Life- Perfect as Usual

So, there is this recovery site my sis pointed me to, and every day I get a little message from there, a little mediation, and let me tell you, the only thing I am recovering from is existential angst, but these things are great. They remind me how deep I've wallowed in the crap, and alternately, how easily I walk right back out of it.

Here's today's. It's pretty sweet. And the site, if you're interested, is called In the Rooms. Thanks to my Wis.

Perfect as Usual

Miracles are natural. -A Course in Miracles

As my ll-year-old friend Tasha sat down to eat some noodles she had cooked for lunch, I asked her, "How did your noodles turn out?" Tasha smiled and answered, "Perfect-as usual!" Tasha's answer reminded me that perfection is our natural state. Life was intended to work perfectly; it does and it will. Those who attune their vision to behold perfection will find it, create more good, and enjoy it. Those whose sight is set on loss, victimization, and death will continually manifest those experiences.

Some psychologists did an experiment on children's attitudes. They took a child who was considered negative and unappreciative and placed him in a room with a collection of new toys. He played with each toy for a few minutes and then complained that he was bored. Then the scientists took a child described as positive and optimistic and put him in a room with a huge pile of horse manure. Soon he smiled and exclaimed, "This is great!"

"Why is that?" one of the researchers asked him.

Quickly he answered, "There must be a pony somewhere!"

What a maudlin baby!

Jerbus, I'm sitting here all teary-eyed. Aaaandrea is married now, and Gilbert wore this cool little tie, and I realized how long it's been since I've seen them and how sweet that time was back in Burlington, as short as it was, and how much I love all my peeps back there and am so happy for Andrea and how nice it is when people run into each other and decide they like and care enough about each other enough to make the big commitment. And stick to it. Jesse said on the plane that neither Sarah nor Andrea has a hurtful bone in her body. Good for you, Andrea. Congrats and happy trails.

Woof!

Yesterday I got an e-mail from my sister asking me to send someone I don't know, a birthday card from Wyoming. He is in Afghanistan and will be there for his birthday, and his best friend wants to surprise him with cards from someone in every state of the disunion. I thought that was a pretty cool idea, and just plain nice, so I'm sending one of my sweet sweet cupcake cards, made even sweeter by their being half-price at the bookstore, and I checked out the site my sister sent me to as well.

It's called "Woof! A Boston Terrier Board." My sister's Boston terrier Bella has been featured here on this blog. Tara says the people on the board are a great group. What the hey? Even if you don't have or want a Boston terrier, it's worth checking out: http://www.woofboard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110418

Things that matter

Yesterday I was driving to Denver- the traffic was remarkably light and trouble-free, although I heard on the radio on the way home that I had just missed a rollover on Rte. 6- and I listened to AM 760 talk radio most of the way there and back. (KUNC was playing music- sweet sweet classical interspersed wi th annoying breathy ladies singing about inane subjects. Sorry, RobRohrTM, but you know it's a pet peeve of mine that will last and last. Congratulations, by the way, to you, on your graduation this coming weekend, from UVM. Hooray!)

Anyway, AM 760 is usually pretty interesting, especially when Mario Solis-Marich comes on at 4. And yesterday I got fired up by the Republicans- to be clear, the 16 Republicans who apparently still exist- who are planning to get together to rebrand the Democratic party with the name "Socialist Democrat." As the FFM so astutely observed, it's unlikely that in these times the American People will give two craps about that, since they are mostly feeling like they need a little help after being raped hard by the richy-rich banker guys who are "too big to fail." No, dudes, you failed.

Furthermore, what really got me was the gall these punk old fat men with their bulging wallets and big mouths (OK, so some of them are young, and even women- scary!) have to get together to rebrand the Democratic party, when it is the Republican party that needs some serious help here. But you know what? They don't know what they are any more, so they have to project elsewhere to deflect the fact that they are too lost to rebrand, even to define themselves. It's like saying, "Hey, lady that I don't know, you can't have an abortion because I say it's wrong to kill, but hey man over there, we are going to KILL YOU because I say it's wrong to make mistakes. Oh, and while I'm at it, you, guys over there, you cannot have the legal benefits that a man and a woman can have in marrying because you love each other and that's gross. Oh, excuse me; I'll be right back after I go call my same-sex lover and schedule a date. I don't want the wife to know."

Crap, I am all fired up about it again. And I haven't even got to gas mileage yet, another little aspect of our American life that makes me want to puke. I saw a billboard that advertised a BMW that has more power AND uses less gas: you get 28mpg! Wow! That is so comparable to the 40mpg I still get on the highway from my 1999 Saturn SL1. Think I'll run out and buy a BMW today. Or since I am currently scantily employed again, perhaps a new Chevrolet Aveo would be more in my price range. (It would, but the mileage numbers aren't much higher than the BMW's.) This is good? The flailing auto industry is still blowing smoke up our butts, helping us believe that 28mpg is supah sweet savings in the pocket at the pump, and to old Mother Earth. Let them burn. Ed Schultz on AM 760- gawd, it's a good thing I don't live in Denver; I'd be an addict- mentioned all the other people hurt by an auto manufacturer going bankrupt: window makers, steel workers, and so on. Look, Ed, that may be true, but what has been going on has not been working. We need a big fat reform here, and maybe it's time for people to take care of each other while things are hard, and we'll move on from there. A crapload of us are unemployed anyway, in case you haven't been reading, so we may as well all sink on the same ship and fire the goddam captain when we get back to shore.

But really, this is not at all my intention in writing this morning! Those are two subjects I intended to cover, and I have done so, despite my change of heart. What I really would like to say is, I got word this morning from my good girl friend Katie back in Massachusetts that her mom had gone missing and was found just down the drive from the retirement home where she had recently moved. Apparently she was not wearing a coat because Monday was balmy, but the nights Monday and Tuesday were very cold. These things make you remember what's really important. Katie and her mom were enjoying a nicely blossoming mother-daughter relationship over the past few months since her mother had moved from the family house in which she had lived with Katie's dad, who died a couple years ago. She liked where she was now living and socializing. I hope she went quickly and didn't suffer, although I know that Katie and her siblings are suffering now from the loss. There's nothing can be said, really, in a time like this, but just being there with someone. I wish I could be back east with Katie to hold her tight.

When these things happen, I know it's cliche to say we should be sure we are doing what we love, loving those around us and all that, and taking care, but it's true.

Cloud of the Month

I woke up thinking about poetry this morning. Then I fell back to sleep for a little bit and had the freakiest dream about having to give a Spanish food presentation in a Geography class and having an office as a grad student that was also a room I shared with another Lisa, but on top of Mary Lyon Hall where I lived with Tammy and Joanne as a sophomore, and this room anyway, had showers in it but was very rustic, with a wood stove and a huge stack of wood and candles on these old schoolhouse desks. And the TV was black and white. And I spilled the food I was making, three times, OK? On three different sets of clothes, so I went to the prof and told him my presentation would be half-assed and he thanked me for the warning, but in the meantime all these friends of mine had been getting together, while I was trying to get the key to my room and take a shower and find something clean to wear, and had made this huge presentation in which each of them would take a small part, and all I had to do was hold a Spanish flag and a plate of nachos and act all like Vanna White. And I can assure you that I never saw a single nacho the whole time I spent in Spain in "real life."

So, whattup with telling that crazy story- and worse, leaving out the walk around this chilly lake on a bunch of rocks and watching all sorts of gigantic cold water fish swim around while these Monty-Python-like clowns in a wooden canoe glided along arguing over whether the one or the other two had ever seen certain species of fish- none of which I'd ever heard of- being from Australia and Sweden, respectively, and therefore coming from two entirely different types of waterscape. Well, that's Geography for you all right- on some alternate Earth.

But the underlying big deal, of course, was the sweetness with which my friends were there to take over and hook me up when I was less than prepared. And they came from all sorts of times in my life: Tammy, Joanne, Jackie, Uncy, Mike Mills, Grant... I imagine I'm leaving someone out, but hey, it was a dream.

So, back to poetry. When I woke up the first time, I had some imaginary poet's name stuck in my head. It's gone now. I looked up fish poems online and didn't like any of them; what's wrong with people disrespecting the fish? And all the fish end up dead in the poems. The fish in my dream would have kicked serious ass, whether it was a person with a pole and a hook or a cat that had for some bizarre reason decided to come out to the shore.

I looked up dog poems, since the FFM and I were walking with Mike's yellow dog in another dream last night, and she showed up again with me at the lake. The top billing in my search: "Poems in Praise of Dogs." Clearly, peeps, there is a discriminatory air to our treatment of various animals. No wonder we treat each other of different colors and creeds with venom. Skip dogs. They get enough praise.

Cats. Exactly as suspected: All the cat poems are cutesy. Have people not met Dinglehoofer the Shelter Cat? Or a mountain lion on a jogging trail? Sharp teeth, claws, cunning... Come on...

So, now that it's almost sunrise and the sky is all salmon-colored, like a FISH, how about clouds? Amazing: there is this thing called the Cloud Appreciation Society! I want to be in that club. And there you have it: the picture for today, "Cloud of the Month," taken over Amsterdam, The Netherlands. What type of clouds are these beauties? Go to the website to check your skills:

http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/.

Aw, crap; I'm in love. Like a good friend, my favorite word will never let me down.

Whose Conspiracy?

OK, so yesterday I am doing the dishes from the weekend, and suddenly I hear a "crack" in the pan and feel an intense sharp pain in my finger; my Aubergine House mug handle has broken off the cup and stabbed me in the right middle finger and sliced a huge gaping wound with blood and flesh pouring out. Those of you who know me will understand the gravity, as I am sitting at the table now, Wednesday morning, still not having been able to finish washing dishes leftover from the weekend. Tragic. The top of my finger is protuding from two bandaids like a hot cocktail sausage. I don't dare to take the bandages off because last night after Gift Reject Potluck when I did that to try to clean the wound up a little, the dark red liquid that normally resides in my body began spewing out again immediately, and water on the fresh flesh made me scream and feel like fainting.

Am I overreacting here? I'm the one in pain- emotional and physical; let me decide. Really, who doesn't want me to be in Aubergine House in 2012- or 2016 if Mr. Obama makes it two terms? Is it the Japanese people who made the mug? Did my VP candidate, who sent the mug, betray me? Did some Laramie Republican sneak into my house and make a little crack that would easily break as soon as the mug hit the dishwater and contacted my finger? Or some Laramie Democrat, even? (Because Laramie is one of the few places in Wyoming that actually has Democrats for residents, in any number, or who dare to vocalize. For crying out loud; this state produced a worse showing for Obama than even Utah, proportionally.)

So, you see how this issue is overriding my joy at how easy it was, once I got word, to register for classes and sign off on financial matters yesterday afternoon, and how lacking in trauma it was for me to accept the words of Lord Tim MacFlesh Renter when he told me to suck it up and get XP for my laptop because Vista really does indeed suck as far as compatibility with hard drives. (RobRohrTM, I don't know what system you've got set up there, but you are the only person I know who has touted the value of that nasty software, and I doubt Ray Ozzie's plans to reinvigorate Microsoft and redeem the company with those of us who want Bill Gates to go down in flames- not real flames, but the proverbial ones, of course.)

Who knows? Maybe the QLink my sister sent me really is working its charms and making me mellower than usual. Often after the FFM leaves at an ungodly hour in the morning, I stay awake thinking. It's normal; that's a time I generally wake up anyway, whether or not he is getting up to go to work. So, this morning I lay there listening to the wind gather and explode in insanely powerful gusts outside, like massive swells on the ocean breaking and crashing on rocks, and I wondered what forces really are at work producing these insufferably windy winters we've had for a couple years now, and why Israelis and Palestinians won't just get along and live together. (Don't think I'm being naive here; this is a subject I've considered long and hard from several angles, including biblically, historically and politically, unlike people like, say Bush and his team did in Iraq. The bottom line is that there isn't a whole lot of humanity exuding itself over there, huh?) And whether I could remember to contact people at SER about my interdisciplinary PhD idea today, or whether I will even be able to perform in three hard sciences classes at once. But I wasn't worried.

And then I started thinking, like I have been lately, that sometimes when life is rolling along so easily, as it is presently for me, people ought to wonder when the next big trouble will assault them from behind, in the back of the head with a sharp hatchet. Or maybe not.

Here's some cool stuff from Orion mag. It's an article and slide show called "Human/Nature." Sometimes I think Orion goes too far with the sentimentality vs. the action, but occasionally there's a gem in there.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4252/
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4322/

Whattaya think?

Question of the Day

Thanks to the cool peeps I don't even know, who have been reading and commenting. It's what this thing was set to be about.

I got exciting- because it had been years- but disturbing- because she'd suffered some serious trauma, e-mail from a former neighbor, Freddy, and I'm wondering, do we subconsciously manifest our expectations?

Back and Featuring...

I just got back from the annual pilgrimage to Bozeman, MT, for Thanksgiving with my brother and sister-in-law. It was relaxed, as always, and I will miss the tradition, which has endured for the 6 years we all have lived in the Rocky Mountain west, when they move back east. I realized on the long drive home today, too, that this is the solo first road trip I've taken in a long time in which I was able to sit in the car and let my mind drift in a reflective way, rather than in the angst-ridden sense it has for a long time, dreading what would await me when I returned, or what had happened in my absence. I'm not going to go into the "why" of that here, but it was a pleasing feeling to suddenly realize that not only have the tears been sewn up, pretty much, but most of the stuffing has been reinserted.

Wednesday I found myself reminiscing about my best friend in elementary school, Andree, who has a new business website. I asked her before I left if she'd mind if I feature the site on my blog, as I like to do when friends are doing cool things that deserve notice. We met in second grade, I want to say, and were best friends up through sixth. Her family introduced me to Acadia National Park and to Chinese food. Andree lived downstreet, and I lived in the country on the bus route, and when junior high came along, our relationship gradually changed, but some of my fondest memories are of us two child philosophers hanging from the monkey bars during recess, talking about... well, kind of grown-up things, questions like who we are and why we are here, in an individual sense, but with an eye on a broader picture, too. And one of my favorite kid stories to tell is when one Sunday we were alone at her house, and we called people randomly from the phone book. We'd take turns ringing a little hand bell and asking whoever picked up the phone on the other end, "Why aren't you in church today?" Well, why the hell weren't we, I'm sure more than one irate grown-up wondered, and where were our parents?- as they hung up on us.

Anyway, here is Andree's new website, for her wedding photography enterprise. Check it out: http://www.andreekehn.com/.

Then, today on the way home I was thinking again of the past, but more recently, about my time at The Pharmhouse. More specifically, I had pushed in a cassette (that's right, Verdi doesn't play CDs, or tell the temperature, or have cruise control) that I had made sometime in 1999, the year after I left Dave. In fact, I left at this time of year, in 1998, though I didn't physically leave, but slept on the couch and was glad he was on the road most of the time, until January, when Gabe and I got The Pharmhouse.

So, the music on this tape: Everclear, Stabbing Westward, Catherine Wheel, Eve 6, Ben Folds Five, The Foo Fighters, The Flys... contained a large proportion of bitterness, and I realized as I was driving and singing, after not having listened to this particular cassette in a long time, that I was listening from a different angle, maybe more removed than before. While at the time I made that tape, I was gliding on giddy wings of freedom to be myself, safe with my family of friends at The Pharmhouse, there was the same bitterness and anger puffing out around the edges, even if it was sometimes morose, as was the social mood of the day among others listening. When people associate the apathy and loss of direction apparent in the clothes, music, and actions, or inactions, to those of us who slacked off to that stuff, did they miss the latent bitterness and disappointment and anger that there didn't seem to be anything worth an aspiration at the time, unless one wanted to don a suit and play for The Man?

I was secure in my job at the time, actually, the best I've ever held in terms of challenge and satisfaction, and I was safe in my new home, one week watching foreign films on DVD with Gabe, the next eating steakbombs and partaking of grade B horror flicks with Michael. I'd pull on my boots and down coat and stand at the bonfire while groups of friends in the Valley picked and sang, or would crawl into shorts and out of my tent at outdoor festivals to sit on the grass and listen to the best live: Bela Fleck, Medeski Martin and Wood, Dr. Didj, Ozo Matli, Sound Tribe. Then alone in my palatial red-walled room, I'd listen to That Other Stuff, the stuff I put on the tape I listened to today.

One of my roommates during that time, and someone I haven't seen in years but whose friendship I still treasure, along with the purple Patagucci shirt she gave me that's raggedy at the sleeves now, is Nickie Sekera, previously mentioned as my Vice Presidential running mate, and also in conjunction with her hard work and commitment to US Campaign for Burma. Nickie sent me a coffee mug recently, that showed up by UPS on Election Day, no less. It's the one pictured here, and it came with a letter on aubergine paper. The story is, "I spotted this mug on my second visit to Japan. I liked the kitsch factor of a mug with our nation's capitol that was manufactured in an Asian country. The colors were 'off,' so to speak, and the White House- Aubergine. Tacky is cool. Do I have foresight? Did you unknowingly choose me for VP on inuition, that is based on me possessing this mug?" No; I chose you actually because I thought it a good idea for two smart, good looking blonde women who can get things done to be on a ticket together.

Of course, the problem currently is that only one of us is getting anything done these days, it seems, and that's not me. But I had plenty of time to think about that while driving, too.

To My Sisters

OK, so September 11, 2001, was a Bad Day, a Really Bad Day, for Americans. So, on a scale of 1-10, with that being an 11, the last couple days for me have only been, say, a 5 or so. But on a personal scale, way higher.

Monday was pretty OK, despite that I walked into steel staging with my forehead sometime in the mid-morning and still have the proof, and had to walk my bike home because of a flat tire. I started ninja school- a Bujinkan Budo Taijitsu dojo- that evening at the park, and it was a beautiful calm evening, chilly, and with a half moon and plenty of stars overhead- very good, like an 8.

Tuesday didn't start off so well. The flat bike tire needs major surgery, and I just didn't take that very well. And then, you know, sometimes it isn't anything in particular that goes awry, but something inside you just does. I can't speak for the rest of the planet, or the country, but at least for myself and quite a few other people. Something just disconnects; I lose track of time, I forget how cool I really am, I can't talk to the people around me coherently, if at all. This happens with decreasing frequency lately, for reasons with which I will not bore readers , and which some of you already can gather, given your knowledge of what was happening in my sphere just a couple years ago, but it does happen a couple times a year, anyway, usually during spring and fall.

Anyway, it's a pretty scary place to be, and on the one hand, a person feels a need for human touch and comfort, while on the other, the same person feels monstrous enough not to want to be bothersome with those kinds of requests for closeness. Somebody show me the way out of that one?

Then, last night I woke in the middle of the night, read for a while, and suddenly this image flashed in my head, of the FFM and me getting in the car and laughing, which happens a lot, and I saw myself smiling, and I realized I was coming back, and damn, did that feel like a huge relief! I have an appointment with the Good Doctor in a little while. He has to be a good guy; he drives a 99 Saturn just like mine, but he's a doctor, for crying out loud. You know, he could be tooling around in some fat gas hog of an SUV or something. Keep your fingers crossed I bite my lip hard this time and take the medicine. And that he has something new for me to try. I'm sure I'll keep you all posted. Let me know if you start seeing supercraziness happening here that just ain't me.

So anyway, I was sitting at the table here Tuesday night, trying to compose myself and just crying like a little kid, and Patty got online back east. I haven't talked with her in months, I'm sure, but suddenly there she was, and we were chatting, for at least an hour, catching up and commiserating about the fouler vagaries of the female hormones, and that helped. So, I want to send out huge amounts of thanks and praise to some of my girlfriends who were there just to check in over the past couple days, especially Patty, who arrived like some sort of weird guardian angel in the darkest hour. Thanks also Zhenya and Joy, who occasionally helped me escape the narcissistic freak show going on in my brain by sharing their own ills (though I'm sorry you're feeling all bummy, girls); and Queen Jan, who called me back right away when I e-mailed her I might need some help, and why; and Katie, who is on the way to Chicago to see her son graduate from his first part of Navy training, and made my days a little bright by sharing her joy and anticipation.

Soon enough, I'm sure there will come a time to praise you boys, but today, girls kick ass.

Oh, happy birthday to Moby, who turns 40 today- which reminds me, I miss Rebecca. Remember that time you hitched a ride with a truck driver, and I gave you my mace? Hope you are kicking it in the sustainable world. Love your conviction.