair. Bake me a cake. <br />
<br />
Heh heh. I did bake them cakes. Each odd in its own way. And the little boogers thanked me repeatedly, hugged me, ate every bite, and mourned them when they were gone.<br />
<br />
And when they want to tell me something, it is often great. I love the funny little things they tell me about their theories on the origins of humanity. She wants a really big piece of paper to write Earth's family tree on. She says she'll write really really really small. He says she can't because there are several lines of humanity including the crew that came from the mating of the pink-butted with the not-so-hairy primates. Then there are the ones that come from the flat butted and flat forehead mating, and so on.<br />
<br />
And I do dance funny, and my roots are showing, and I eat the raisins because no one else will. And we are leaving my breasts out of this.<br />
<br />
Aw crapola.<br />
<br />
<em>Dear Divine Force, last night he made sure I ate what I needed when I felt hypoglycemic. She brushed my hair. We held hands to share what we were thankful for at supper at 9:30 PM, in my ex-husband's house because my stove won't boil water. And they were thankful for me. Thank you for them.</em><br />
<br />
Truth is, I cry on the first day of school every year. I didn't this year. My car had to go in the shop. My camera broke. My phone shattered. A very important check was delayed in being deposited in my account. She clogged the toilet. He leaves a mess wherever he goes, and he goes in every room in my house. I took them to school. I took pictures with a borrowed camera. I got everyone in classes with great teachers on time. And I bolted to do 10,000 things on a list that I know I put somewhere safe. No tears.<br />
<br />
When I picked them up, they smelled like feet and had trouble staying awake. No tears.<br />
<br />
I dropped them off on the second day and she blushed when her teacher told her what a lovely girl she is. And he hugged me extra tight. <br />
<br />
"I'm so proud of you, baby" I said to him. As a 5'1" 5th grader he didn't even mind I called him baby and he didn't stop hugging me. I started crying right there in the school hall. Lots of tears.<br />
<br />
"I'm proud of you, too," he said. "You didn't cry until the second day!"<br />
<br />
<em>Hey, Spirit of the Universe, sorry I can be such a dumbass. </em>The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-56480423782684316642012-07-05T10:57:00.001-04:002012-07-05T10:57:10.511-04:00FallingSince the demise of my marital condition I have spent 11 months homemaking on couches and in guest rooms. I have tackled the questions everyone has to answer as a relationship ends: Who am I? What does my past mean? What am I afraid of? Whom do I love? <br />
<br />
I still tackle these most days.<br />
<br />
I work daily to be a loving mother who cares about and encourages her kids in their ever-present condition of becoming. I get teeth brushed, hair washed, and something nutritious in them and me most of the time. We play, talk, wonder and sleep together on the half-time custody schedule.<br />
<br />
I've earned money by taking whatever job my friends and associates offer me since applications don't bear fruit. I've done a passel of funerals, sold a lot of chicken salad, scooped behind many a beloved pet of someone else's. <br />
<br />
I wrote a screenplay during National Script Writing Month. It wasn't very good and I didn't mind a bit. We all need our sanity projects.<br />
<br />
A couple months ago I thought I was coming to a pretty good handle on it all. Not a lot of answers but at least the questions weren't making me almost wet my pants any more. Winter was over. I had housing set up for at least four months, money for groceries, and my pillow stayed dry four out of seven nights a week. Felt like I was on the upswing, you know?<br />
<br />
Then I fell. <br />
<br />
I was house sitting and setting out in the morning to get my kids from their dad's house to take them to school - a morning ritual which saved my emotional life on more than one occasion. I had my computer bag on my shoulder for midday job hunting. Heading out from the second floor guest room I made it down one step and my hip gave out. <br />
<br />
So there I was: alone in a house across town from my kids falling down a flight of stairs.<br />
<br />
I thought that in falls like that there's a delay before you feel the pain. There wasn't.<br />
<br />
I thought that there's a point in a fall when your body stops fighting it. There isn't.<br />
<br />
I never thought about it, but if I had I would've thought that when your spine gets shaped like a C with an ear stuck to shoulder and hip stuck to elbow that there isn't anything you can do about it. There is. But I don't recommend it.<br />
<br />
Falling is just gravity voodoo. I saw a young buzzed guy fall off a barstool the other day (yes, DAY). He burst out laughing and hopped back up. I saw my son fall the next day. He shook his shoulders a little and moved on. <br />
<br />
I fell down that flight of stairs and within 20 minutes managed to get my spine mostly back in place, climb in the car, and drive to where my children were. I screamed like a Banshee for much of that process but I still made it happen. My neck hurts as I type this, but it's way better and I probably wouldn't notice if I weren't talking about it.<br />
<br />
It's the other falls that keep us limping. Stumbling out of a relationship. Tripping into unemployment. Slipping into mid-life. The gravity storm of grief. Those falls can knock you down and keep you there if you don't learn how to emotionally and spiritually give yourself a chiropractic adjustment and some serious recovery exercises.<br />
<br />
On my stair tumble I broke my tailbone. I messed up my spine and neck which gave me shooting pains in every which direction for long weeks. My computer didn't even get a bump. I was lucky. But I did lose something when I fell. My chutzpah, my defenses, my denial of the extent of the losses of recent years... something tumbled out of me that I have yet to pick back up.<br />
<br />
I recently met a woman who took a fall at a family event and was laid up for weeks of recovery hundreds of miles from home. Two years later she's sporting a plate, some pins, and a healthy wariness of stairs. She walks just fine. The same woman has been married twice and says she'll be alone the rest of her life. She likes being alone. Except it sure would be nice to have someone to go to the movies with or to look over an unfamiliar menu with and wonder together if they should risk the special. Each type of falling is different.<br />
<br />
There's an old joke about a devout but frail Presbyterian widow who believed in the doctrine of predestination so firmly that when she fell down a flight of stairs she hopped up on the landing like a stunt woman, brushed herself off, and declared, "Well, I'm glad that one's over."<br />
<br />
This one ain't over. I'm moving again, still looking for work like dozens of my friends. The divorce papers come through soon. I'm trying to jump up, right the stool, laugh, and climb back on but the gravity voodoo keeps catching up with me. That's just how it is going to be for awhile. Guess it's time to laugh harder.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-23316169672266900442012-04-01T10:53:00.001-04:002012-04-01T10:59:55.923-04:00Why People Don't Do What I DoThere are a million good reasons not to be me. I don't and never have done anything the easy way. I seem incapable of it. Take, for example, <a href="http://www.alanecmiles.com/index_files/winding.htm" target="_blank">Winding River Gathering</a>. We are gathering today at 2:30 and 4:00. That is a genius idea for people who, like me, do not like mornings. We are 100% funded by cover charges. That is an asinine idea for having any sense of security on the 6+ hours leading up to the event. If people do not show, future services are not a go.<br />
<br />
Another example, why didn't I go to business school? Have you ever tried to get a job outside of ministry when you are a minister? The world thinks I'm a zealot, or cult leader, or evangelist. (Giggle.)They think that in my ministerial career I just showed up for two hours a week, read from the Bible, and spent the rest of the time ironing my robe. Ha! As if I ever ironed my robe. How do so few people know that ministers are marketers, HR specialists, volunteer coordinators, group dynamic specialists, crisis counselors, teachers, writers, public speakers, project managers, and major fundraisers? Sure, those weren't the jobs I signed on for under the title Minister, but those were the jobs I did.<br />
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<br />
Here's one - someone told me recently that my relational way of doing things is not only inefficient but keeps me connected to virtually countless people by my insistence that every connection matters. Uh huh. And? You mean it is not normal to make an effort to personally greet and inquire after the distant relations of<em> every</em> person you slightly know or who looks receptive to being known in a day? That just can't be true.<br />
<br />
Oh, and science fiction. Let's not forget that I belonged to a science fiction book club for nearly two years when I find the genre to be predominantly sexist, war mongering, and hopelessly white. Exceptions? Of course, and we read as many as we could find but it was exhausting seeking out the sci fi novel that didn't have a white guy in uniform as its center. (And to think, men in uniform are so appealing to me in every day life. I'm not sure why it doesn't translate.) Then when we read the normal sci fi I would find myself livid and hampering the experience of my very kind, friendly, thoughtful, smart, white guy, neighbors and companions who invited me to that dance in the first place. <br />
<br />
There is also something to be said about the sanity of you TV watchers. There is a ridiculous amount of time in a day to worry about things, ask after distant relatives of even more distant friends, and just plain fret and stew when you live alone half the time and do not watch television. My magazines are taking over the bed and Facebook has become predictably election year, recession, Monsanto, uranium mining depressing. I should be devoting my life to "Dr. Who."<br />
<br />
There has to be an easier way. When I attend services they are either in Spanish, at an African American mega church, or at a Reform Jewish synagogue. The other attendees never understand why I would want to do that which I think is weird. If you like it, why can't I? An inordinate amount of my energy is spent dealing with the consternation of the other attendees. And we wonder why this world remains so segregated. On the other side of the tracks, I am the theist spiritual mentor to a significantly atheist gaggle of philosopher types.<br />
<br />
I buy 80% of my wardrobe in thrift stores and consignment shops which takes forever, is fraught with surprises, and nothing ever matches. OK, when have I ever wanted anything to match? Good point. It does take a lot of time, though.<br />
<br />
I am completely dependent on technology I can barely understand or manipulate and then I shoot for the stars in what I attempt to do with it. Oh the curses I have howled at my internet provider, phone, computer, and blog host.<br />
<br />
I eat ice cream when I know my stomach can't eat ice cream. I walk in the rain when I know my hips can't walk in the rain. I try to write novels, and screenplays without a day of creative writing instruction (today is day 1 of Script Frenzy). I try to rebuild after hurricanes. I have taken on hula hooping and roller skating in the past two months. I plan to go to Soul Karaoke even though it scares me to the very heart of my follicles to get up and sing R&B in a room full of serious R&B singers. No matter the karaoke plans or cut - my hair stands up.<br />
<br />
And in my spare time I remove wallpaper.<br />
<br />
<em>Truly, if I knew how to work in an office, wear Lilly Pulitzer, watch Mad Men, moisturize daily, and go to the gym wearing tennis shoes that match my eyeliner I would. First I'd learn how to put on eyeliner because I currently poke or scratch myself every time. Then moisturizer because that ends up in my eyes, too. My hobbies would be cleaning the house, working in the yard, and taking the kids to their practices, lessons, and games. My banking, charitable contributions, photo albums, and life goals would be neatly managed on my laptop with timely updates and upgrades. I would sing in a nice little church choir and I would read New York Times bestsellers without sneering. Truly.</em><br />
<br />
Wait. No, I wouldn't. I couldn't. I'd make everyone miserable. The poor choir director alone. Nah. I'm stone cold crazy but I gave up on trying to change that part of me years ago. You may see me in Lilly Pulitzer some day, but I will have found it on eBay and it'll have some weird misprint across the butt that looks like Santorum. <br />
<br />
Happy April Fool's! God knows I'm one.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-21732072316665965952012-03-28T17:59:00.000-04:002012-03-28T17:59:14.763-04:00BarsMy bar went out of commission back in December. The shock has passed and the pain is starting to hit. You don't see many writings from women ministers extolling and eulogizing their bars. I'm out to change that.<br />
<br />
When I was a child my grandfather, Skip, had a bar that was his second home. It was called Marie's. It was on the side of a busy trucking road near West Point, Virginia. That branch of the family is a matriarchy, and Skip was a flawed man with a bar love, so the negativity regarding the evil Marie's among the formidable women who raised me was palpable. I never heard the name said without a sneer. If they hadn't all been good Southern women they would have used spit as punctuation. I do recall that the adjective of choice to describe the joint was "damn"(sic).<br />
<br />
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I think I only got to go in Marie's once and it was from begging Skip and wearing down my beloved grandmother, Janie Bell. I was shocked that it was clean, pretty well lit and served mediocre hamburgers. Skip made way better hamburgers at home. My child mind just didn't get it.<br />
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My dad #1 didn't have a Marie's but my dad #2 had one. It's called Dot's. It used to be Tom Tom's. You can tell the length of tooth on a Northsider in Richmond, Virginia by the need to specify that we're talking about Dot's Back Inn that used to be Tom Tom's even though there is no other Dot's. It's as close as we can get to snobbery.<br />
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Dot's, which was owned by Cookie, sits two blocks behind the marital home I shared for 15+ years. Now it's owned by Jimmy but Cookie pulls a shift every now and again to keep her finger on the Northside pulse and to keep the decades tenured regulars happy. <br />
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Years ago when Dot's caught on fire and had to be redone all the food was better in the new digs. There were a lot of theories on why this would be. These theories involved everything from grease traps to lead paint. My theory was that the cooking staff had gone on a bender during the remodel and their zest for newfound sobriety on the re-opening came out in the dishes.<br />
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Jimmy has them cooking like fiends these days at Dot's. The specials board has become my go-to spot for fine vittles with some caution. I made the mistake of getting Jimmy's S'mores for dessert one night. It's deep fried French toast with marshmallow creme and enough Hershey's syrup to make you twitch for an hour after. A Bud is my dessert now: one with dinner, one for dessert. I don't live near there any more so I can't be indulging with abandon in the hops and barley beverages. Abandon = 3.<br />
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My daughter has been dating Rafael, one of the sous chefs at Dot's, since she was just out of diapers. She draws him pictures. He gives her free broccoli. It's a relationship a mother can approve of. They had a falling out a few months back when Lorelei thought they may actually be dating. I reminded her that it was just a long-running joke and that Rafael thinks of her like a daughter so she patched it back up. Rafael was never aware of this time of romantic struggle.<br />
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My buddy Paul and I have become buddies because we both go to Dot's for soup together about once a month. He says the bar stools are where the maritally woe begotten hang out. Yeah, that's about right. <br />
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One night my friend Faye, a Dot's waitress, misread a couple's signals and they stormed out with much huffing and tossing of hair. We don't toss hair in Northside unless it is to shake out the inch worms who have taken over the Spring trees. <br />
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"While they were sitting over there saying nothing, I was just saying that people my age fear Alzheimer's way more than cancer. Dang, I hope the Alzheimer's hasn't crept in already. Why didn't they say somethin'?" God, I love Faye.<br />
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Another night a friend told me about how when one of the Dot's waitresses had worked at Legend Brewery she had tried to talk him out of having his own personalized mug on the premises. She had warned that she'd seen too many lives fall down into the bottom of one of those "prestigious" mugs and fail to re-surface. See? These are good people at Dot's.<br />
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I didn't know this much about Dot's last year. Although the food at Dot's is and was far superior, I spent my bar stool time a block away at Shenanigans. Yep, my bar was named Shenanigans. Strangers seem to find that, and names like "Janie Bell", and "Cookie" endlessly amusing. <br />
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Shenanigans used to be Ray's Cock and Bull, a bluegrass bar. (Stop your giggling.) My mama and daddy #1 went to Cock and Bull once before my birth but left quickly when someone set their gun on a table. I'm sure daddy #2 went into Cock and Bull at some time, since it was his neighborhood, but I haven't heard about it. Cock and Bull was still open when I moved to Northside in the 90's but, in light of the gun story, I never went into it.<br />
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I started going to Shenanigan's pretty much when they opened. They had live music. They had nice owners. They sometimes had really good food, other times just decent bar food. Most importantly, they had a large collection of colorful regulars, myself included. I could write a book on my life at Shenanigans because, even though it was a bar, I rarely had more than a couple of drinks so I remember almost all of it clearly.<br />
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The ease of Shenanigan's was what I cherished. When you have your own bar it is very much like the TV show "Cheers". I could walk out my back door and be at Shenanigans in about a minute surrounded by familiars. I knew the owners, all the employees former and current, all the regulars, most of the musicians. I took all 12 of the Auspicious Jots readers there at one time or another. I had at least 6 birthday parties there. I celebrated innovations like the new paint job, the outlawing of indoor smoking, the moving of the stage, and three rounds of menu changes.<br />
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When my Janie Bell's dementia wasn't too bad, but in place enough to keep her from knowing she was in a bar, I would take her to Shenanigans for a burger. When my kids had a rough day at school or a truly great one we would celebrate with a soda at the bar. My out-of-town guests came with me to hear music. I received many a hug and a round from a friend as our family struggled through loss after loss. Their stage is the one I have sung from the most. On my first maritally separated Thanksgiving, the owners of Shenanigans took care of me and made sure I was fed and loved so it became one of the most delightful Thanksgiving meals ever.<br />
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Twice during storms when the power went out I was in Shenanigans which was a bummer because we were on the same line so I knew I was going home to darkness. The second time was memorable because I was on a barstool beside the Showdog's crack guitarist, Jim, and he said, "Decades I've spent playing in bars and this is the first time I've ever had the power go out."<br />
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"Don't look at me. I was here during Hurricane Irene and got the last burger from the grill before the lights went out for days," I piped up as I emptied my beer to go to my darkened home.<br />
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"Of course you were," Jim replied. At the time it sounded like admiration in his voice. Now I wonder.<br />
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Now that Shenanigans is gone I eat at Dot's. I visit my fave Shenanigan's waitresses Mary and Bonkers in Lakeside. I don't hear 1/10th of the music I used to. And I find myself thinking, "I should head on down to Shenanigans" before realizing I can't.<br />
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I've been courting a bartender (professionally only) at Penny Lane Pub. When you aren't an alcoholic, the bartender can make the bar because conversation is way more important. He's almost off the probation period of New Bartender thanks to dancing his tail off with his darling wife on one of the last nights at Shenanigans while I played full body tambourine for everyone's favorite 70's funk cover band, NRG Krysis. Shared absurd experience is a key element to any long-term bartender/customer relationship.<br />
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But Penny Lane or any other bar is not the same and never will be. Shenanigan's had a look to it at sunset that was so welcoming and happy. At that same time of day, Shenanigans had some regulars who had a look to them that was always off-putting and menacing. To a man, they were harmless and had their charms.<br />
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Shenanigans was like a home. I knew which chairs I liked, when to get the special, the best spot for wi-fi, and how to move through it when crowded. I know where I was sitting when Richmond's troubador, Page Wilson, very publicly asked me on a date when I was very married. Page and many others have gone to the Shenanigans in the sky, their deaths made more melancholy by the inability to hoist a pint in their honor at the very bar they loved.<br />
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There are many reasons, easy to list, not to have "your" bar. But a bar can be a safe place to make friends, be yourself, try new things, wax philosophical; to learn how to put up with loud mouthed turkeys, and to practice your jaw at being a loud mouthed turkey. Shenanigans was all of those things for me AND they served booze and burgers. God love them. <br />
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Do me a favor. This week hoist something wet in a public setting and call out with great reverence, "To Shenanigans!" Then look solemnly around, tap your glass down in front of you and slosh back whatever you like to drink from tea to Jaeger. I'd do the same for you.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-24418918707172668132012-03-21T00:30:00.000-04:002012-03-21T00:30:17.870-04:00This Chickie Thinks - 3/2012 editionIt's been awhile since I did any installments of my spiritual advice column. It turns out that my post-marital-separation, blue funk, one-size-fits-enough response of "Tell 'em to stick it!" is not universally applicable after all. (My apologies again to Gladys from Wichita for offering that gem in response to your question about what to write in a sympathy card.)<br />
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Anyway, I thought I'd give it a whirl in a different direction and share my responses to two difficult questions my children threw at me today. The point of these illustrations is not the answers to the questions but the framing of the discussion. I doubt that this is the best way to do this, but it worked out well enough that I don't think I'll have nightmares tonight.<br />
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Besides, we all know that we read advice columns in order to say, "Oh, please! I could answer that soooo much better."<br />
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Question #1 - <em>Mama? If worms make soil by eating it and pooping it, what did the first worm eat? And do worms eat the poop of other worms?</em><br />
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Naturally this question combo was launched while I had a mouthful of cajun chicken wrap. I did a mental assessment on my breadth of knowledge of worms and... almost nothing. OK.<br />
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I asked myself, "How much evolution do I want to cover today having majored in German literature?"<br />
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Then I said my mantra, "Screw it!" and launched into the following.<br />
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"First of all, GROSS! I was eating, Little Man! Geez. <br />
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"Now to answer this we need to think way back and remember that everything is always changing. Mountains were underwater. Continents were once together. Dinosaurs came. Dinosaurs went. It all changes but so slowly it's hard for us to see. <br />
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"We don't get to be here for long enough to appreciate the changes of species. The most years I could reasonably hope for would be 100, and the only evolution I can see is my boobies sinking down to..."<br />
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<em>"Mama!!!"</em><br />
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"Sorry. Moving on. Think about it: a worm is a simple creature. It fulfills a purpose and meets a need with this dirt eating thing but it also had to change along the way if everything changes. So there was Not Worm and she adapted and became Almost Worm. Then one day there were enough changes to make what we call today: Worm.<br />
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"This Chickie thinks that the first worm that was recognizable as a worm ate something like soil but was really Not Quite Yet Soil because the worm hadn't eaten it yet. Maybe it was stardust, leaf crumble, minerals, and other critter poop. Maybe it was rotten tree. <br />
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"I don't know. My boobies and I weren't here yet. The way I imagine it is this: What the first worm ate became different by being worm-eaten. One day we don't have worms and soil as we know them. Then everything changed.<br />
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"Now that I'm thiking about it, that first poop by that first worm making soil was pretty earth shattering, so to speak, AND YET (<em>gasp!</em>) we don't observe it as a holiday. Weird, huh?"<br />
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<em>Heads nod in agreement. I love a captive audience.</em><br />
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"As for worms eating other worm poop, yes. It happens. But hopefully there is so much stardust, leaf crumble, moose and bird poop, and ancestor booby that it doesn't notice it's next-door-worm-neighbor's poop in the mix. I'm going back to my cajun wrap now."<br />
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<u>After Action Review</u>: I wanted to answer my children but I don't and can't know the answer. So I reached into my bag of truths and pulled out the lesson I wanted them to get from this. I tried to convey the constant amazing natural flux our world is in. This is a concept I define as sacred. I also tried to model critical thinking which is essential, in my view, to any big life question. I sprinkled boobies in because they always keep things lively.<br />
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As for the second question, I wanted them to know sometimes things are shitty but they usually aren't as shitty as you think.<br />
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Question #2 - <em>Mama? I know what gets done that makes babies. (S</em>hudder.<em>) But how does the seed get into the mama from the dada's you-know-what? Does he pee in her?</em><br />
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This Chickie thinks she wishes she didn't have to explain sex. As liberated as I think I am, even I get skittish when I have to start dishing out words like "ejaculation" to my little precious darlings. So I jumped right in with the unsupportive response of...<br />
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"Whaaaat?!?! Pee? Yuk. Where did you...? I... you... ARGHH! I am STILL eating!!!"<br />
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"It was on Myth Busters. They said that there was that stuff in pee."<br />
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"Ah, well, if it was on Myth Busters... Wait. No. Just because there can be semen in pee does not mean the reverse is... hold on. Wait." I did NOT want to talk about this.<br />
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"Forget anatomy. I have a more important answer... Dude, do you really think I'd let myself get peed on? Blech! I mean, you and your sister are great and all but that's asking a bit much, don't ya think?"<br />
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<em>Affirmative bobbing heads.</em><br />
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"No. The pee and the other stuff come out of the same outside spot but aren't from the same inside spots. Two different liquids but one faucet."<br />
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<em>"Oh OK. Phew!"</em><br />
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And then they went on to making rules for Baby Girl's new clubhouse and watching video from the 2000 Fort Worth tornado on which Little Man is writing a paper. Phew, indeed.<br />
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<u>After Action Review</u>: I feel like I get a hundred questions a day from each child on topics ranging from "which monkeys don't climb trees" to "why is that man's skin so white?" <br />
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My son has asked me about the "personhood" laws. My daughter wants to know what animals think. I rarely know the textbook answer but I do know my kids and I know that the question asked rarely is the actual burning question. My hunch was that the real question was, "Is sex as gross as it seems?" and my desire was to convey the answer, "No." Simple as that.<br />
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Parents come to me all the time concerned that they gave the wrong answer to a deep and spiritually important question from their child thus causing permanent damage which will only appear during a presidential election in the distant future. Most often the parental fear is that they rambled on and bored the child. <br />
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They usually have. And that's no biggie. <br />
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This Chickie thinks the goal is to keep talking. Just listen out for what the real question is and get better at answering it. Our children remember the time spent together working through things more than the phrasing, the metaphors, the shape of our logic, or our subject-verb agreement. <br />
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Oh, and I've discovered that there are surprising limitations to the helpfulness of "Tell 'em to stick it!" with them as well. This Chickie does not recommend telling the children that one because it is one of those phrases that stays with a child verbatim and comes out at some pretty inopportune (for you) and often otherwise somber moments.<br />
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I hope these examples have been helpful. If not... Boobies!The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-37700827403106501482012-03-18T22:18:00.000-04:002012-03-18T22:18:16.857-04:00New Orleans, 2012<span lang="EN">In my new favorite movie, "The Names of Love", the main character, Baya, is out grocery shopping when she runs into a friend who reminds her of a meeting. She dashes out of the store, leaving her date at the register where she had been only moments earlier before she remembered to get coriander. When she gets home her own body odor becomes too much so she jumps into the shower. The phone rings and she is reminded of a birthday party. Out she dashes to get the birthday present. The date, who is still waiting at the register, sees her walk by the front window on her way to buy the birthday earrings wearing only her boots, purse, and eyeglasses. <br />
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<span lang="EN">This is how I understand life.<br />
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You see, last week I was in New Orleans on my seventh volunteer rebuilding trip but first I had to see my favorite band Lucero live at Tipitina's. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-857TGHsFgsA/T2Z5Gn8T1TI/AAAAAAAAAmc/-IaKl4Bh1ps/s1600/IMAG0521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-857TGHsFgsA/T2Z5Gn8T1TI/AAAAAAAAAmc/-IaKl4Bh1ps/s320/IMAG0521.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>I was so tired the next morning that I only worked 3/4 of the day. The following day I worked almost all day but I realized that the tickle in my throat was not thirst but infection. So I stopped my work on siding and spent much of the day after that in bed. Except when I went to the juice bar and on the way back from the juice bar I saw something ahead that I needed to take a picture of which led me to other pictures. And thus and so went the week.<br />
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I had booked my trip failing to take into account college Spring Break and St. Patrick's Day both of which my mom-ified self has no interest in. So I re-booked to come home a few days early. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rATIvHvUJuo/T2Z5PLh6dnI/AAAAAAAAAmk/3ZAPxNXQr50/s1600/IMAG0625.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rATIvHvUJuo/T2Z5PLh6dnI/AAAAAAAAAmk/3ZAPxNXQr50/s320/IMAG0625.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>Before I flew home I went back to the Lower 9th Ward, the neighborhood where I have done the New Orleans portion of my rebuilding work. And then the full realization hit me. <br />
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No, I was not naked. The Lower 9th is. This neighborhood looks shockingly like Long Beach and Gulfport Mississippi looked five years ago when I first began rebuilding: empty, stairs leading to nowhere, nature reclaiming the land, something missing.<br />
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The bulk of the residents are gone. The houses that were vacant on my last trip are now disappearing by the dozens as the city of New Orleans takes over properties and bulldozes them for failure to pay taxes and fees. There are houses that have been abandoned mid-rebuild due to having all their resources lost thanks to bad drywall imported from China. They couldn't fully afford to rebuild the first time. They certainly don't have the funds to do it again.<br />
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The sounds of the Lower 9<sup>th</sup> in the past couple of years I've been volunteering have been electric building tools, radios, people shouting from scaffolding for supplies or assistance, and rumbling trucks carrying contractors, volunteers, building materials, carpenters, and electricians. <br />
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The sounds of the Lower 9<sup>th</sup> now are birds, bugs, breeze, and bulldozers.</span></span><br />
<img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RbfujQKhUA8/T2Z5UzTQlBI/AAAAAAAAAms/Ke-tAGsvIIA/s320/IMAG0636.jpg" width="191" /> I had cried on the first day I drove in because so much of the landscape was missing from just a year ago. But it wasn’t until the last day, when I was no longer chasing my tail, taking cold medicine, checking things off my list, scampering and bustling that I really saw it. <br />
Truth on something as large as this is almost impossibly subjective. Here is the truth as I have seen it, experienced it, and been taught by the residents and workers in the Lower 9<sup>th</sup>. That's the best I can vouch for. I am sure someone else sees it differently.<br />
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August 29, 2005 - The hurricane came. Many left. Many stayed including large numbers of poor and/or elderly. The levees broke. The help didn’t come at first. Over a thousand die. Tens of thousands go to the Super Dome and convention center. Then thousands are relocated to other cities. The black mold grew. The businesses did not re-open. The jobs aren’t there. <br />
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Here are some trailers! Whoops! The trailers are sick. Here is some drywall! The drywall is sick. Here are some jobs, but here, too, is an oil spill. The water is sick. The economy is sick. Here is some help. Some of the help are wolves in disguise. Here is some time. And more time. And more. Time doesn’t cure. Time just allows the sick to get the best of you and for someone else to move in. Take over. Plow you under.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_tZ-8Bh5_zU/T2Z56Ey7PYI/AAAAAAAAAnc/WraBPNp_UW4/s1600/IMAG0683.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_tZ-8Bh5_zU/T2Z56Ey7PYI/AAAAAAAAAnc/WraBPNp_UW4/s320/IMAG0683.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wF17jpY7skU/T2Z5lLwYbmI/AAAAAAAAAnE/iDbh63QqVv0/s1600/IMAG0660.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wF17jpY7skU/T2Z5lLwYbmI/AAAAAAAAAnE/iDbh63QqVv0/s320/IMAG0660.jpg" width="191" /></a> <span lang="EN"></span></div>Goodbye, neighbors. Goodbye, homes. Goodbye, businesses. Goodbye, media coverage. Goodbye charities who work until the last penny but can’t defeat the legacy of poverty in the neighborhood, indecision by lawmakers, corruption by fake contractors, an oil spill, tainted building materials, a recession, and ignorance-fueled apathy which grows by the year.<br />
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<span lang="EN">Hello, funerals. The people who stayed sure do seem to die a lot. Heart attacks, strokes, out of control diseases. Lots of medical names for broken hearts.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Hello, tourists by the thousands who think that money spent on beads and daiquiris actually makes it to grandfathers and little kids in the lower 9<sup>th</sup>. But Treme has walking tours now thanks to a TV show. And the churches are rebuilding and new clergy come in with new energy and feet that don't ache. The fish fries are going strong during Lent. There are new businesses as close as Bywater. Amen to all that.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MUlLprorNcI/T2Z6BWUo24I/AAAAAAAAAnk/nFOfinKqcdE/s1600/IMAG0670.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MUlLprorNcI/T2Z6BWUo24I/AAAAAAAAAnk/nFOfinKqcdE/s320/IMAG0670.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_fu4_D31SNk/T2Z5zKXSpMI/AAAAAAAAAnU/6fvrOXbJRMQ/s1600/IMAG0629.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_fu4_D31SNk/T2Z5zKXSpMI/AAAAAAAAAnU/6fvrOXbJRMQ/s320/IMAG0629.jpg" width="191" /></a> <span lang="EN"></span></div>Hello, Brad Pitt with your ridiculous looking houses that cost a fortune to build and solve 1/1000<sup>th</sup> of the problem. But, God love you, at least you care, try, and get something done. So we are truly thankful but how hard would it be to build a New Orleans shotgun on stilts with solar panels that doesn’t look like the architect was a love-child of Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney? But don’t go. Seriously. Don’t leave, Brad!<br />
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Hello, wildflowers and birds. It feels weird that you are the main inhabitants of the lowest blocks of the Lower 9th. But don’t go. Seriously. You are a comfort and even prettier than Brad and his family. It's a blessing to know something still survives and thrives here. Hey chickadee, do you know any tunes by Trombone Shorty?<br />
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Hello, dump trucks. You are civic morticians and grave diggers of a neighborhood‘s memory. We knew you would come. We had thought it would be sooner and that we would get new houses in the old neighborhood. We had hoped you would be the harbingers of our hope. Now you belong to someone else’s hope but, hey, it's hope all the same.<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xNZ3rS2zzHo/T2Z5ZADjCOI/AAAAAAAAAm0/ENarwP_CPa8/s1600/IMAG0687.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xNZ3rS2zzHo/T2Z5ZADjCOI/AAAAAAAAAm0/ENarwP_CPa8/s320/IMAG0687.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span lang="EN">Hello, new life. There is life ongoing in this neighborhood. Children are still raised here. Memories and history are still made. Good happens even in the funniest looking of houses. There are still some people sitting on porches raising a chin or a waving hand to strangers and friends alike. Turkey necks still get boiled in driveways. It’s different. But it’s alive. Seriously, everyone can be thankful for that.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">March 16, 2012 - As for me, I stand wondering how I got here. Our lives are a great big rushing around from obligations to life events, from planning to coincidence. It's a wonder we don't find ourselves walking down the street naked all the time. I was in the middle of something and I ended up in the Gulf Coast for a week or two every year. I'll be darned if I can remember what I was doing before I got that call.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But now what? My kind of work is not the first priority of the neighborhood any more. I know how to bind up the broken. I don’t know how to make something brand new. Like the Lower 9th I have a future I didn't expect. I'm not saying that I won't return. It just became very clear in that quiet community on a sunny Spring afternoon during an interlude between rushing abouts that the work of the Lower 9th has changed and I need to as well.<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j95e29YzYR4/T2Z5q88s_UI/AAAAAAAAAnM/VLTouW0LmEU/s1600/IMAG0673.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j95e29YzYR4/T2Z5q88s_UI/AAAAAAAAAnM/VLTouW0LmEU/s320/IMAG0673.jpg" width="191" /></a>So here I go, stepping out on the next part of life post-Katrina. There is nothing that guarantees I won't end up directly on a zip-line to another life adventure nor that this was my last trip to New Orleans. There is also no guarantee that I won't find myself wandering through the next leg of my life journey wearing nothing but my good intentions and my walking shoes. I'm just moving forward and trying not to forget. I think that is what I hear most loudly from the places in the Gulf Coast where I have volunteered. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Mississippi - Gulfport Long Beach Pass Christian Cuevas Waveland Bay St. Louis </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Louisiana - New Orleans, Lower 9th Ward</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Don't Forget</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-40108605534262056402012-03-06T19:44:00.000-05:002012-03-06T19:44:20.870-05:00Elation and Deflation - Oooh!!I had one of those moments the other day that only movies with inspirational soundtracks have. Then I had a moment out of "The Three Stooges". And then I had a whole series of moments that, for better or worse, are only possible in my life. And you people wonder why I eat so many Peanut M&M's. It's the unpredictability of it all, man. Makes me twitchy.<br />
<br />
Let us begin with my moment of sheer stunning glory:<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>After over thirty years of roller skating I was able to cross over on some of my turns. They weren't flawless. They weren't easy. But I did it. And then I did it again. It feels even better than it looks like it would. Feels like flying, skiing, swimming, and dancing all at once.<br />
<br />
Lemme set this up: It was Sunday afternoon at the Old School Skate Party at the Roller Dome. My kids were skating at their paces and I was just trying not to run over any little squirt darting across traffic.<br />
<br />
I'm very subtle at the Dome de Roll in the manner that only a 6' tall, 40+, mommed out, white woman augmented by roller skates can be in a predominantly African American venue for 20 somethings and under. I'm also the only person wearing a skirt. I live to regret that in the deflation part of this story<br />
<br />
Ms. Mary J. Blige was belting out my theme song or, as I remarked to my male offspring in the soda area, "Chug that down, boy. This is my JAM." (And to think I said and he received that with a straight face.)<br />
<br />
Mary is crooning: "<em>So I like what I see when I’m looking at me when I’m walking past the mirror./ No stress through the night, at a time in my life - ain’t worried about if you feel it./ Got my head on straight, I got my mind right. I ain't gonna let you kill it./ See I won’t change my life, my life’s just…..<br />
<br />
Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh<br />
Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh</em>"<br />
<br />
I don't know what happened next or how. I just kind of relaxed into my stride and all of the sudden - I'm crossing over. <br />
<br />
For those of you who don't skate and who are getting bored... a sex reference. (<em>Yes, Reader #14 in Arlington, Virginia, I mean YOU</em>.)<br />
<br />
Crossing over is the multiple orgasm of the average rink skater. Off the rink you tell everyone you can do it, when honestly you only did it those couple of times, and you may not have done it then 'cuz you were kind of tipsy. In the rink you just don't make eye contact with anyone on the curves and hope they don't notice that the only crossing over you do is into REM sleep while watching documentaries.<br />
<br />
Crossing over is the skating move you see on every single really good skater as they go around a curve. It looks effortless but when you are skating like a Yeti in snow shoes who doesn't make eye contact, as most of us do, it's really hard. <br />
<br />
But guess what?! Turns out that when you are 40 plus, not giving a darn about what you look like because everyone thinks you are a dweeb anyway, and letting Mary J do her magic it is really easy. <br />
<br />
I giggled. I stuck my tongue out in concentration. I giggled some more. And round and round I went. Crossing over and over and over. Heaven.<br />
<br />
I said to myself, "Holy crap! I'm doing it. I'm doing something that my 6-15 year-old self would kill to do. I still got tricks I don't even know about. Look at me. LOOK at me. Lawdy, lawdy - LOOK AT ME!"<br />
<br />
<em>"I won't change my life. My life's just fine fine fine fine fine fine..."</em><br />
Oooh!!<br />
<br />
So that was all very exciting although, it turns out, not multi-orgasmic. Then I skated awhile longer with the children - guiding the six-year-old off the safety rail and getting Mr. Nine-year-old Wide Stance Low Balance to close his legs up a little. I sent him off the rink first because he's been sick. I gave her two bonus laps which she did with aplomb for a little gal who up until a couple weeks ago could not remain standing on her own in the rink for more than 20 seconds.<br />
<br />
I took my final two cool down laps. And then... deflation.<br />
<br />
Oooh!!<br />
<br />
You know I fell. You knew that going into this. You aren't idiots. You can read a title. I don't need to build up to it or guide you through it with some dramatic tension. You, I, and <u>every single soul</u> in that rink know that giant white mama wiped out on her rear region coming off the rink. <br />
<br />
Skates shot out from under me. Skirt flew up. Butt? BAM! Then hand, wrist, elbow, hip... BAM, BAM, BA BAM! <br />
<br />
Teenagers looked on in disgust, embarrassment, and poorly concealed mirth. My poor children came racing toward me yelling, "Maaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaa!!!"<br />
<br />
But you don't know this. Here is where every middle aged, less than perfectly fit reader (I'm pretty sure that's all of you) needs to prepare to pump your fist... <br />
<br />
Babies, Sugars, Darling devoted readers...<br />
<br />
I popped up like a crocus in 80 degree Virginia February. Sprang to my feet! Lazarus didn't heal so quickly or so well. Up I went and skated toward the children, humble smile on my face. Kapow! <br />
<br />
"Mama, are you OK?!?" they fearfully chorused.<br />
<br />
Big loving grin from Mama full of reassurance and love.<br />
<br />
"No," I calmly and affectionately replied in a voice that oozed, "More peanut M&M's anyone?"<br />
<br />
Confused by the communication dissonance they tried again, "Mama, are you OK?"<br />
<br />
"No, sugars. I'm not OK. I may have broken something. A couple of somethings." Big loving smile.<br />
<br />
By this time we had made it to our seats. In case anyone was still watching I lovingly patted both of their heads with the arm I could move and did an inventory of the throbbing parts, the screaming parts, the trembling parts, and the completely numb parts.<br />
<br />
"Sugar lumps, this is Mama's game face," more sing-songy Stepford Mama voice. "See it? Isn't it impressive? Now we gotta get the hell outta here and fast because I'm not going to be able to keep this game face on for long, lumpkins. K?"<br />
<br />
God bless those kids. Those little boogers hustled like our bumpkin ancestors around the still when cousin Clem gave the emergency whistle generations (one) ago. We booked it out of that skate palace. <br />
<br />
My knee was slipping out of joint. One of my hips was locked. My elbow was on fire. I couldn't bend a wrist. But I smiled at the kids and sighed contentedly. Truth is: I couldn't breathe without yelping so I made the yelps sound like happiness. That's what I'm telling myself at least. <br />
<br />
"Yip. Yip. Yip!" Toward the door we aimed.<br />
<br />
We were almost out the door and no one seemed to be noticing us. Release was within 25 feet. I was feeling the relief of being almost free to limp, whine, and get little kisses on my wrist when I came face to face with a man crazier than I am. <br />
<br />
This man was a well-dressed otherwise sane appearing man in his 50's. We overheard him coming in saying, "The doctor says I gotta' get more exercise so here I am."<br />
<br />
I passed him many times in the rink watching him conservatively skate and Yeti-ing out the curves. He could have been the dad or grandad of all but five of us in there.<br />
<br />
I was so close to escaping with a teensy bit of dignity and then... we make eye contact. I'm hoping he hadn't seen me fall. I gave him the last wattage of my game face. <br />
<br />
I telepathically say, "Man, I was considerate enough not to make eye contact with you on those curves. Give me a break here, sir."<br />
<br />
He smiles at me. A real smile. A real, shocked smile.<br />
<br />
His smile says, "Good God, Woman! I was getting ready to dial the paramedics. How on <em>Earth</em> did you pop up like that? You. Are. AMAZING. I admire you. But more than that...<em> </em>Woman,<em> I fear you</em>."<br />
<br />
I nod with the last grace I have and I walk out head held high, my limp now obvious with two little hustling, slack-jawed munchkins at my side pretty much holding me up.<br />
<br />
<em>"Feels so good, when you’re doing all the things that you want to do.<br />
Get the best out of life, treat yourself to something new.<br />
Keep your head up high in yourself. Believe in you. Believe in me.<br />
Having a really good time. I’m not complaining<br />
And I’m still wearing a smile if it's raining.<br />
I got to enjoy myself regardless.<br />
I appreciate life. I’m so glad I got mine.</em><br />
<em><br />
"So I like what I see when I’m looking at me<br />
when I’m walking past the mirror.</em><br />
<em>Ain't worried about you and what you gonna do.<br />
I’m a lady so I must stay classy.<br />
Got to keep it hot, keep it together if I want to get better<br />
You see I wouldn’t change my life, my life’s just….."</em><br />
<em>Oooh!!</em><br />
<br />
Here are some links for ya.<br />
<br />
"Just Fine"<em> </em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ZjBPXSmnE" target="_blank"><em>My girl, the majestic Ms. Blige working it.</em></a><br />
<br />
The cross over instructional video. <a href="http://www.ehow.com/video_2363229_do-roller-skating-crossovers.html" target="_blank"><em>I'm thrilled to say that I look even less Yeti-like than this video. Bring it!</em></a><br />
<br />
Oh, and I am the luckiest gal ever. Just some sore muscles and an impressively bruised elbow. Fear me, Baby.<br />
<br />
<em></em>The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-56362698092618751242012-03-02T10:38:00.002-05:002012-03-06T17:42:08.962-05:00Winding River Gathering Returns March 25I said that I wouldn't have Winding River Gathering again until I had something to say. Guess what? I have something to say and this could take awhile.<br />
<br />
A few reminders or an introduction to Winding River Gathering for the curious. Not a religion, social club, political party, or church - WRG is my way of holding events for people who want a combination of soul/brain nutrition they can't find elsewhere. <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I have friends who are peaceful punk rockers, grandmas with a radical agenda, parents looking for a compass, kids with a plan, artists, writers, thinkers, cross dressers, logic addicts, gentle hearts, bright minds, shy ones, and loud mouths. They are the vegetarians next door, the fiscal conservatives with organic gardens, the women who want the laws off their bodies, the poet doctors, the sex educators supporting the second amendment, the singles who don't like bars, and the polar opposites to all of these examples who really, really like music.<br />
<br />
Some of us belong to an organized religion, the PTA, a book club, or some other group but are looking for something less predictable and more flexible. We want honest while compassionate interaction, play for the kids in all of us, intellectual stimulation, great music, and a chance to meet people to talk about that which we dream of, don't understand, or want to learn more about.<br />
<br />
I find the space, musicians, and choose topics. There's a cover charge. I give a "sermon". Sometimes little girls hula hoop. Sometimes kids of all sizes skateboard. There's always music. There are door prizes. The announcements are a joke.We've been known to let out some cathartic tears and guffaws. Hungry folks buy snacks from the people we rent from. It's as simple and as laid back as that.<br />
<br />
I have found a new space with VERY enthusiastic proprietors and the most amazing chocolate chip cookies. It is small so we have to immediately go with two services, but it is worth it to me to have a place I am 100% comfortable in run by people I like. The place is in the Fan but has good parking on Sundays. <br />
<br />
<strong>Services will be at 2:30 and 4:00 PM. $5 - $10 cover. Our first Sunday is March 25.</strong><br />
<br />
I will reveal the place next week when I sign a rental agreement with the owners. I am taking goofy string light donations now.<br />
<br />
New elements to WRG include: two services, a calendar through (<em>hope you are sitting down for this</em>...) August, classes, a philosophy and ideas discussion group, kid events, and more. I told you this could take awhile.<br />
<br />
<u>Here are some ways to keep in the loop about Winding River Gathering:</u><br />
<br />
1) Subscribe to Auspicious Jots. Instructions are on this page for how to "Get Some Jots In Your Box".<br />
<br />
2) "Like" Auspicious Jots on Facebook. Winding River page to come.<br />
<br />
3) Follow me on Twitter. Instructions on this page.<br />
<br />
4) Keep coming back to <a href="http://www.auspiciousjots.com/">www.auspiciousjots.com</a> for more info.<br />
<br />
Because I am expanding our offerings there will be many opportunities to volunteer before I just grab you and put you to work.<br />
<br />
Thanks to the almost 200 supporters of Winding River who have gently and less-than-gently let me know you need and want this in your life. Thanks for giving me some space while my personal life has been in dramatic flux. Your cards, calls, visits, shout outs, offers of guest rooms, and all other missives of affection have been healing. I love you, too. <br />
<br />
But don't think of getting that last chocolate chip cookie. It's mine.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-38994149533919562972012-02-13T20:06:00.000-05:002012-02-13T20:06:34.138-05:00Geek Love DayWow! I just saw the introduction to the <em>Star Trek:The Next Generation</em> episode featuring Stephen Hawking playing poker against Cmdr. Data, Einstein, and Newton. I was consumed by feverish shivers of dweeb happiness. This made me think of all the little geeky passions of life. In honor of Valentine's Day I am sharing geeky stuff I love.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><strong>Religious Doof</strong><br />
- Collecting translations and editions of the Bible<br />
- Singing the lyrics to the theme of <em>Gilligan's Island</em> to the tune of Amazing Grace<br />
- Attending services of random congregations whose theology I don't share<br />
- Religious tchotchkes<br />
- Anything Catholic Saint related, particularly if it is magnetized, bobbled, or hologrammed<br />
- Dervish skirts<br />
<br />
<strong>Gadgets Dork</strong><br />
- Lunch boxes<br />
- Roller skates<br />
- The Wii balance board, even though it often cries "Oof!" when I step on it<br />
- My USB powered lava lamp<br />
- Any gadget that plays music - from nose harps to giant pipe organs<br />
- Vintage purses<br />
- Cheese knives shaped like people<br />
- Blenders (because they make smoooooothies and smoooooooothies are sexy)<br />
<br />
<strong>Sewing Nerd</strong><br />
- Do I really need to be specific? I'm a sewing geek. I refuse to make it worse through sharing my overwhelming pride at being able to make my children pants and skirts without patterns.<br />
<br />
<strong>Sci-Fi Goof</strong><br />
- Those spooky Borg<br />
- Klingon love rituals<br />
- Hans Solo when he is fussy<br />
- Yoda before the re-do<br />
- "I Know Kungfu!" Oh, Keanu, *sigh*<br />
- "Old Busted vs. the New Hotness" Oh, Fresh Prince, *sigh*<br />
- Lang's <em>Metropolis</em><br />
- The persistent belief that alien life is primarily concerned with probing the human anus<br />
- All <em>Frankenstein</em> based story lines<br />
- Fox Mulder always and forever<br />
<br />
<strong>Opera Dweeb</strong><br />
- Dmitri Hvorostovsky's hair progression from salt and pepper to white<br />
- <em>Jerry Springer, The Opera</em> - No lie, it was supah dupah fly<br />
- All operas with seriously pissed off women<br />
- The wig shop of The Met<br />
- Whacked out modern productions of the classics - There's nothing I'd rather see than Madame Butterfly dressed as the Teletubbies's golden siren "La La".<br />
<br />
<strong>Sartorial Geek-o-rama</strong><br />
- Every variation of Chuck Taylor Converse<br />
- Combat boots with metallic spray paint<br />
- Bowling shoes<br />
- Overalls not worn one bit ironically<br />
- Knee socks<br />
- Mittens<br />
- Bandanas<br />
- Glasses with or without tape repair<br />
- Plaids, stripes, florals, and polka dots - together<br />
<br />
I'd love to say that about sums up my geek love, but really those were just the ones on the top of my brain. So tomorrow when you are supposed to be wearing sexy undies and acting suave, liberate yourself from coolness. Pull up your knee socks, give your Jesus bobblehead a smooch, and have a Star Trek marathon. I will salute you in my bandana, overalls, and Chucks.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-48379693913112991552012-02-08T12:00:00.000-05:002012-02-08T12:00:58.925-05:00Shacking Up With a GhostI'm thinking it is time for me to try my hand at a memoir. The story of the places I have lived since my separation would be a good one. I think there have been 11-15 but I can't be sure. Let's just say I am at my 13th abode because that will work best considering I am living with a ghost.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Why do I move so much? Finding long term habitation on a low income basis is tricky at best. Plus I'm a jumpy one. I hate putting people out. So my latest shelter is a renovation for rent deal. I get to put some of my Gulf Coast rehab experience to use, a house gets ready for sale, and I have a WAY bigger place than I could ever afford. I'm only there for a few months.<br />
<br />
Why am I living with a ghost? You'll have to ask him that. His name is Chris. He died in the last year or so. It is his home I am renovating. He liked airplanes, his wife, trains, his wife, his home, and his wife. He and his wife accumulated a lot of stuff in their time together. We don't use the H word. Chris does not like the H word. Let's just say it was a great big, thousands of pounds, kind of accumulation of stuff and leave it at that. Chris seems uncomfortable with the removal of his many, many things.<br />
<br />
Why do I believe in ghosts? I don't. I just believe in Baker who haunted my grandparents' house for years until my grandfather died and they headed off to a dining room table in the sky where they could laugh for eternity. Baker was my granddad's buddy. I think Grandmom was glad to see him go.<br />
<br />
And I believe in Chris because I live with him.<br />
<br />
Baker was a prankster, particularly when guests were visiting. Chris messes with a lot of doors. All of them, really. Closes, opens, locks... Chris is in charge of doors. Chris leaves stuff in the kitchen floor at night. Chris makes me feel like I am not alone sometimes.<br />
<br />
Am I sober? Yep. Could this all be me? Yep. Do I find that creepier than a ghost? Yep.<br />
<br />
So: Chris the ghost it is. I have put up little altars made of their things in various rooms. The living room has little figurines, a monogrammed box of his wife's, and a candle. The dining room has assorted crafty things around the candle because his wife was the queen of crafty. The bathroom has some of her thimbles. His office has pictures of him and his planes.<br />
<br />
The children are not allowed to use the H word and I dropped it from my vocabulary. We choose to say that they were nice people whose house and stuff got the best of them. The closet doors stay open. The stuff in the kitchen floor gets picked up in the morning. I leave some lights on at night. I stay out of the garage which is definitely his zone.<br />
<br />
When I come home I say, "It's me, Chris."<br />
<br />
When I leave I try to remember to say, "All yours, Chris."<br />
<br />
There are a gajillion "What ifs" here. What if it is the disembodied personality of the wife who has Alzheimer's and lives in a continuous care facility? What if it is a ghost who lived there before? What if I have a brain tumor that has altered my perception? What if it is alien life monitoring me? What if I am just lonely? What if I should get a TV or internet?<br />
<br />
I'm good with that. Well, not with the brain tumor, but I mean that I am not hellbent on a belief in ghosts. I AM a jumpy one, however. Chris helps to not let my anxiety run away with me. Chris keeps me from the terror of living all alone in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Chris keeps me from jumping out of my skin at every floor creak and heater burp. Chris keeps me from being discouraged that I am sleeping alone on the living room floor of a house that has a LONG way to go before it is ready for sale and I am responsible for every step of that long haul.<br />
<br />
The lesson I have learned by living with Chris is that I can manage my fear in some wild ways. I think that will be a very useful tool for the second half of life. Mythology worked for humanity for thousands of years for a reason. Maybe what I need as I face a life without a marriage I thought I would have until I died is not concrete answers to my fear-filled questions about the future. I can sit up every night boo-hoo-ing into self-help books or I can work on the house and live with a ghost for awhile. Maybe that's enough for now.<br />
<br />
Pass the paint can, Chris. We gotta' finish this ceiling.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-78326066840521392922012-01-30T23:18:00.000-05:002012-01-30T23:18:37.689-05:00Funeral BreakI am working on a funeral for a dignified English-American woman for tomorrow. I think I will have to wear eye shadow, and stockings, and something will have to happen with this unruly hair. I can write a funeral in my sleep (keeping in mind I sleep 9.5 hours), but stockings? This is going to take awhile.<br />
<br />
I rarely link on my blog. The dozen of you who read it seem to be using my words as case studies in your Psychology of Oddballs class, so I hate to disappoint you or threaten your GPA but I have a lot of work to do tonight.<br />
<br />
I was sent <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/28/my-faith-what-people-talk-about-before-they-die/" target="_blank">this link</a> today from a family I served in the last year or so and I like it immensely. Imagine some offbeat Southern expressions, a rock n' roll reference, and a funny story about sex and it could have been written by me. <br />
<br />
Oh no! I can't put any of those things in tomorrow's funeral. I will be up ALL NIGHT.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21678117.post-48088055627505100902012-01-26T11:26:00.000-05:002012-01-26T11:26:12.021-05:00Whatever Mantra Gets You Through the DayDid you get a look at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16736054" target="_blank">the bodyguard for the Australian Prime Minister</a> today? I want to be that guy.<br />
The Australian PM, Julia Gillard, was surrounded by an angry group of aboriginal protesters and security decided that it would be best for her to leave quickly. As a part-time protester, I can't help but wonder about the history of poor communication there, but that's a subject for another day.<br />
<br />
So off the PM goes with the riot police and the bodyguards. <br />
<a name='more'></a>She trips because she is wearing stupid shoes. Possibly wedges. One of which she lost. Women in power should never wear stupid shoes nor lose them. I do not want to be this woman. <br />
<br />
Video footage shows another woman, a protester, chasing after the PM's car in a flowing dress and barefoot. That's more like it, but again... another day. <br />
<br />
One of PM Gillard's bodyguards, who looks like a former footballer turned pub owner who works out daily and eats plenty of lentils, tucks her under his arm and gets her into the vehicle to drive away.<br />
<br />
The look on his face says, "<em>I wonder what we'll have for supper tonight. I'd like to finish that article on Hungarian military history, too</em>."<br />
<br />
Cool as a cucumber.<br />
<br />
Nothing in his face shows what a simple Google search reveals. <br />
<br />
1) He's not THAT well paid and there are political mumblings to cut his salary more. <br />
<br />
2) Gillard has sent the bodyguards on errands of international security much to the dismay of the other countries involved. <br />
<br />
AND 3) the day of celebration on which all this happened is called Australia Day or Invasion Day depending on if you believe that Australia did not exist until Europeans laid eyes upon it or not.<br />
<br />
The videos of this scramble to the car are loud with police and protesters yelling. The bodyguard is silent. <br />
<br />
Everyone appears to be awkward, stumbling and in a frenzy. The bodyguard is calm and sure-footed.<br />
<br />
The faces of everyone around him show fear, anger, agression, surprise. The bodyguard has the determined look of a man who has some exceptional sushi waiting for him at the end of his day if he can just get through the next ten minutes.<br />
<br />
My days are roller coasters. Too much change. Too much uncertainty. Worrying about the kids. Fretting about the country. And what does it get me? The loss of the wedge of my emotional stability.<br />
<br />
Today I become the Australian bodyguard. At some point today I am gonna' have me some sushi. Perhaps a nice bowl of pho or maybe even oysters.<br />
<br />
I will walk calmly through the firebombs life throws at me. I will pick up whomever is stumbling beside me and set them back on their feet without breaking stride. With both shoes on I will put one foot in front of the other, go to the gym, and at the end of the day catch up on a little reading. <br />
<br />
I am impervious. I look great in a suit. My shoes fit perfectly. I am an Australian bodyguard. I can taste the sushi already.The Jotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11304231261360979612noreply@blogger.com2