It's like that thing when something does you know

I 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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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?!)

 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?" 

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.

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. 

Curiously Resilient and Sturdy

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.

Ransom Note

Dear Bliss Failure,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There is no monetary ransom because you can’t buy happiness, you dumbass.

These are our conditions.

Hugs and kisses,

The Suffering Resistance Front, Central Virginia Chapter

Holy Lessons at Lenten End - no, not exactly

I learned this stuff this week. What did you do?

* 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. 

* 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.)

* 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.

* Whatever your religious or spiritual leanings - your world perspective is better when hanging with my LGBTQM Lenten Book Group. M stands for My goofy tail and if you think we are talking Christian dogma -we think you had an unfortunate head injury and wish you speedy recovery.

* 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.)

* 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.)

* 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.

* 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.

* 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, Oops up side your head..." makes no more sense then but you can dance or hula hoop to it.

Gotta' go hula hoop now...

How I Make Deviled Eggs

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

What? What do you talk to your Amtrak seat mates about?

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.

C bomb = So, what kind of work do you do? he asks. I work as a hospice chaplain, I respond.

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.”  

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! 

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. 

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? You took a CAB? Good God, why didn't you call me?)

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." 

Nooooo!!!

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.

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. 

"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?)

"I'm going to the Dr. Drop 'em off." No thank you. No peals of delight. "You got any cash?"

"No, Dirt. I got your groceries."

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

I am EIGHT FEET from my flipping front door and I throw my back out.

I may be a chaplain but when I look back on this day all I can think is...

What The HELL Was That All About?

I don't know. Here's my deviled egg recipe.

8 boiled eggs

3T Duke's mayo (more if it's lumpy)

1T  Grey Poupon

1T of capers, crush after measurement

dash of caper juice

white pepper, black pepper and salt to taste

chopped anchovies for garnish

(All measurements require generous dollops that seem like they would be Tablespoons if someone made them commit to something as patriarchal as measurements.)

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.

Now say thank you and squeal with delight. It's all I ask.

Back Page Collection

One 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.

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).

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.

Style reported on my final day at one of the churches I served. That was pretty cool.

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.

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.

Sci Fi Socio Political Parenting Piece (With Ed Harrington's very creepy graphic. I love it.)

New Year's Resolutions 2014

Some Sodomy Humor

How Obama Can Win the 2012 Election (Voter sex piece.)

Techno Bust

continued again it in the complete and total engraved answering machine you must be bad.

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.

I must be bad.

The Mayor of the Hospice Unit

Most people think of dying at home when they think of hospice. Then again, most people don't want to think of hospice at all.

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.

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."

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Until they don't. Like the Mayor.

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.

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.

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.

Newcomer Introduction

Wanna know what I've been to since conception? First - you need a better hobby. Second - well, ok.

Life History or at least the good parts.

1970's - 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.

1980's - Discover boys, DIY fashion design, poetry, Prince, and an interest in theology. Go to college. Fail to fit in. Revel in that.

1990's - 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.

2000's - 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.

2010's - 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?

These days - 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.

Luddite Lament

"And now I'm back... from outer space... you just walked in to see me here with that same look upon my face..."

 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rosh Hashanah - the "boring" one

"But I don't wanna change."

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."

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.)

I love Rosh Hashanah. For years I spent the weeks coming into the holiday with a little book called Preparing Your Heart for the High Holy Days. I'd meditate and pray and read stuff and be an all around bore about it. Good times.

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.

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.

"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!"

My son gave his diplomatic nod which means, "I am still young enough to refrain from derisive snorting. Revel in these days, madre."

My daughter declared decisively, "But I don't wanna change."

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.

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.

"Yes, madame. What will you be changing this year?"

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.

"I'm going to quit choir this year!" She announced with triumph.

"What? This..." Not mornings. Not dishes. Yes change. Poop. "(Stammer). You... (sputter)," 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.

"Well played, little bird. Well played. Way to embrace change." I high fived her.

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...

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!

Drunk Texting Gene Roddenberry

It 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.

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.

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...

STAR TRKK IS THE BEST FIREVER ALWAYS

That's my girl. Kinda brings a tear to my geeky eyes.

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.

Exhibit A: I butt dialed a co-worker while in bed with my children reading China Mieville's Railsea. 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 Moby Dick on rails. She's asked to borrow it when we are done.

B: One of my book club homeys begged me to get some saki with him so we could process Freedom TM 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.

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.

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.

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 Starship Troopers. It had a bite mark on it. Perfect teeth imprint halfway down the pages. I'm not afraid to taunt a benefactor.

"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."

"My dog, you dweeb."

Yeah, right, Big Man. (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.)

Back to STAR TRKK, Giddy inevitably opened the door to trash talk from some backwoods homunculus Facebook friend of hers.

"You misspelled it. That is W-A-R-S," the slug typed with his tiny antennae.

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."

Not that we don't love those Amidala costumes but, come on, given the choice between Alec Guinness or Patrick Stewart? Exactly.

I'm off to boldly go into the laundry room and start the dryer now. Prepare to find a point in all this... Engage.

Endings

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.

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 now.  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.

I believe the 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 now for what it is, then the ending is just another version of this moment. When we live in the now and stop the monkey mind from yelling “What if???” and “It’s supposed to be like this not like that!”-then we see that all endings are pretty surprising.

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.

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. I get back in the box.

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.

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 {pointing to my heart} and I begin to see patterns that were invisible when I traveled via box.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 now they are dying.

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.

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 now... if I am thinking in terms of endings then I can’t concentrate for all that ticking.

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.

What makes not knowing bearable is that in this moment... right here... in the eternal now.... if we are being who we are meant to be... the ending doesn’t matter at all.

May it be so.

L'Shana Tova

Any 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?

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.

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?

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.

A new year becomes about my house being de-cluttered, about my weight, about my goals, my stuff, my vanity, more of my my my 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 my self-interest and my 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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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?

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.

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?)

A blessing for Rosh Hashanah:

May your new year be sweet, my friend.
May your pain be brief and may it have a purpose you can grasp.
May your healing come with smiles and wisdom.
May your opportunities be well-marked so you do not pass them by.
May your shame fade in the dusk of every day.
May the love you give and the love you encounter be abundant.
May you learn how to build bridges of reconciliation and hope.
May you trust and be trusted.
May your name be inscribed in the Book of Life so that we may meet on the path this year

Happy New Year or l'shana tova.

In love,
A

Scientists Link Children to Theism in Beflusterformed Parents

I became a praying woman this summer.

"But you are a minister," you say?

Let me rephrase. I became a begging, praying woman this summer.

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.

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.

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.

"You got something on your lip, Mama." That's a zit, you little twit.

"You sure are white." That's because I don't have adoring grandparents with pool access. And I prefer the term "very light-skinned".

"Your roots are showing." Ok, THAT'S IT! Back to school with you, you little perfectly visioned monster.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Aw crapola.

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.

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.

When I picked them up, they smelled like feet and had trouble staying awake. No tears.

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.

"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.

"I'm proud of you, too," he said. "You didn't cry until the second day!"

Hey, Spirit of the Universe, sorry I can be such a dumbass.

Falling

Since 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?

I still tackle these most days.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Then I fell.

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.

So there I was: alone in a house across town from my kids falling down a flight of stairs.

I thought that in falls like that there's a delay before you feel the pain. There wasn't.

I thought that there's a point in a fall when your body stops fighting it. There isn't.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Why People Don't Do What I Do

There 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, Winding River Gathering. 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.

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.

Bars

My 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.

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).

This Chickie Thinks - 3/2012 edition

It'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.)

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.

Besides, we all know that we read advice columns in order to say, "Oh, please! I could answer that soooo much better."

New Orleans, 2012

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.

This is how I understand life.

Elation 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.

Let us begin with my moment of sheer stunning glory: